Coldplay - Viva La Vapid
12 June 2008 is a big day for poor, struggling EMIMusic.
It's the day that the fourth Coldplay album, Viva La Vida is released. Three years ago, when their last album X&Y was delayed, EMI's share price famously took a dive.
There was a happy ending though; the boys from Coldplay beat off Mariah and 50 Cent and became the biggest seller of the year.
That sort of corporate pressure is enough to drive you weird and silly. Chris Martin is trying not to think about it. "We thought, 'We can't possibly get any bigger, let's just get better.'" he told NME.
So there it is. They'll sell bucketloads of records at a time when nobody is selling records. They're just trying to make the best music they possibly can for all the right reasons.
Despite all that, there's a certain type of person who won't like Coldplay, or the Paltrow-Martins, whatever they do.
That type of person is me.
Once upon a time, I'd have been vaguely proud of slagging them off. For a band this big, bland and boring their albums have always had an uncommonly easy run with the critics.
So it is easy to think of the little backlash as a public service. Not any more. Now the interesting thing would be to say they're great.
I could change my mind. I did it with Chris Martin. When he started, performing songs from Parachutes before the makeover, he was exactly the whingeing student you'd expect. The haircut was bad enough, but then he started singing earnestly backwards.
You immediately knew you were looking at someone rubbish, the only question was how long he'd stick around.
Now, whenever he's wheeled in to talk to some anodyne Radio 1 DJ, I'm always surprised how witty and likeable he is.
What happened? Ricky Gervais. One of the world's they-pay-you-for-that? jobs is a "Crisis Communications Specialist". Have an image problem? They'll sort you out for a fee. A cheaper route seems to be to appear on Extras.
Chris Martin did that, and took a few video beatings on Gervais' website, and seemingly learnt how to seem a good bloke. It works.
So if the frontman is such a fun guy, how come his band are such tosh? The good news is it really does come down to the records.
Three reasons, really.
First, Martin is terrible with words. When it comes to writing drivel and seeing it sung by undeserved hordes as if it meant something, he's second only to Tim Rice.
The new album's full title is Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. Martin told Rolling Stone that "I've been through this before, naming something or someone and everyone saying that 'That's a terrible name.' But then saying, 'Well, f**k you, that's what it's called, and I'll be proved to be right eventually'."
Well Chris, it's not just your titles, it's everything you write. Talk contains this typical lump of dumb: Are you lost or incomplete / Do you feel like a puzzle, you can't find your missing piece?
All his lyrics are like that. Here's the chorus to Clocks in full:
Singing,
You are, you are, you are.
You are, you are, you are.
Second, the music. Coldplay show how little a catchy tune can be if you don't know what to do with it. All his songs are catchy, like ringtones, tiny little phrases rehashed ad nauseam. It's mineral water torture. Clocks is probably in your head now. That "singing" repeated just before each chorus. How do people tolerate it?
Their songs are usually sing-song piano triteness building to massive overblown crescendos. I've got no problem with bombast. The best rock bands make a fuss. But it needs to have something behind it. Bombast combined with nonsense is just a mad old lady shouting in the vegetable section.
It's a Hallmark greeting on a billboard.
It's horrid.
The third reason is that we don't need this band, because we've already got them. Obviously Chris wants to be MiniBono, Make Trade Bland - but that's fair enough. His band, though, so cravenly want to be Radiohead and U2 that it's almost cute. The dynamics, the guitar sounds, the vocals, they're all second hand knock offs, missing a piece.
Like U2, they're working with Brian Eno again on this album. So we know what to expect. The last album was planned to end with a duet with Johnny Cash. Exactly like U2. Though unlike U2, Cash dropped dead before he could record it. That tells you all you need to know.
I expect we'll hear from a bunch of Coldplay fans on the messageboard. I'm afraid I can't like your band almost whatever they do. I'm interested, though. Who are you all? Do you like music? Or is it just something inoffensive to play in the car?
Do you secretly believe that if it wasn't for critical snobbery, everyone would like Coldplay? Do you like U2? There are Coldplay fans who don't like U2, aren't there?
I really want to hear from those ones.
(from MSN
) http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/music/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=8343172
But I haven't played any of them in ages either. I wonder why?