Coldplay – Viva La Vida Or Death and All of His Friends
I remember being such a big Coldplay in my early teen years, knowing the words to “Yellow” by heart and yeah I listed them as one of my favorite bands ever. I remember considering the idea of overpaying a scalper for the tickets to see their concert because I loved them so much.
That time came and went but I still had a place for them. I knew they weren’t all that cool or great but they were what they were and they made some great songs. I still get made fun of…”remember when you used to like Coldplay? Lol” or even the line for 40-year old virgin in the Do You Know How I Know Your Gay scene…the ending line was “Do You Know How I Know Your Gay? How? You like Coldplay!” conversation over….
Coldplay isn’t known for their originality at all. Their songs are on the simpler side of things anyway (pop) so it wasn’t a big deal that their music isn’t original. The hiring of Brian Eno had my eyes rolling…what next a U2 like album? It almost doesn’t surprise me that Coldplay has been accused of plagiarizing. That argument is for another day though.
Viva La Vida or Death and All of His Friends starts off with a surprising ambient/post-rock track that I ended up really liking. I wanted to cast it off as not being a Coldplay song but hey, it’s a great track. I really hated the transition though to Cemeteries of London, like the awesome ambiance is completely halted. It takes awhile to pick up and while it’s not so much of an amazing song, it’s very solid and it almost feels as if it were a good fit on X & Y. I’m still more then glad it’s over before long.
The next track is “Lost” and once again I hate the transitioning, abrupt silence isn’t really your friend. Musically I don’t like the drum/clap beat at the starting and it takes too long for the spacey guitar to come into fruition for me to like the track. I’m tempted to skip the track before long though it has those “Coldplay” moments, soft, good singing and some decent guitar lines. “42” starts with soft piano playing that goes well with Coldplay’s style and Chris Martin’s vocals. The track though has an impromptu progressive-rock like vocal-less moment which I’m not too fond of. It just didn’t go well with the beginning of the track.
Lovers in Japan – Reign of Love starts off like a great catchy pop song but with it being almost 7 minutes long, it’s dense as hell. Yes is another 7 minute song, it starts with classical violins incredibly dense with some pretty amazing guitar lines.
The next two tracks are probably their best two tracks (though the previous two tracks are better critically) for the masses and rightfully so, it’s easy accessible yet remaining to the new standard that Coldplay has set for themselves. The song writing is pretty well done as well though one small issue I had with Viva La Vida is that I’ve heard David Choi’s cover and its sung better with much better flow then Chris Martin who seems to force it a bit. Violet Hill has been talked about a lot and I’ll just leave it as that. A good rock song.
I think I’m done reviewing the album, the other 3 tracks all pretty good as well with some space rock added in between (thanks to Brian Eno) and it caps off a new re-modeling of Coldplay.
The Coldplay hype in the past month is a bit annoying but you can’t really argue with a solid album. I’m still no longer the Coldplay fan I once was but I’m pretty satisfied with this album whether or not I was fan of their “crappy” stuff.
Rating: 4.25 out of 5
A great effort despite the plagiarism (the melody is close but it’s such a generic melody…)
Life in Technicolor by Coldplay
Buy this album at Insound/CD Universe/Amazon
Haha, I remember my old Coldplay-loving days, too. I’m glad they’re going in a slightly new direction musically; gives me more of a reason to check them out again. Thanks for the tunes! I particularly love “Life in Technicolor.”