I searched for this thread and couldn't find it but don't kill me if it is somewhere. i saw a review for the album on q's website today.

 

Three years on from the stadium-conquering X&Y, Coldplay are once again braving the critics and public.

 

Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends, which is released in mid June, is the band’s fourth release, sonically guided by the production genius Brian Eno.

 

Here the band talk you through the album, track by track:

 

Life In Technicolor

 

Glorious instrumental. Originally a full song with lyrics, but when described by a stranger as an “obvious single”, the words were removed.

 

Chris Martin: “It’s nice to not have a singer on the first song come in and ruin it. This is our milkman song, the most whistleable thing. We took all the lyrics off because this song was our only safety net.”

 

Cemeteries Of London

 

Folk-tinged ghost story written overnight after Brian Eno’s assistant, Markus Dravs, deemed a song of Martin’s “good” but not yet “great”.

 

Chris: “I was mortified. But if you tell me to write a better song, I’ll do it. He said it was good but said it in a German way, If you come in wis ze song, it’s finished, complete, great, I will say it’s great. Zis is not finished, not complete and therefore I cannot say it’s great. So I was, OK, fuck you, man! And the next day I came in and played Cemeteries Of London.”

 

Lost!

 

Church organs swell over an earthy vocal where Martin is, “Waiting till the shine wears off”.

 

Jonny Buckland: “We recorded some of it in a church up the road that’s now a studio. In a huge room with a piano and organ going at the same time.”

 

42

 

A three-part epic. Profoundly moving piano riff nods to Lennon’s Imagine before strings swell and Martin hollers, “I thought you might be a ghost!”

 

Chris Martin: "Hitch Hiker’s Guide related? (The number 42 is revealed as 'the answer to life the universe and everything' in Douglas Adams’s sci-fi series) It is and it isn’t. 42 is my favourite number. 42 is just perfect. We’ve got two John Lennon songs, this and Violet Hill.”

 

Lovers In Japan/Reign Of Love

 

Joyous indie-pop sparkler bleeds into bell-ringing hymnal.

 

Guy Berryman: “Couldn’t we make our minds up? No, it’s because we didn’t want to have an extra number on the CD. To keep it concise at 10 tracks.”

 

Will Champion: “We just preferred to have less titles and more stuff. The album as a whole has got the most on it, but it’s the shortest. We wanted to make it almost impossible for you to not listen to it all in one go.”

 

Viva La Vida

 

Strident, string-led cinematic opus featuring lyrics about cavalries, missionaries and kings.

 

Guy: “It’s a story about a king who’s lost his kingdom, and all the album’s artwork is based on the idea of revolutionaries and guerrillas. There’s this slightly anti-authoritarian viewpoint that’s crept into some of the lyrics and it’s some of the pay-off between being surrounded by governments on one side, but also we’re human beings with emotions and we’re all going to die and the stupidity of what we have to put up with every day. Hence the album title.”

 

Yes

 

Mournful strings coil around the lowest singing register of Chris Martin’s recorded life so far, played and arranged by musician Davide Rossi (discovered when Coldplay toured with Goldfrapp).

 

Will Champion: “Dav is like a one-man orchestra, he plays an electric violin that has everything, from the top note of a violin to the bottom note of a cello, all that range on one thing.”

 

Chris Martin: “We’ve become very good at collaboration. And passing if off as our own work.”

 

Chinese Sleep Chant (hidden track)

 

Juggernaut guitars and what sound like a choir of Angel Gabriels, along with utterly incomprehensible lyrics.

 

Chris: “The lyrics aren’t Latin, no! I will say this, if you take away all the guitars, what you’re left with is quite ordinary. But Jonny will always make things less ordinary. Without him we’d be fucked. It’s true!”

 

Violet Hill

 

The first single and the song least like everything else: thumping Beatles-meets-

’70s glam-rock featuring Jonny Buckland on “guitar synth”.

 

Will Champion: “We really tried to make it sound like this great big machine that was slightly knackered. Something that’s slow and grinding. I’m sure people won’t get that! A psychedelic title? Violet Hill is a road in St John’s Wood (North-west London).”

 

Strawberry Swing

 

Twinkling Afrobeat, Eastern guitars and a phenomenally chunky bassline that appears to turn into a didgeridoo. Astonishingly, this works.

 

Will: “A lovely, joyous song. Guy and I have managed to get more groove into this record than we’ve ever managed before. A bit more swagger.”

 

Death And All His Friends

 

Melancholy piano segues into spangling guitars and a male choir exalting, “I don’t wanna follow death and all of his friends!” Vocals recorded in an art gallery in Barcelona that was once the medical room of an ancient nunnery.

 

Will Champion: “This is us singing all together and then another us singing together. The Coldplay Choir. And it had an echo that lasted for a long, long time. When we did a lot of group singing we just roped in whoever was around. Studio engineers, whoever.”

 

The Escapist (hidden track)

 

Church organ floats into a transcendental ambient instrumental written by Brian Eno’s friend John Hopkins, who “donated” it to the album. Over the top, a plaintive Chris Martin sings of escape.

 

Will: “I think with everything this time, the recording, the artwork, the live shows and videos, people will see there’s more to us than they imagine.”

