3/5 reviews for VLV from both The Independent & The Guardian

[Difficult_Kind]

Andy Gill's review in The Independent. I completely agree with it I'm afraid, especially the final line and the bit about the incessant repetition.

 

 

Coldplay: Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends

3 out of 5

 

Reviewed by Andy Gill

 

Coldplay's X&Y, they've since explained, was the final part of a trilogy – a claim some might consider a cunning defence against accusations that they're a one-trick pony mining a stadium-filling formula to death. Whichever way one takes it, it leaves the globe-girdling anthem-mongers with quite a mountain to climb on Viva La Vida.

 

Their Sherpa Tensing on this tough ascent is Brian Eno, sonic enabler to the stars, doubtless drafted in for his success in keeping U2 more or less on their game, and famed for his idiosyncratic approach to the producer's job (on one occasion, he suggested Bono and his chums take a holiday). But it's hard to hear any specifically Eno-esque cast to the sound of Viva La Vida, save for the soaring synth pad behind the tack-piano march of "Lovers In Japan". And one suspects his hand may have been behind the oddly contradictory effect gained by layering tiny tendrils of backward guitar behind the Bo Diddley beat of "Strawberry Swing", which is the most notable thing about the track: certainly, whenever it slips into passages of strummed acoustic guitar, the song all but dissolves away to nothing.

 

The album opens in a shimmer of keyboards with "Life In Technicolor", building over two minutes of dulcimer and drums before giving way to "Cemeteries of London", a faux-folk piece built from wisps of U2-ish guitar and piano, whipped along by galloping drums. A similarly bustling clatter of dohl drums and offbeat handclaps powers "Lost!", though the uncharacteristic industry disguises what is a typical Coldplay lyrical trope ("Just because I'm losing doesn't mean I'm lost"). It's the first hint that, whatever their intentions, Coldplay will struggle to shake off their old ways; the second comes hot on its heels with "42", a multi-sectioned piece about death ("Those who are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head").

 

"Viva La Vida" itself likewise cleaves to a Coldplay staple, in this case that of devising a simple, memorable melody line and ramming it home through endless repetition. It adopts an oddly chipper tone for a song about a former leader fallen on hard times, but makes an apt pairing with the cantering battle fantasy "Violet Hill", yet another example, with "Cemeteries of London", "42" and "Death and All His Friends", of the album's fascination with death. The purported passing of their former style, however, has been greatly exaggerated, though whether the attempt here to chart a new musical course will lead anywhere as imposing remains to be heard. This is pretty average stuff.

 

Pick of the album:'Strawberry Swing', '42', 'Lost!'

 

 

 

And The Guardian review...

 

Coldplay, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends

*** (Parlophone)

 

Alexis Petridis

 

No less a musical authority than Guy Hands has called Viva la Vida "the most anticipated album of the year". For once, it's hard to argue with the new EMI boss: the anticipation comes not just as a result of Coldplay's preceding vast success, but the sense that they finally might be about to offer something different from the increasingly windy and lachrymose stadium ballads that fuelled it. Rock's most celebrated blue-sky thinker, Brian Eno, is on board. There are intimations of artistic insurrection and tumult. The album's title may sound like something you'd find on the cocktail menu on TGI Friday, but it comes from a painting by surrealist Frida Kahlo. The cover features Delacroix's romantic depiction of the spirit of revolution, Liberty Leading the People Over the Barricades.

 

Meanwhile, singer Chris Martin recently stormed out of a puff-piece newspaper interview, declaring "we don't care if we sell a million less records". This parting shot proves telling about the actual scale of reinvention that Vida la Vida offers. Announcing that you don't care if you sell a million fewer records sounds bullish, until you realise that X&Y sold 10m copies. Selling a million fewer than that hardly constitutes throwing commercial considerations to the wind in favour of a bafflingly abstruse artistic statement. Notice is thus served that we may not be dealing with The Faust Tapes here.

 

Such thoughts are underlined by opener Life In Technicolor. It starts as a Kraftwerkish instrumental, before the arrival of drums, guitars and a woah-oh chorus suitable for singing en masse in a sports stadium. Indeed, there are moments during Viva la Vida where you feel impelled to take Coldplay aside and explain to them that there's more to reinventing your sound than calling Brian Eno, coming up with some enigmatic song titles and telling people you've reinvented your sound: you are actually supposed to change your music as well.

 

There's certainly a wider sonic palette on offer - a jerkily funky beat powering Cemeteries of London, a vaguely African-sounding guitar line on Strawberry Swing - but it's discreet shading. Coldplay's constituent elements remain intact: mid-tempo songs, echoing guitars, piano ballads that surge into bittersweet anthemics, falsetto vocals. The words continue to deal only in the most general of generalities - "Just be patient and don't worry", "You've got to soldier on". The messages are weighty and inarguable (42, for example, has sussed out that when people die, their loved ones remember them), but the fear that Martin could let fly with a line about tomorrow being the first day of the rest of your life looms ever-present.

