Chris Martin has transformed English diffidence into a masochistic religion.

 

In a 2005 piece in the Times, Jon Pareles called the British rock group Coldplay “the most insufferable band of the decade,” and he placed the blame on the band’s front man and singer, Chris Martin, whom he called a “passive-aggressive blowhard.” Earlier this year, in a study sponsored by the hotel chain Travelodge of the bedtime habits of 2,248 people in the U.K., Coldplay topped a poll of music choices that would help people fall asleep. Coldplay apparently relieves what Travelodge called the “pressures of modern living.” Martin may use the same metric to judge his band’s music. On coldplay.com, you can find a handwritten note, dated “Thursday 12 June London,” that addresses the recent release of the band’s fourth studio album, “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.” “I feel very relieved that the album is finally released out into the big wide world today,” it says. “I hope there’s songs on there that will make a shit day slightly less shit, or a good day even better.” The album sold more than seven hundred thousand copies in the first week of its release in the United States. (Since the group’s début album, “Parachutes,” was released, in 2000, news items about the troubled entertainment conglomerate EMI routinely correlate the health of the corporation with the health of Coldplay.)

 

Is Coldplay warm milk or just quietly dependable? Don’t ask Martin, who has transformed the English art of diffidence into a masochistic religion: “We owe them a career, really,” he has said of Radiohead. He has also said, “Like millions of people in the world, I can’t listen to Coldplay.” He’s half right about Radiohead—Coldplay exhibits a taste for melancholy and smeared, stretched-out sounds that leads straight back to Thom Yorke and his friends. The main antecedent is U2, who invented the form that Coldplay works within: rock that respects the sea change of punk but still wants to be as chest-thumping and anthemic as the music of the seventies stadium gods. Translated, this means short pop songs that somehow summon utterly titanic emotions and require you to skip around in triumphant circles and pump your fist, even if it is not entirely clear what you are singing about.

 

The link to U2 has been made explicit on “Viva la Vida,” which was co-produced by Brian Eno, the man who moved U2 from a feisty, soccer-chant style into the expansive and hypnotic sound that has defined the rest of their career. The problem is that Coldplay doesn’t seem to have unplumbed depths, or a voice as distinctive as either Bono’s or the Edge’s, whose guitar is U2’s second vocalist. The guys in Coldplay are a sweet bunch, and their best songs are modest affairs. “Yellow” was the track that made them famous eight years ago. There’s some guitar work that echoes the Edge’s—chiming, small chords played high on the neck and repeated, over and over, pushing the song away from the divisions of song form and closer to the ecstasy of the drone (when it works)—but the core of the song is Martin serenading someone with the oldest trick in the book: “Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and all the things that you do.” It’s a big fat “Aw!,” and it gets me every time.

 

“Yellow” is one of Martin’s few straightforward lyrics. For the band’s second album, Martin started singing in free-floating slogans. “Am I part of the cure? Or am I part of the disease?” is a line from “Clocks,” perhaps the group’s loveliest song. The music evokes the song’s name, revolving around three circling and falling piano arpeggios. The payoff comes when Martin stretches out the words “you are” in a falsetto sung over the piano figure. You are what? Go figure, and I haven’t the slightest idea what is going on with the “tides” and the “clocks” in the lyrics. Doesn’t matter. “Clocks” is a big-budget “Ooh!” with lots of pretty lights—it works. At the end of the song, Martin repeatedly sings, “Home, home, where I wanted to go.” There’s the only part you need take note of—an essentially conservative sentiment, and probably a comfort zone for a guy who grew up thinking he wasn’t particularly cool and lost his virginity at the age of twenty-two.

 

I’ve always wanted to like Coldplay for just that attribute. They’re a band of nice young lads being rewarded for niceness. But on the band’s third album, “X&Y,” a need to Signify Something began to overwhelm the charm. The little bouquet of roses on the doorstep became an oversized vessel filled with cloying, synthetic gas.

 

The title track of “Viva la Vida”—also known as the “iPod song,” because it is used in an Apple ad—is easily the best thing about the album. Don’t go to the lyrics for any cues; it is entirely obscure why such a jaunty, upbeat song would be referencing “Roman cavalry choirs” or revolutionaries or St. Peter. Martin is the king? Was the king? Whatevs. Coldplay knows how to build a song that draws you in with easy, karaoke-ready moves. I spent a weekend hearing an eight-year-old and an eleven-year-old sing the song (fighting about the lyrics, and sometimes rewriting them), and I never tired of the melody. After that, though, you are on your own. There are Eno touches that catch the ear: the chattering strings and bell-like keyboards that close out “Death and All His Friends,” or the timbre of the instrumental “Life in Technicolor,” which sounds like it’s emanating from the end of a long metal tube. “Technicolor” is one of the album’s few concise, concentrated pieces of writing; the rest sounds both incomplete and puffed up, like scraps of previous records scrambled and rearranged. This upending of their style isn’t even radical enough to be bad. “Viva la Vida” is an album that keeps going out of focus, a series of disconnected pieces that is impossible to hold on to. And why are they wearing all those vaguely military jackets? What’s with Liberty leading the people on the cover? They must know that beyond the cozy confines of London there are a couple of major conflicts going on. It does not feel like the moment, especially for such a vague band, to be playing with any symbols of war.