 

http://news.q4music.com/2008/05/coldplay_viva_la_vida.html

once again sorry if its been posted, because that would make me a hypocrite

Pretty sure that's new... I know I haven't read it before.

 

Thanks!

 

EDIT: There we have it, Life In Technicolor is instrumental-only. Lyrics have been removed. I hope we get to to hear the full thing at some point, though. Liking how bold the choices they have made are. "Obvious single"? Not gonna happen. Awesome.

HAVEN'T YOU SEEN THE 126 THREADS ABOUT THIS?????:laugh3: J/K!!

 

This is totally new to me...and great!!:D:D:D Thanks for posting.

 

Ghost story, eh? Now I'm looking forward to Cemeteries more than ever.:)_

Sorry for the double post but this topic deserves a bump anyway. This article is brilliant, probably the best I've read about the album so far (and I thought the NME one was awesome as well!).

 

They're really pulled all the stops, and by just reading this you can tell this album has so many flavours...

 

I'm just hoping they release all the other stuff (cause they've done so much stuf...) as b-sides and such. Also, I want a Technicolor version with lyrics eventually =(

 

EDIT: Yes! I agree with the above, Cemeteries sounds more promising than ever.

Wait... how can "Chinese Sleep Chant" be a hidden track if it's on the middle of the album? How does that work?

maybe its like those untitled tracks on wats the story morning glory?

Great find!

WOW

 

thats all i can say

Oh man, this sounds PHENOMENAL.

 

Where to start? Well the fact that 'The Escapist' is actually slightly different to 'LIT' and it has lyrics makes me very happy, because its actually now a song in its own right. Hooray! (Plus, I loooove how DAAHF is supposed to fade into it - I love it when tracks flow together).

 

Oh, and I am actually really releaved that 'Violet Hill' is actually different to most of the other songs on the album... which sound like they are mostly drenched with strings and organs and atmospheric guitar. Which is more the sound I would like to hear from them.

I'm starting to like the sound of Strawberry Swing, I think it might be the most 'experimental' song on the album. A didgeridoo? I could SWEAR someone on here was joking about how Guy could mix it up on stage by playing that instrument. And now its come true? How many psycics do we have on this board?! :P But yes, the drums and bass part of this song I'm looking forward to, as they hinted that they drive the song more than usual.

And is it just me, or does 'Yes' sound like an evolution of 'A Bucket For A Crown'? The way its described immediately reminds me of that song. It also sounds like its going to be the saddest song on the album. And I'm really intrigued by Chinese Sleep Chant, seeing as it sounds very atmospheric, which I'm very much into. Its funny that Chris' lyrics are apparently totally incomprehensible.

And 42 sounds AWESOME... even though I would have liked it to be a Hitch hiker's Guide reference, but never mind. The fact that Chris is saying that 42 is a perfect number, I think is hinting that this might be a near perfect song.

And haha, I like the story behind COL... with Markus Dravs german accent and everything. Classic.

 

Its interesting that, being 10 tracks and all, you would have thought that the songs themselves would be a little longer. And now we have Will saying that actually, this is the album with the most songs but with the shortest runtime. I don't know about you, but I didn't see that coming.

 

Either way, it sounds really good.

 

Gaaaah I'm so PUMPED! :dance: :dance: :dance:

 

PS - Feel free to slap me for my rambling :dozey:

ok live show:

 

PIPE ORGAN

WE MUST HAVE A FREAKING PIPE ORGAN

 

 

that would make me whet myself.

*slaps semy*

Sounds like a good article, no doubt Q will play it save and give the album 5 stars.

This is GREAT !!!!!! :D

really nice review ! I want this album more than I ever did before !

thank you for posting it !!

hey thanks for postng this...i just read it on the Q website right now...i now knwo about 2 hidden tracks yay! :D lol

*slaps semy*

Haha, thanks for that :P

 

MUST. STOP. RAMBLING.

haha its ok, everything you are rambling we are thinking

I wonder if my copy of Q will come early like it did this month.

 

Sometimes it pays to be a subscriber :smug:

Thanks for this Justin.

 

 

*Slaps Semy on both Cheeks*

wow wow wow wowwwwwww

 

i really think this is the best article we have gotten yet! the two songs that this got me most excited for are chinese sleep chant (a song i never have looked forward to because of the odd title) and death and all his friends. the whole thing with the 'coldplay choir' sounds like it could be amazing. also this article continiued my excitement for lovers in japan/reign of love. wow i'm really excited what a great article.

 

(oh and i also hope they somehow release the version of life in technicolor with words... it sounds like it was one of those 'big songs' that they cut because they didnt want anything to lean back on or whatever.)

I wonder if my copy of Q will come early like it did this month.

 

Sometimes it pays to be a subscriber :smug:

 

Once again, I am so grateful that Indigo books here in Kingston stalks Q, NME, Mojo and a few other British magazines.:D

thanks for the article J! :D

excellent - i've got a subscription to Q so i should be able to get the interview up here early next month

Will Champion: “We just preferred to have less titles and more stuff. The album as a whole has got the most on it, but it’s the shortest. We wanted to make it almost impossible for you to not listen to it all in one go.”

 

I was worried that this album would be really short, but this makes me feel tons better.

This album sounds ace! Less than a month to go...

so does that mean the album is really more than 10 songs because they just combined a few?