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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080530.coldplay31gta/BNStory/Entertainment/home

 

i used the search but couldnt find anything.

sorry if it has already been posted

 

_done_coldplaybig.jpg

 

Blowing minds, not woofers

 

A record-label man doubles as an usher, herding a small, lightly shuffling group of music journalists into a listening room. “Sit anywhere,” he says, motioning to nicely stuffed chairs. “You can sit in the back too,” he says, “because we blew out the rear speakers at the last session.”

 

Coldplay, the band whose colourful hit rhymes with mellow, is now rupturing woofers? While I picture straws breaking camels' backs, the lights go down and the album – with the two-minded title Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends – arrives with the rising swirl of Life in Technicolor, which mixes a strumming acoustic guitar and arpeggiated Baba O'Riley synthesizers. The effect is similar to the instrumental start to U2's Joshua Tree, co-produced by same Brian Eno who co-produced this album.

 

Eno's influence on the new Coldplay is profound. And by “new Coldplay,” I mean “different Coldplay.” The elegant ballads, airy crooning and life-affirming choruses of the past are not abandoned as much underplayed.

 

Viva La Vida (Long Live Life) is structured with meticulous concern, and is more adventurous and atmospheric than its high-selling predecessors Parachutes (8 million copies worldwide), A Rush of Blood to the Head (11 million) and 2005's X&Y (10 million). An epiphany came to singer Chris Martin after listening to a droning, off-kilter song by Blur, Sing ( To Me). “I remember hearing it and thinking ‘OK, we need to get better as a band,' ” Martin recently recalled.

 

Group vocals were recorded in an ancient Barcelona monastery; the title track employs strings, kettle drums and church bells; Strawberry Swings bears the influence of Malian blues; a piano is actually jaunty on Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love. “When a band gets to its fourth album there's little surprise left in the singer's voice,” Martin told a television interviewer. “We wanted to make sure we didn't sound the same as we did four years ago.”

 

Mission accomplished. This sonically grand fourth album makes the first three look like a light-rock trilogy in retrospect.

 

Lyrically, there is a preoccupation with ghosts and existentialism. “Time is so short,” Martin ponders on the elaborate 42, “I'm sure there must be something more.”

 

The album closes as it began. The Escapist, one of two “hidden” tracks, samples from the disc's rippling, synthesized introduction. “And in the end,” Martin sings, “we lie awake and we dream of making our escape.” An idea on life's meaning also applies to a band's run for higher artistic credibility. Coldplay doesn't wish to wreck speakers and cash registers, but to blow minds.

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Garden State is one of my absolute favourite movies in this entire universe. Seeing your AV made me smile, so thank you! :)

 

Loved the article. This album cannot some soon enough... :D

 

:) it's my favourite movie of ALL time.

 

it's so underrated.

:D

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It's changed AGAIN.

I didn't like th chris one I made

it was shit. lol

 

I have one with Zach Braff from Garden state now

which I just made. :)

 

Yeah, I really liked that movie. Got me listening to The Shins and all! Plus, who doesn't love Natalie Portman, eh?!:wink3:

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Guest kmm1482

Off topic question:

The newest issue of Q magazine has Dave Grohl on it right? It's the June issue. Is Coldplay on the cover of the NEWEST newest issue? The July issue?

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The album closes as it began. The Escapist, one of two “hidden” tracks, samples from the disc's rippling, synthesized introduction.

 

Er, wait, what? Two hidden tracks? Have I been out of the loop too long? I thought the album ended as "Death and All His Friends" leading into one hidden track ("The Escapist"). Am I just reading something incorrectly?

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I think I love you! :lol:

 

- maybe it's a Jamie thing :wink3:

 

"Jamie, do you take Jamie to be you're lawfully wedded wife, in weirdness and the Perv Unit, til death do you part?"

 

*Wakes up - it was only a nightmare!! Then sees he's sleeping next to another man. SHIT!!*:shocked2::laugh3:

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I think Chinese Sleep Chant is considered the other "hidden" track.

 

Ah, so it's another instance of the confusion as to how we're looking at the division of tracks. That makes sense. Thanks.

 

But damn. I admit that a little part of me was excited at the possibility of another hidden track that we hadn't heard of.

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Coldplay doesn't wish to wreck speakers and cash registers, but to blow minds.

 

With so many articles talking about the financial side of the new album and its predecessors, I do appreciate that someone finished an article this way.

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