Monday, June 16, 2008

Review: Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008)

A wise man once said: "Opinions are like assholes..." Because they stink? Because everyone has one? Maybe both, but either way it's true. And never has it been more true than when those opinions pertain to one of the most polarizing bands around, Coldplay.

Ask anyone between the ages of 10 and 30, and they undoubtedly have some feelings on the subject. "I don't love them, but their early stuff was OK," or "I think Chris Martin is a pansy who sings about his feelings too much," or "I think Coldplay is great because they're like Radiohead without scaring me" are all common responses, though I agree with none of them.

For almost a year, Coldplay has been touting their fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, aka - Viva la Vida, as a major "change in direction" from their earlier work. Though the claim has been pretentiously contested by the underground media (see: Pitchfork's bitter review), it seems futile to argue with the band's own motivations. Who are we to argue with Chris Martin when he says the album is a departure? Rolling Stone superficially noted the album's "darker" and "more interesting" nature (whatever that means), and I have to agree more with our mainstream friends at RS. Amidst all their name-dropping and hyper-critical-mainstream-hating, Pitchfork has forgotten one important thing: the album is different from anything Coldplay has done before. They aren't claiming to have invented a new genre or even pushing an envelope. Simply put, Coldplay set out to follow up 2005's X&Y with something that would sound vastly different from its predecessors. And, in the best possible way, they did it beautifully.

Like Radiohead's In Rainbows, Viva la Vida blends electronics and high production quality with minimalist ideals, which is impressive coming from a band that had previously shown movement in the opposite direction. The crowdedness of X&Y and A Rush of Blood to the Head is a thing of the past, and it has been replaced with dissonance ("42"), unusual percussion ("Violet Hill"), and unique instrumentation ("Yes/Chinese Sleep Chant"). Martin has admittedly opted to take it easy on the falsetto this time around, a humble shift for a man who clearly enjoys pushing his voice as high as it can go, and the change works greatly to the band's advantage that the illustrious singer's lower register lends itself well to the smoother, finely crafted songs on Viva la Vida.

More subtly, though, Coldplay has parted ways with the structures that held them back in the past. No more are the ABABCBs (most notably "Yellow" and "Clocks"), but instead lengthy epics that flow nicely into one another. Co-title track "Death and All His Friends" starts as a piano ballad, but at about 2:00 it elevates to trademark Coldplay piano-guitar matchups (in 7/8 time, no less), climaxes as 3:30, and electronically outros with a reprise of the album's intro, "Life in Technicolor." If the album were on repeat, it would be completely unclear where it ends and where it begins, and this is just the sort of thing that is so different and progressive when compared to the trilogy of popfests that constituted Coldplay's first three albums.

Not every song is a revolution in Coldplay's musicmaking career, but they all work so well together it's hard to believe that Viva la Vida isn't a concept album. For example, "Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love" is a weak point because, while it sticks to the unstructured-epic criteria (soaring rock tune turns piano ballad), the next track is the instrumentally exciting (but vocally boring) "Yes/Chinese Sleep Chant," which wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable without a more X&Yish Coldplay song to lead into it.

What Coldplay has admirably done is to ensure the comfort and security of a pop-driven fanbase, while at the same time venturing into new territory. It's not so far "out there" as to alienate anyone, but it is enough of the intended departure to win over some of the naysaying skeptics that inevitably doubt anything that sells more than 100 copies upon its independent release.

I've been on the bandwagon since Parachutes, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I don't know who first compared Coldplay to Radiohead and U2 -- as if the two are themselves similar in any way -- and made the decision that we're only allowed to like one or the other, but I implore everyone who has written Coldplay off to listen to Viva la Vida and give them the chance that they changed for. As Martin sings in "Death and All His Friends," Coldplay has long dreamed of making an escape from the pigeonhole that they have been stuck in for almost a decade. Now that they've moved past their self-termed Trilogy, and in truly grand fashion, we should all do the same.