 

Lyrics aside, Viva la Vida fixes most of the glaring problems with 2005's X&Y, simply by eschewing verse-chorus structures in favour of something more episodic. Uncoupling them from the standard framework allows Chris Martin's melodies to shine: even his loudest detractor could hardly deny his way with a tune, as evidenced here by 42 and Lovers in Japan.

 

Perhaps more importantly, the songs seem less thuddingly predictable than Fix You or What If? Confronted with a title track so clearly destined to get huge crowds punching the air, you might say that the results are more subtle only in the same way that being slapped across the face is more subtle than being smashed over the head with a breezeblock. But there's no doubt it seems noticeably less craven in its attempt to tug the world's heartstrings.

 

One might argue that Viva la Vida's mild tinkering with the formula represents a failure of imagination: perhaps it's hard to think outside the box when the box is the size of the Las Vegas MGM Grand Garden Arena. Equally, however, there's a genuine conviction about its contents, a huge advance both on its predecessor and their legion of imitators.

 

Coldplay remain thunderingly uncool, a state of affairs you suspect couldn't be altered whether they were being produced by Brian Eno, Brian Wilson or Brian Cant: I have a terrible feeling that 42 is a reference to the meaning of life in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, thus raising the prospect that their next album might include songs called This Is An Ex-Parrot and I Invented It in Camberwell and It Looks Like a Carrot. At its best, however, Viva la Vida poses an interesting question: do you need to be cool or experimental if you can write songs that carry the listener along regardless of their reservations - indeed, almost despite them?

[Hotplay007]

woah, thanks for that! I can't believe i read every where. my eyes are blinded with white letters...

[Theroyalty]

Indeed, there are moments during Viva la Vida where you feel impelled to take Coldplay aside and explain to them that there's more to reinventing your sound than calling Brian Eno, coming up with some enigmatic song titles and telling people you've reinvented your sound: you are actually supposed to change your music as well.

 

haha, clearly

[Difficult_Kind]

haha, clearly

 

I know. Talk about hitting the nail on the head!

[gus]

i dont like x & y so i dont care about this reviews. waiting for the rolling stone review the only one i trust.

[Difficult_Kind]

i dont like x & y so i dont care about this reviews. waiting for the rolling stone review the only one i trust.

 

Personally, the only review I trust is my own.

 

I do happen to agree with both of the above reviews though.

[gus]

Personally, the only review I trust is my own.

 

I do happen to agree with both of the above reviews though.

good for you but ive actually love the album i think its their best.

[MasoKnight]

Lyrics aside, Viva la Vida fixes most of the glaring problems with 2005's X&Y, simply by eschewing verse-chorus structures in favour of something more episodic. Uncoupling them from the standard framework allows Chris Martin's melodies to shine: even his loudest detractor could hardly deny his way with a tune, as evidenced here by 42 and Lovers in Japan.

 

Perhaps more importantly, the songs seem less thuddingly predictable than Fix You or What If? Confronted with a title track so clearly destined to get huge crowds punching the air, you might say that the results are more subtle only in the same way that being slapped across the face is more subtle than being smashed over the head with a breezeblock. But there's no doubt it seems noticeably less craven in its attempt to tug the world's heartstrings.

 

One might argue that Viva la Vida's mild tinkering with the formula represents a failure of imagination: perhaps it's hard to think outside the box when the box is the size of the Las Vegas MGM Grand Garden Arena. Equally, however, there's a genuine conviction about its contents, a huge advance both on its predecessor and their legion of imitators.

 

And yet the review of X&Y on their website is 5 stars... A ridiculous trend lately.

 

Edit: The Independent's review of X&Y wasn't starred, but I'm guessing they would've given it 2-3 stars. At least one organization is consistent.

[Difficult_Kind]

good for you but ive actually love the album i think its their best.

 

Cool! Each to their own. I guess it'd be pretty boring if we all agreed all the time!

[Space Cadet]

I'm beginning to think that EMI's anti-leak strategy has backfired on a massive scale. If you stuff all the critics in a theatre to listen once and only once (supposedly with the volume turned up too high) they're going to write a crappy review because they haven't had a chance to dig out a good pair of headphones and let the songs sink in through repeated listens.

[mountainloafers]

I couldnt agree more. I hate sounding like a groupie or some crazed, lunatic fan, but COME ON!

 

There is a ton of originality and beauty to this album. You would have to be tone deaf IMO to think otherwise. Just my opinion and really trying not to insult anyone. I believe it to be on par with last years The Boxer by The National and Neon Bible by the Arcade Fire...

 

I really think its because Coldplay has become so well known that we are going to see many "middle of the road" reviews and it doesnt seem ethical.

 

Have they listened to the album in its entirety, with good headphones more than once?

Or did they play snippets and jot down brief notes before they tossed 2008's best CD of the year (so, far) in a drawer...

[Littlewhiteshadows]

Pff what do they know? I've not downloaded the leak and I'm not going to, but Viva, VH and Lovers in Japan (the only ones I've heard) are just so beautiful I fail to see how I'm not going to like it. Tbh unless it's the Bee Gees greatest hits or Elton, nobody's going to get top marks from those papers!

