There is an old Zen fable, in which a man says to his yoga teacher: “I have tried to break my habit of going to wine shops and brothels, but I can’t do it. I am in chains to my nature. You can’t expect a man in chains to do anything.” Some days later, the teacher meets him going to the town one evening. He is smartly dressed and walking briskly in anticipation. The teacher says: “You don’t look like a man in chains.”

 

I was reminded of this when reading Chris Martin’s latest, and characteristically disingenuous, comments about the new Coldplay album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. As with previous album campaigns, Martin professed reluctance, humility and “what, me?” disbelief about the millions of copies of Viva la Vida that he is about to sell to a mainstream global audience that obviously cares not a jot for his oft-avowed unease about being so successful. The old “Coldplay contra mundum” canard has been trotted out once more. “We’re about to be fed to the lions again,” Martin said to one interviewer, as if Coldplay face unique, almost insurmountable odds in their bid to be heard, loved - and bought.

 

Critical disdain doesn’t seem to dent their appeal: their last album, 2005’s pleasant but lyrically trite and ultimately insipid X&Y, sold an estimated 8.3m copies, despite The New York Times describing Coldplay then as “the most insufferable band of the decade”. That’s surely a bit harsh, but perhaps we should take Martin at his word and appraise Viva la Vida on the basis that it is the work of a man (he is the band’s principal songwriter) who is deeply uncomfortable with the mainstream, with accessibility - although, confusingly, he has proved remarkably adept at writing radio-friendly hits such as The Scientist and Clocks, yet still can’t write a chorus to save his life - and cleaves instead to the profound, the opaque, the experimental.

 

The involvement of everyone’s favourite studio sage, Brian Eno - who shares production duties with Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire) - pointed to a bolder, more challenging album. Lo and behold, a multitude of 64-track bells and whistles, in the form of North African strings, crunching R&B beats, backing vocals recorded in Spanish churches and song structures that suddenly yank you off in quite unexpected directions, are chucked at the music. Rock as a genre has been here before and will come here again: when you’ve conquered the world’s charts and stadiums, what next? Do you get louder, dancier, weirder, safer? Well, no - in most cases, you hit a wall and, having done so, come back with more of the same under different wrapping.

 

Viva la Vida’s sonic squiggles and fancies act as a sort of evil twin to Martin’s innate musical politesse. Yet, for all that his producers seek to lure him into darker corners, the wide-eyed, zealous and populist pastor in Martin keeps reasserting himself. “Just because I’m losing,” he avers sloganistically on track three, “doesn’t mean I’m lost.” Later, on the album’s low point, Lovers in Japan, he mews, with clunking repetition: “Lovers keep on marching on / Lovers, until the race is won”. Even his self-doubt seems suspect: “Time is so short and I’m sure there must be something more,” he sings on 42, one of several tracks that contemplates, to not especially enlightening effect, the meaning of life and death.

 

There are some truly beautiful moments. Musically, Reign of Love, 42 and the end of Violet Hill all have a hymnal quality, evident in much of Martin’s work, that could, allowed more room, have led to a fascinating and genuinely contemplative and subdued record.

 

But the showman in Martin cannot, it seems, be suppressed.

 

Like Tony Blair, with whom he shares a penchant for soundbites, calculating candour, woolly interfaith-speak, self-deprecation and excruciating blokeish humour, Martin feeds off affirmation and the imagined resistance of fantasy enemies. Blair stormed to three election landslides. Coldplay have released three huge albums, and they, at least, will triumph again with their fourth. Will Martin run a mile from this, aghast, defeated by the love of the masses? Or will he walk, chains and all, towards it - briskly, in anticipation?

 

Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends is released on Parlophone on Thursday

 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4072323.ece

So, am I to be condemned for actually falling for it? Their desire to get better instead of bigger... I mean. Should I be chastised for being one of the many that will fork over my hard earned cash on CDs, T-shirts and tickets for someone regretting his success for it? HELL NO! The music is worth it and Im sold on it and it alone. Hook, line and sinker...

 

I speak for myself alone and make decisions based on my own opinions thank you very much...

 

ps thanks for the read. Sorry for the rant.

I've always hated the New York Times. The Most liberal newspaper ever thought of.

Another piss-poor article.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I always thought fame was what Chris was uncomfortable with not success.

That "fed to the lions" quote was referring to critics not the public wasn't it?

"He is the band’s principal songwriter" - maybe lyrically but I remember reading an article saying that they've changed the way they write music on this record and that GWJ have been much more influential (especially Will by the sounds of things).

Can't write choruses? I'm sure we could all list loads of CP songs with memorable choruses.

If you're going to criticise the lyrics of Lovers in Japan at least get them right.

"Fantasy enemies"? Loads of people are very vocal about their dislike of Coldplay! What is this guy talking about?

Sorry for the rant. What a load of bollocks.

The most articulate and thought-provoking review I've read, thanks very much for posting.

 

While I disagree with almost all the negative points, (and it's obviously just another writer seeking to be clever and critical), I especially appreciate the point that some of the album is under-developed (please note I certainly do not mean 'under-produced' here!!)

 

For me many, if not most, of the songs on Viva are too short. I know why they did it like that, and in a way it's good, but I can't help feeling that some of these ideas (that sometimes last only ten or twenty seconds each) could have been half-songs in their own right.

 

Viva could have been quite easily over seventy minutes long, and might well have garnered those five star reviews. It would have been a work to rival Dark Side of the Moon and the like imho. But no matter, because the strength of the album as it is deserves a five in my book anyway. Call me a 'three glass full' man, but it has lit up my life just to have this fine CD the lads have given us :)

 

Now, who else's waiting extremely impatiently for that 12" mix of Strawberry Swing?? And it's begging for that dance mix already, tempted to start putting one together meself...

 

 

 

I've always hated the New York Times. The Most liberal newspaper ever thought of.

i hate that NYtimes newspaper too.

 

its really arrogant in reviewing anything.

^Good points. I too wish that many of the songs would have realized their fullest potential. See= 42, LIT, DAAHF

^Good points. I too wish that many of the songs would have realized their fullest potential. See= 42, LIT, DAAHF

 

Well fingers crossed we will get LiT someday, it seems quite likely (along with the Kylie song lol). 42 is strong enough to be two songs in their own right, but the 'snappy' edit all together is astonishing. The major extra ones I long for are CoL, SS, VH (30 seconds short of perfection imo) and LiJ (which this review amusingly called the weak point of the album!!)

Well fingers crossed we will get LiT someday, it seems quite likely (along with the Kylie song lol). 42 is strong enough to be two songs in their own right, but the 'snappy' edit all together is astonishing. The major extra ones I long for are CoL, SS, VH (30 seconds short of perfection imo) and LiJ (which this review amusingly called the weak point of the album!!)

yeah...LOL! Early I posted a good review of the album that referred to SS as "Strawberry Swiss" Oh, well. Type-ohs happen all d thyme... :P

I disagree with you. I really like the fact that this record has a lot of Coldplay's shortest songs and how there are loads of amazing shorter bits, it makes me listen to them more.

I disagree with you. I really like the fact that this record has a lot of Coldplay's shortest songs and how there are loads of amazing shorter bits, it makes me listen to them more.

 

You don't disagree with me, you agree! I already said I completely understand why they've done what they have. All I ask for in return for my empathetic nature is a full 12" mix of each and every song on the album :D

VLV is a present day bard's tale...

 

 

IT will be timeless...

 

Reminiscence of floyd.. Been done before... Yet the words of our generation..

 

 

PEACE