 

All of this is a paid vacation in Ibiza compared to the Madison Square Garden show, in June. The concert, as you may have heard, was a freebie. As the Rolling Stones have taught us, nobody loves money more than a rich man, and I was impressed that this almost unnaturally successful band gave away a night in such a large venue. Good for Chris Martin, I thought. But guess who reminded us, three separate times, that the concert was free? There Martin was, onstage in his Little Bummer Boy outfit, skipping around and waving his fists. Except the crowd wasn’t going wild, and the music wasn’t calling for a celebration. Though the audience was obviously delighted to see Coldplay appear, the energy in the room remained fairly controlled throughout the set, even dipping to indifference at points. Which made Martin’s moves seem that much more canned. It felt as if he’d done the entire show in a mirror, down to the self-deprecating wisecracks. In one of his increasingly suspect apologies, Martin told his American fans, “We come over here, we steal your women.” That’s right. If anyone in the audience had forgotten, Chris Martin is married to an actress named Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s American. Maybe you’ve heard of her. No? Well, did you know that “Viva la Vida” went to No. 1? No? It’s O.K.—Martin told us, by way of thanking us.

 

No, dude, thank you.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2008/08/04/080804crmu_music_frerejones

What?

 

...What?

 

...Er.

 

Uh...is it just me, or is this article total nonsense? I can't even tell if he likes Coldplay or not, or what he thinks of their new album. Maybe he's not sure? :confused:

critics in NYC all need an enema!

Seriously! This guy sounds as confused as he's making out Coldplay to be! Ugh I wish these stupid newspaper critics would go whinge and whine to other miserable would be's and let there be happiness and light in the world.. which is pretty much all Coldplay is trying to do. Write good music, make people have "less shit days" and do what they love to do. I'm sure this reviewer is completely miserable at his job and would rather go watch Coldplay at a concert than be stuck behind a germ invested desk underneath a dim lamp with a strongly caffeinated coffee stuck in his hand complaining about a band he obviously has no idea about. Okay rant done! :P

So he likes it or he doesn't? :thinking:

So he likes it or he doesn't? :thinking:

Dear Ms Journalist,

 

I refer to your article dated August 4, 2008 (:stunned:) on Coldplay aka the-band-who-will-take-over-the-world entitled 'La Vida No Loca' in The New Yorker.

 

After reading the 1,061 words of your undeniably carefully thought-through story, I still have no idea what you mean.

 

Perhaps you would care to clarify your stand by answering the following simple questionaire?

 

Circle the correct answer.

 

Do you like Coldplay? Yes / No / I have no bloody clue

 

Thank you and regards.

 

:rolleyes:

I like the picture :D

I like the picture :D

Me too hahahha

THAT'S what I hate about people who dislike Coldplay!! They hate them because they have no idea what they're singing about or can even get the lyrics correct!! If he took the time to understand what the lyrics are saying he wouldn't be such a pompous ass! And what is this article anyway? is it a review? Cause if it is, it sounds like he really likes Coldplay. But then he goes off into some tangent. And where was HE sitting if he SUPPOSEDLY went to the Madison Square Garden show? Now he's making stuff up about the crowd! Should have expected something like this from someone from New York. That's where all the dickheads live who need to get the stick out of their ass!!!!

I'm not even gonna bother reading an article from an NYC journalist but wow..that picture is priceless!! :D

I'm not even gonna bother reading an article from an NYC journalist but wow..that picture is priceless!! :D

 

I don't know what I was thinking by reading it either. It got me pissed and it was a waste of time. Just like this hack "reviewer" is a waste of life.

THAT'S what I hate about people who dislike Coldplay!! They hate them because they have no idea what they're singing about or can even get the lyrics correct!! If he took the time to understand what the lyrics are saying he wouldn't be such a pompous ass! And what is this article anyway? is it a review? Cause if it is, it sounds like he really likes Coldplay. But then he goes off into some tangent. And where was HE sitting if he SUPPOSEDLY went to the Madison Square Garden show? Now he's making stuff up about the crowd! Should have expected something like this from someone from New York. That's where all the dickheads live who need to get the stick out of their ass!!!!

 

Uh, easy there kmm1482. Why all the hostility? I am from the New York area and know many lovely people here. I even met a few New York Coldplay fans at the Today Show and they were all really very nice. So, take it easy, please.

 

I must agree though that most critics in this town seem very jaded on the band. As I was reading the article, I was like, "oh, boy is he shitting on the band". And then at the end I was like, "wait, he likes them?" So confusing. It's weird because obviously SO many people love the band, but so many really dislike them. It's a shame they don't really get the band or Chris even. He'll never live down the fact that he mentioned that the MSG show was free. And I know we all realize Chris was being Chris and not trying to shove it in anyone's face they they fronted the money to do that show. I took it to mean that he was saying, if you don't like the show, who cares, it was free.

