Now I'm in college, and I realize that all my friends are all fans of all these bands. We now live in an era (and I am now at an age) where all this just kinda sounds the same to all alt-rock fans in general. But as a teenager in Jerome ID in 2008, this felt like 3 separate worlds to me! I had my indie friends, my alt-rock chart friends, my adult contemporary chart friends... I eventually enveloped myself in the world of critically acclaimed, kinda-sorta-underground music, and Coldplay quickly faded out of my life. But at the tail-end of 2008, crammed between listens to new Hot Chip and Deerhunter, I enjoyed Coldplay's Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends.
I've been known as both a cynic and connoisseur of modern music these days. Yet this morning, I witnessed the first snow of the winter, and I was brought back to the winter of 2008. For the first time since then, I wanted to listen to Viva La Vida.
Don't get me wrong, I've been know to re-visit Coldplay tracks; particularly songs from this album. In all Coldplay conversation, I call this my favorite Coldplay album. I almost stopped listening to them by 2008, but they released a surprising album! Yet my praise has been kinda just based on memory and taken with a grain of salt. Today was my first actual listen for the sake of listening to it... in nearly 8 years. So here's my up-to-date review!
The Brian Eno Strategy
This album still sounds pretty darn great! The production hasn't aged a bit. Who produced this thing? Arguably the greatest producer of all time, Brian Eno. I always knew this, but I used to not know what that meant. Brian Eno is arguably the greatest producer of all time. He still works on some complex ambient albums and collaborates with underground artists. He has also spent some of the 2000s riding his past successes with radio-friendly faux-existentialist bands, like, um, Coldplay. But I think he and Coldplay needed each other in 2008. X&Y proved that the band was at least willing to make some fan-shifting changes. And Eno hadn't produced a #1 hit in about 20 years. So I mean, what the hey, right?
From the album's very beginning, you can spot traces of Eno all over this thing. The patience of this album's opener is what got me intrigued enough to keep listening to the whole thing. Also, a truly sparkling opening 40 seconds to "Violet Hill" where we hear nothing but ambience. A couple tracks on here were co-produced by Jon Hopkins, who would later go on to make one of my favorite electronica albums of this decade. The weaker moments are when songs feel kinda rushed. The closing hidden track "The Escapist" sounds cool, but jumps in way too soon behind the grandeur of "Death and All fo His Friends." With Eno, the perfect mixing of every instrument is a given. Art like this requires space.
The Less Chris Martin Says, The Better
Nobody should have to care about anything Chris Martin says. Coldplay's first hit was "Yellow," where he literally spends the whole song calling stuff yellow. But here's the deal: It's a GREAT song!
The best songs on this albums have lyrical simplicity. Even with few words, Chris Martin's voice is strong enough to speak for itself. "Lost!" and "Strawberry Swing" are my favorite tracks on the album. Coldplay is essentially a pop band. Part of their purpose is to romanticize the basic. The most repeated phrase on "Lost!": "I'm just waiting 'til the shine wears off." A pretty basic phrase, almost generic, but can be taken in Coldplay's superstardom context behind the song's hefty organ lead and interesting percussion parts. "Strawberry Swing" is, like, legitimately gorgeous. There's a Nico level of senitmentalism behind lines like "I remember," "could be blue," and "it's such a perfect day." And of course, just like "Lost!" there's a some world-influenced percussion and a cool organ backing the song. I like organs.
The album opener "Life In Technicolor" also sounds amazing! It's like a modernized version of Peter Gabriel's "pop" work. How many words does Martin say in this song? ZERO. And the vocalized sequel to this song released in 2009 was pretty good too. You can't even tell what he's saying on hidden track "Chinese Sleep Chant," other than you can tell it's Martin's voice, and it fits the song just fine. Thank you for doing your job, Chris.
God, Only God Knows They're Trying Their Best
The worst song on this album is "Yes." It just kinda exists for the sake of existing. There's all this random middle-Eastern instrumentation that doesn't do anything to it s nature. What is this song about again? Chris Martin feeling lonely? Struggling to get girls? Even if it was about something deeper, it's awkwardly cheeky. Like, Billy Joel cheeky. It's a pretty lame 4 minutes that coulda been cut from the album. You should really read the lyrics to the chorus. It's... not exactly poetry. Martin could have reduced that to a few words.
And what the heck is Chris Martin singing about on "42"? "Cemetaries of London"? Ghosts? Curses? Who cares? I know Coldplay has this whole deal where their songs have even deeper conceptual meaning, but that actually just makes songs like these seem more ridiculous and corny. If anything, the production on these two tracks is pretty cool. Particularly the guitars.
Jonny Buckland Is Underrated
There used to be this huge cist on Coldplay's shoulders about how they were just lite-weight Radiohead rip-offs for families. The earliest Coldplay tracks are like bare-bones, studio-safe tracks from The Bends and OK Computer. Martin sounded a lot like Thom Yorke and guitarist Jonny Buckland sounded a lot like Jonny Greenwood (he even has the same freaking name). By the band's electronic stage of X&Y, Buckland was criticized like The Edge. But on Viva La Vida, he sounds like Jonny Buckland.
The most enjoyable moments from Buckland are when you hear the raw crunch of his guitar. Aside from this album's lush mega-hit recording, it's rather refreshing. He's the true star on "Violet Hill" with his play-along solo in the middle. The beautiful, kinda South African riff to "Strawberry Swing" is something you don't hear often from radio pop/rock bands. I also love his little memorable fills throughout "Death and All of His Friends," even that 10-second "funk" portion of the song. As mentioned earlier, he saves "42" and "Cemetaries of London" from sounding like uninteresting Chris Martin death-themed jargon to something more like: "Hey, we're a rock band having fun!" In addition to his raw crunchiness, he's conscious about his pedals. There's some interesting stuff on the back of "Lovers In Japan." His solo on "Lost!" is what arena-expanding pop should sound like. His work on "Chinese Sleep Chant" can classify as legitimate shoegaze.
And OK, I Guess It's Kinda "Cool"
I remember hearing "Viva La Vida" for the first time. I didn't think it'd be popular at all. I did not expect it would be the band's only song to be a Billboard #1 hit. People, this isn't the weirdest song in the world. But it was a huge radio standout in 2008! And yeah, the instrumentation is rather unique. It was a #1 single crammed between Lil Wayne's sell-out hit "Lollipop" and Katy Perry's moderate-climate entry to the radio world "I Kissed A Girl." "Viva La Vida" may not be weird song in itself, but I will always consider it an extremely weird hit!
I know Coldplay have spent their entire career trying to sound weird, like so many bands in alternative rock history. But I admit this album is a pretty unique experience. There's Brian Eno's accompanied aesthetic. There's the album's 3 hidden tracks that actually outshine some songs on the actual tracklisting. There's some expansive genre influences. Maybe it stole from U2, Radiohead, and even (what was then "new") epic-indie-handclap-rock from Arcade Fire... if I had a penny for every time I heard artists imitating these bands... but it most importantly covers all the bases Coldplay can gather from their entire career. Viva La Vida is their catalog; their greatest hits condensed. Pieces of all their previous and future work can all be found here. If I was a 26 year-old music snob in 2008, I would probably still like this album.
When it comes to all the category of extremely popular rock/pop bands from the new millennium, Coldplay is the best I can recall. My buddy Austin saw them live in SLC on my 18th birthday and was kind enough to buy me a key chain with this picture (below) on it. Ya know, over-serious demeanor aside, we can some times relate to these guys.
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