brotherbeck

I can't lie, The Quietus review made me laugh really hard even though I don't agree with what the writer is saying about either the album or the band. The review of GS on Drowned in Sound though pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about the album, though I am obviously a bigger fan of the band in general than the writer is. This album, and I guess people's reactions to Coldplay as a band in general, remind me a lot of a movie I just watched - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It's a movie that was absolutely torn to shreds by the press and reviewers. From the way they mercilessly tore it and Ben Stiller apart I would have thought it was one of the worst movies ever made. I watched it and actually enjoyed it a lot. It's a well made sincere little movie - little in the sense of the story it tells, not little when it comes to budget and special effects - that just tells a story about a guy learning a life lesson. You could tell the people making it put some real thought into it, something that cannot be said for many of the movies churned out by the modern film industry. Is it a modern cinematic masterpiece? No. Can you tell Ben Stiller might have been trying just a little bit too hard for some serious critical acclaim / awards recognition? Absolutely, but it's still a really good movie. It also struck me as earnest and sincere - two things a lot of people love to mock as uncool. Anyone who makes art and releases it is putting themselves and their work out there. Other people are going to judge it and you. When you've already been very commercially and critically successful, people are twice as likely to be ready to try to take you down, it's just human nature. People can be petty and jealous. I think it takes guts to put something out there and not hide behind irony or not taking yourself too seriously - especially when tackling something so personal as the dissolution of a marriage in such a straight forward manner. Plus, these guys are hard workers. I do think a song like ASFOS was put on the album strictly to be a big radio hit and drive up sales - but a lot of other bands, either through lack of talent or laziness, would just do that and surround that song and maybe one other good one with a bunch of forgettable filler. I think their relationship to ASFOS is one of grudging appeasement of the record company suits, like "yeah alright, we'll put one like that on there for you" - where other band's one big radio hit is really the best that they can do in a lot of cases.

1. Always In My Head 2. Magic 3. Ink 4. True Love 5. O (Part 2/Reprise) 6. Another's Arms 7. All Your Friends 8. Oceans [Edited to around 3:55] 9. Ghost Story 10. O I respect Midnight but I just don't enjoy it. I've tried many, many times and I just can't get into it. It's just not the kind of music I like at all. But I completely give them props for trying new things and I definitely think it has an interesting and cool sound. I would honestly rather just pretend ASFOS didn't exist at all. In my opinion it is tied with Princess of China as the worst thing they have ever released. I'm fine with them doing these types of songs and collaborations with other popular artists, I just don't think they belong on the albums proper. They should be one-off singles or bonus tracks. These four guys are incredibly talented people, they really don't need help from Rihanna or Aviici to make good music. When I listen to a Coldplay album I want to hear them.

I've listened to the album several times now. My main criticism is that "A Sky Full of Stars" is on it and "All Your Friends" and "Ghost Story" are not. ASFOS sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the songs. I honestly believe the record company wouldn't let the band release an album without at least one upbeat, radio-friendly hit on it. The part that kills me is that it is *almost* a great song. The production by Aviici completely kills it. As it stands now it sounds like an okay dance remix of a really good Coldplay song. I wish the guys just produced and recorded the song by themselves. I'll hold out hope that an alternate mix exists and may someday see the light of day, otherwise I think the album works much better without it. As others have pointed out, even if you like the song, it really seems out of place on the album and absolutely obliterates the flow. "Ghost Story" is such a great mix of the old and the new Coldplay sound, and it is just such a great song, that I cannot believe it's not on the album proper and is instead relegated to a mere bonus track. This to me is the standout track out of all of these songs so far, hands down. That same idea of a great mix of the old and new sound goes for "All Your Friends". It works in all of the newer electronic sounds that the band is working with, but I can still hear the band themselves in the song, something I can't say for a song like "Another's Arms". AA to me is the song most let down by the production / recording techniques of this era. I could see it being pretty great if it was recorded as the band actually playing their instruments so they could inject some life into it and maybe bring some emotion, even if it's negative emotion and heartbreak. I'm sure it was completely intentional to have it sound so cold and dead, but it's also less than stellar lyrically and just a pretty boring song overall. It needed to be more compelling and interesting. If you swap out ASFOS for GS I think you get the same uplifting release at the same point in the album but in a much more organic way. Before listening to the album in it's entirety I really thought I was going to absolutely hate the more electronic sound, but with the exception of ASFOS and AA they won me over. It's a pretty great album chronicling a very emotional and difficult time in someone's life. If ASFOS and AA were a little more acoustic or 'human-beings-playing-instruments' sounding I would be declaring Ghost Stories an absolute classic.