If their goal was to put a smile on my face while not sounding like all the other bands trying to sound like them, then mission accomplished! If anything, it sprinkles a new sense of life into their old formula of hammering a memorable piano riff into your head for the duration of a song and calling it a hit (which wasn’t always bad to begin with – “Clocks” never got unstuck from my brain and I ain’t complaining). Critics have already lambasted Coldplay for this shift in their sound, but I don’t think it’s a terrible move – just one that requires a bit of adjusting. I think that puts the final nail in the “alternative” coffin, right there.) For the most part it’s synthpop, with the occasional break for an ambient interlude (of the mostly pointless variety, I’m afraid) or a jangly acoustic track for old times’ sake (just a little slicker). (They did a duet with freaking Rihanna, after all. Mylo only briefly strays into rock-oriented territory, about as much as it strays into R&B territory, which is a new sound for Coldplay that I’m estimating won’t be too popular with longtime fans.
Coldplay album flow chart full#
But then in others I hear Jonny Buckland‘s guitar riffs ringing out more confidently than they perhaps ever have, and Will Champion‘s drums fully embracing the glory of the sixteenth note, and I realize that the full band’s still hard at work, just without trying to fool you into thinking this is some gritty, subversive form of rock music.
At times I almost wonder if Eno was more a part of the band than the other three guys who are actually in the band. With Brian Eno once again at the helm, making liberal use of his synthesized soundscapes, it’s tempting to claim that Mylo is the album X&Y was too afraid to be. Certainly Coldplay’s done these things, but here they’ve ditched a lot of the restraint and the weighty slow tempos that served to belabor the point on some of their less remarkable tracks from albums past. At times it seems to appeal to our most base instincts of wanting music to have a catchy beat and a cheery melody, and perhaps some vaguely uplifting sentiments. Mylo Xyloto (named after the randomness of the universe, if you believe one version of Chris Martin’s explanation for it) is a colorful, peppy little album, with the fully transparent concept of a love story designed to have a happy ending. At some point, they must have gotten tired of claiming to be anything out-of-left-field or highbrow artistic, because their newest album finally finds them firmly embracing their status as a mega-hit pop band and not apologizing for it. They got sued for hitting a little too close to home on ideas they’d (perhaps subconsciously) borrowed from other musicians. They got reamed by the press for that attitude more than for the music, I sometimes suspect. Despite that, something about them was still a tad pretentious, looking up to their heroes in bands like U2 and trying to claim a stature just as big and world-dominating.
Coldplay album flow chart how to#
Coldplay finally wised up and learned how to subvert a lot of their own tropes on their fascinating fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All Its Friends, which for me was the first album that realized their true potential. That album and the somewhat misguided follow-up X&Y had its experiments, but for the most part they veered toward a safe, plodding piano sound that they did reasonably well but that grew tired after several iterations and seemingly every other rock band with a pianist front and center trying to imitate it. It only took two albums for the band to discover stadium-sized bombast and plant themselves into the center of pop culture’s collective consciousness with A Rush of Blood to the Head a few years later. I guess not all “alternative” music has to sound grungy, but I certainly wouldn’t have used the label on anything that genteel. It was shy, mostly acoustic and understated, much more Britpop or folk than rock. I enjoyed that album for being something a little different, at least in relation to most of what was in my music collection at the time.
Shoot, I’ve considered it ridiculous to call them “alternative” every since they won the Alternative Grammy for their debut album Parachutes. After noting the numerous accolades and megaton album sales that Coldplay had been pulling, he quipped, “At what point can we stop calling you ‘alternative’?” Obviously, Colbert was far from the first to make this observation, but it got a chuckle from the band’s lovably goofy lead singer, as if to say he’s well aware of the band’s status as the most mainstream of rock bands. Satirical pundit Stephen Colbert made a rather witty observation not too long ago when he interviewed Chris Martin. In Brief: It’s too poppy for a lot of critics, and sometimes the cliches bug me, but I’ll admit to loving the bright colors that Coldplay uses to spray paint every wall.
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