[majgirl]

I haven't heard the new album yet so I'm not qualified to comment on their opinions on that front. But that quote of Chris's they took "I don't care if we sell a million less records" or something to that effect. Now correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that statement in response to a reporter getting nosy about his personal life, and that what he actually said was answering those kinds of questions wasn't worth it even if it meant selling a million less records. Not some how implying that he didn't expect this record to do as well. I don't know it just bugs me that the media feel at liberty to take any quote and put it in a completely different context at will.

[ricardo]

i dont like x & y so i dont care about this reviews. waiting for the rolling stone review the only one i trust.

ditto

besides 3 stars for it? these guys must be deaf or insane

[Shawndorman]

any magazine that gives X&Y a greater rating than this...clearly has issues...

[gus]

ditto

besides 3 stars for it? these guys must be deaf or insane

lol they put 5 stars for x & y obviously they are nuts.:laugh3:

[brendan3eb]

Have any of these critics heard "yes?" Honestly, I do not understand how a critic can criticize that song. That's such a critic's song.

 

To be perfectly truthful, I believe there is something cool about being anti-coldplay for critics. Sort of how Green Day's three fifth note pop songs were cool because they bashed bush. These two articles are pure, unsubstantiated diatribe.

[brendan3eb]

on the bright side, at least no critic has sunk to the low of referencing the Chinese Sleep Chant in the idiosyncratic critique that coldplay music is so boring that it induces one to sleep

[CRYSTAL]

i don't care any reviews even they're good or bad.

even i ignore several people's comments too.

i just think about what it really sounded to me whether i liked it or not.

 

that's all i really don't care what other people think always.

[Recycled Revenge]

Gah, I hate having to sound fanboyish to defend coldplay but it's an inevitable side effect of liking a band that critics hate. The only people that seem capable of giving them a fair go these days is Rolling Stone. If you can seriously listen to this album and give it 3 stars you have no business being a music critic. The two reviews posted here sounded melancholy to me..extremely so. Like they really did like it but were far to cool to bring themselves to admit to their readers, so they launched a couple of warheads about them still sounding like Coldplay (hello they are f*cking coldplay, of course they aren't going to sound completely different numbskull). However their sound has changed a lot, if you cannot recognise that this album is a huge seperation from the past three albums you are either, deaf, stupid or dead.

[Space Cadet]

Scathing review in the Mirror. Don't read it if you know what's good for you.

[MasoKnight]

Scathing review in the Mirror. Don't read it if you know what's good for you.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/showbiz/entertainment/music/2008/06/05/review-coldplay-viva-la-vida-or-death-and-all-his-friends-89520-20596214/

 

You're right. Yet another Coldplay bash without any critical substance.

[Recycled Revenge]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/showbiz/entertainment/music/2008/06/05/review-coldplay-viva-la-vida-or-death-and-all-his-friends-89520-20596214/

 

You're right. Yet another Coldplay bash without any critical substance.

 

A brazen bash, didn't even mention any songs apart from viva la vida and violet hill. I'm actually doubtful this reviewer even bothered listening to the album.

[Shawndorman]

what is with all the hate??? Seriously! The only reasons critics have turned their backs on Coldplay is because they think it'll give them more credibility. Ever since X&Y, it's become a common trade to unfairly bash them without ANY substance. For instance...this Mirror review?? Utter garbage. Absolutely nothing is said. They didn't even do their research..."I've become so tired of this loneliness" is a line from Violet Hill? Come on!

 

This album shows a real determination to grow, but, unlike some bands, it DOESN'T alienate its fan base by completely abandoning its old sound. If one of my best friends, an avid Coldplay hater, has decided to give the band a chance after hearing their newest songs and enjoying them, then they must be doing SOMETHING right. (actually, a couple of my friends who have not been Coldplay fans have expressed a strong interest in the album as a result of 'Violet Hill' and 'Viva La Vida')

 

The album is fantastic. 'Nuff said.

[Theroyalty]

I don't like VLV and I don't hesitate to post negative comments about it but this review is a piece of trash.

 

“I’ve become so tired of this loneliness”, Martin sings on Violet Hill. Well I’ve become so tired of average talents clogging up the channels of communication rather than REAL warriors of truth and justice. "

 

Those two sentences are the biggest piece of shit I have read in a long time. First of all, there is that ugly unprofessional mistake : the line he quotes is of course not from VH. Second, what does this mean "I’ve become so tired of average talents clogging up the channels of communication rather than REAL warriors of truth and justice" ? Had he written something like "so tired of average talents....rather than skilled musicians/inspired bands", his sentence would have made sense, but he has yet to explain what he means by "warriors or truth and justice". What truth ? What the fuck is truth to begin with ? What justice ? Should they dress like judges and sing "t'was a long and dark December, you've been sentenced to 10 years for the murder, of Jack snow, oh jaaack snoooow" ? I guess he means they should take a political stand, fight for social causes, thus implying art must have a message. Bullshit. I disagree and if it's his opinion, he should expose and explain his theories beforehand because there is no laws on that matter (art = political message + piano chords...). Viva la vida "We used to be happy in our lovely music company/ but now we're all alone, everyone got fired, everyone is gone"