 

As for the lack of enthusiasm for the crowd at MSG, I can not comment because I was unable to get tickets. So for those that were there, was the crowd lacking? If so, maybe it was because they gave away so many tickets to radio stations and the winners went to the show because it was free and they really like the song Yellow. Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home so sad and pissed off that this true fan couldn't get tickets. Perhaps that's why, if it was a shit crowd, it was a shit crowd.

I think articles like this should be taken with a pinch of salt. We got a good caracature out of it! :)

lol that guy could have simply included a picture of the band and then a picture of himself with a question mark over his head while looking at the band.

 

this is like the worst kind of review though, because you feel like this guy thinks he's defending the band, when in fact, he doesnt understand anything about them. its like defending some random person because "you feel bad", to only find that the person is like...idk lol, something bad.

 

this guy doesn't know if he likes the band or if he doesnt, but i think he's entertained by them. its typical new yorker garbage, and what i mean by that is the magazine "The New Yorker"...not people from new york...as i am one of them, although im not from the city.

 

The New Yorker is for pompous people, i used to get it but was so sick of the way they talked like they were above everyone. same thing right here - its like this guy thinks coldplay are the court jesters and he's sipping some martinis laughing with some old chums from yale. while his old sailing pals talk about how preposterous "The Coldplay" sound, he defends them by saying stuff like, "Gents come on, the coldplay aren't nearly as bad as you say...in fact i think i might admire their...their...well im not sure"

And why does the writer even have to mention that Chris lost his virginity at 22.What does that have to do with anything.

 

Im sure Chris is sorry that he ever mentioned when he lost his virginity.The writers bring it up at every turn

And why does the writer even have to mention that Chris lost his virginity at 22.What does that have to do with anything.

 

Im sure Chris is sorry that he ever mentioned when he lost his virginity.The writers bring it up at every turn

 

i dont think chris cares much he's prob. having no trouble anymore if you know what i mean :) lol.

I was at the MSG show, and the crowd was into them, of course!!! Maybe not everyone was singing to all the newer songs....but I clearly remember that on Lost! we all sang the last line "Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm loooost" so loud, that Chris was surprised and said something like "wow that's the first time that's happened, let's do it again." So he and we all did that last line again. :)

 

So yeah, I have no idea what that guy was talking about. But I'm not too upset about this article, since I could care less what critics say, and we got a cool caricature of the guys out of it!

:dozey:

 

Sasha Frere Jones’s excellent (!) article about Coldplay published in the New Yorker (“La Vida No Loca: Coldplay’s expanding gas.”) vindicates my belief that Coldplay is a horrifically mediocre band. Their success defies explanation—until I remember that the median tastes of most people puts them squarely at average. Which is exactly what they are. Average.

 

(OK, a few years ago Chuck Klosterman said that “Coldplay is absolutely the shittiest fucking band I’ve ever heard in my entire fucking life.” Then again, in classic transference befitting a neurotic like Klosterman, he blames them for not getting laid.)

 

However, Jones is in another league of music criticism altogether, and his review of Coldplay’s latest puts the bands “legacy” into perspective. It’s one of pretentious lyricism and vapid, empty pop that has successfully insinuated itself into our collective iPod brain, fooling us into believing whatever Coldplay does to be so significant.

 

Mark my words: in less than a decade, Chris Martin will be scoring pretentious Broadway musicals about global warming. Or (God help us), publishing a book of poems extolling the righteousness of 21st-century veganism. And he will make money hand over fist doing it…

 

http://daugustyn.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/coldplay-vaguely-sucks/

You can't win 'em all, I guess!

 

I gave my spare ticket to a HUGE techie who was ready to nitpick and tell me EVERY last detail of their show that didn't pass muster with him. (He's a good friend and I value his opinion, so I didn't mind the insight.) At the end of the show, he was just blown away! No fault-finding, no nothing. People will be receptive or they won't, and I guess it's pointless to argue with them.

 

Yes, there are technically much better bands out there, but the passion and intensity that make Coldplay such a great live band. (NOTE: I said 'few' not 'none'.)

"Mark my words: in less than a decade, Chris Martin will be scoring pretentious Broadway musicals about global warming. Or (God help us), publishing a book of poems extolling the righteousness of 21st-century veganism. And he will make money hand over fist doing it…"

 

As for this bit, I hope you won't find me vapid and vague if I buy the book and attend the musical...see you all there!:lol:

i can't be bothered reading all that :laugh3: (im still on holiday ;) )

 

can sumone give me the lowdown? :D

"Coldplay+complacent listeners=lame and BO-RING!":cry: (OK, maybe I'm missing the more subtle points, but that pretty much sums it up...If this reviewer's right, Chris may yet get his dream gig of playing in a gay piano bar,lol!)

And why does the writer even have to mention that Chris lost his virginity at 22.What does that have to do with anything.

 

Im sure Chris is sorry that he ever mentioned when he lost his virginity.The writers bring it up at every turn

 

Seconded

 

I'm sure Chris really doesn't actually care but he didn't have a lot of luck with girls when he was younger so it's not the nicest thing to mention about him

 

This guy needs a punch in the face from a la Cobaltie.