ColdplayingfromKansas

Oh I agree with your rock/pop statement, it's just that as far as sound goes, I personally prefer a more rocky sound (for instance, I find One I Love better than Lost! because it has those great rock elements whereas Lost! is more hip-hopish). There's nothing inherently better about rock! I think a really blatant example of this "unfinished" sound is at the end of Adventure of a Lifetime. Like, what, you're just going to tack on a minute of "whoohoos" and call it good? You could have brought back Jonny's riff and done a full-band jam-out (like I thought was going to happen after Will's drums came in at the end of the teaser snippet). Same goes for Up&Up--I still love the song, but there are several choruses in a row where nothing changes. At least bring back the piano for one of them? Build it up from just Chris singing, to the full band, to the whole choir? It's like they recorded the final chorus once and just spliced it in for all of them. Maybe this wouldn't have been as obvious if the live version didn't do all these things better?

I suppose I should clarify that I 100% don't mind if the guys decide to make a pop-inspired record, as long as it's good pop. Of course, I'll pick a rock-inspired album over a pop-inspired one any day of the week, but I realize Coldplay can't be expected to stay cooped up within one genre forever :P The problem I have is that they're being inspired by the low-hanging fruit of pop--the Top 40s--which have never and will never have anything insightful to say other than showing future generations how much we lionize partying culture. I have full confidence that the guys could turn this around and make something truly awesome with it, but they really haven't. Except for Jonny's riff, Adventure of a Lifetime could have been written by any old pop artist; the same goes for half the songs on AHFoD (looking at you, X Marks the Spot). I really hope that if Coldplay continues in this pop vein, they learn that there are a whole lot of people who enjoy "pop" that's outside of the Top 40, or, at the very least, do something that doesn't sound quite so Top 40 itself. Granted, this will all become irrelevant when Coldplay does a 180 and their next album is inspired by Johnny Cash (please let this happen) :P

This sonnnggg No piece of music has ever made me as emotional as the solo Jonny plays at 3:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb_7C1vMpRQ

jfc Will, you're supposed to be the "wise" one Please tell me this is all part of some elaborate joke. Rock is dead? Stargate are brilliant? I can't even comprehend this.

^ Noel is easily one of my favorite people I've never met lol

Butbutbut . . . You guys were so good at rock :(

^ Yeah, I've warmed up to over the years. It's not among my favorite songs off Parachutes, but I appreciate its laid-back atmosphere . . . still probably my least-played off that album though lol

Hmm I recall never really liking Green Eyes. I skipped over High Speed fairly frequently also.

Chinese Sleep Chant :D

I just want a good quality live version of Twisted Logic! *cries*

Wasn't he technically listed as a producer for Viva? I 100% agree though, Coldplay and Jon Hopkins are the two best musical entities I could imagine pairing together (coming from someone who loves both Life in Technicolor and Midnight). If/When they come back for LP8, I want Hopkins on board so they can just do a full-blown ambient/experimental rock album full of songs like CSC and Midnight. Would be a great and unique way to start their new "book."

Okay but Guy's bass in this is literally perfect

Not an opening, but I would argue the 1-2-3 of Viva, Violet Hill, and Strawberry Swing is the best as far as song triads go :P

There are some great lyrics in this album (such as the ones you mentioned), but I think the reason we all focus more on the lackluster ones is because, well, there are a lot more of them :P Chris is on the right track though! There are several lines on AHFoD that are better than anything that was on MX or GS (in my opinion, of course). I'm partial to the "nothing's too broken to find a way back" line in Fun.

Honestly, if they want that performance to go over well, they're going to have to play something other than a mashup of ASFoS, Hymn, and Paradise. A lot of football fans (at least, the ones I interact with) definitely lean more toward the rock side of the spectrum than the pop side. I hope they at least opt to play one of their lesser-known singles like Violet Hill or Clocks (how weird is that, that more people will connect ASFoS to Coldplay than they will Clocks...) just to get that rock punch in, because otherwise Coldplay is gonna get solidified as "just another bland pop band" for the rest of their career.

To be fair, ARoBttH has some of the best songs of Coldplay's career, period. Songs like Politik, GPASUYP, Clocks, The Scientist, and ARoBttH are lyrically brilliant. Although it may not have a theme as cohesive as Viva's, it's hard to ignore a discography like that.

If true love could take the form of a single event, this would be the event <3

Well everyone already knows what album I'm going to pick, haha, but I'll try to make a coherent post explaining my reasoning rather than just fangirling like I normally do: The Songs - The ultimate reason! There are so many songs that manage to strike a perfect balance between rock, pop, and experimental. The lyrics on this album are some of Chris's best (yes, even rivaling ARoBttH in some cases!), and they give us some truly unique twists on the standard "love and loss" themes. Love, loss, life, death, lust, bliss, you name it! When you also consider that we have more songs from this era than any other, you really start to appreciate the sustained quality. The Flow - This is hands-down Coldplay's best-flowing album. The entire thing just feels like one 45-minute song. What's truly spectacular is that if you intersperse the Prospekt's March songs, the flow isn't broken. Bonus points for incorporating one of the album's major themes (the cycle of life and death) into the music itself with the seamless intro/outro of Life in Technicolor and The Escapist. The Performances - Coldplay songs have always been designed to sound phenomenal live. This album has a few truly special songs: Viva la Vida's iconic, earth-shattering chant; the raw anger of Violet Hill's guitars; the way Strawberry Swing floated like a dream over the orchestra of the 2012 Paraolympics; that "oh my god he's still going" note that Chris holds at the end of the LRLRL version of 42. And how could you forget the iconic imagery of the military-esque jackets and Romantic paintings (I'm an art nerd okay)

^^ They need to pull a couple of people from the forum and turn them into a Lyric Police Squad for Chris Any mention of heartbeats or stars and it's getting nixed! :p -- Also, I would pay a truly sickening amount of money to be able to go to a Viva-era concert

^ No big surprises on the US sales--apparently they don't have crap for advertising over here. Went to my local Walmart to pick up a copy and they didn't have a single one, just about six rows of shelves devoted to 25 *rolls eyes*

We see you, Beatles ;)

^ That's been my thinking also! We've gone from this very mature style to a very juvenile one (especially in terms of lyrics. Like, how do you go from writing a song like Don't Panic when you're 19-20 to writing a song like X Marks the Spot when you're in your late 30s??). We're moving backwards! There's something I've been wondering also . . . Coldplay has always been about reinvention. If this is truly the last chapter of their current book, so to speak, what comes next? What new music genre could they draw inspiration from? Will they just settle into a comfortable sound like U2 has done and stop with the wild reinventions altogether? Will they do a throwback album or two in the style of Parachutes or ARoBttH? Will they just continue to get crazier wind up with something that sounds like an Apparatjik album?

There's an acoustic version?!

Umm . . . Up&Up and Birds are kind of not pop? Kaleidoscope? Fun is kind of good pop?

I posted my rankings in the other thread, but I thought it would be interesting to see exactly how this stacks up with my favorite and least favorite Coldplay albums . . . also so you all can see how much of a crazy Viva fangirl I am lol. For further perspective 5/10 is the cutoff for what I consider to be a "good" song; 7/10 and up are prone to be played on repeat to death