Coldplay's 'new' direction...

Geir, have you heard much Billy Joel? He's kind of like Coldplay without all the falsetto delay-drenched guitar. You'd like him! Very melodic.

Coldplay write much better songs than Billy Joel.

Exactly. A lot of it comes across as deliberate, and that alone makes it difficult to invest emotionally in their music. If all of their songs were instrumental, it may be a completely different story.

I like my music without too many emotions. Skills over emotions is always an advantage.

can we ban this dude after eight years of posting in circles?

ah, our first "can we PLEASE fucking ban geir hongro??" of the post-server meltdown era

I'm actually kinda with Geir on this one. I don't pay any attention to Coldplay's lyrics. Couldn't recite a single line from one of their songs with a gun to my head. I like the melodies and their general instrumental palette. That said, this new album is a letdown because the band has borrowed a whole bunch of bad sonic ideas from Martin's collaborations with Jay-Z and Kanye West - not just the roping in of Rihanna for a totally pointless duet, but the shitty synths-and-strings arrangements and huge overbearing beats on multiple tracks. The best lyrics in the world couldn't salvage these tracks.

I think Martin's a very unsophisticated songwriter and melodicist.

I dunno, he is the first leader of an arena pop-rock band to watch The Wire and be inspired to write a song about taking crack in the inner-city ("Charlie Brown").

Anyways, I like this album a lot, but I'm treating it as anthemic, silly pop-rock. Better than the last Radiohead record I reckon.

That said, there's a couple of duds, and it's not as strong as Viva La Vida.

http://www.nme.com/news/coldplay/59938

The thing with Coldplay is, they have developed stylistically. Actually they have broken new musical and stylistic ground with each album.

However, while they are changing their style, there is one element they are not willing to get rid of and that is the anthemic choruses. Which of course means people who are against the entire idea of anthemic choruses to begin with will always blame them of being conservative. Because they don't want to get rid of that one element that those critics hate and Coldplay's fans love.

You've nailed it there, Geir. Our antipathy is entirely down to their anthemic choruses.

Somedays I think Geir is Herman Cain

Actually they have broken new musical and stylistic ground with each album.

pretty dull

Coldplay write much better songs than Billy Joel.

look i hate bill joel as a person as much as anyone but this is a ridiculous statement since everything that guy wrote up until about 1987 was pretty great pop rock songwriting.

and every song on the last three coldplay albums sounds like the same song.

billy joel should impregnate gwyneth paltrow

I like the new album, think its probably the strongest set of songs they've done yet. The lyrics are still fairly awful, nothing but easy rhymes and platitudes, but sonically I think it sounds pretty interesting. Ian Cohen's Pitchfork review does a pretty good job of hinting at what is good about it.

Ian Cohen's Pitchfork review

whoa – I almost coughed out my oatmeal.

The new album is def something new, in that they can no longer be called a "guitar band". They have changed their sound considerably with every album since their debut.

And the songs? No, they don't sound the same, but they still have anthemic choruses. Which is good because that is why those of us who love them love them. The world needs songs with anthemic choruses that can go into the cultural heritage of being sung as football chants and in classrooms all over the Western world.

My only beef with the new album is that the production/mixing/mastering is a bit too loud. This is nothing new regarding Coldplay (X&Y was also too loud/too heavily compressed), but I thought Brian Eno would know better.

http://www.innovationedge08.co.uk/img/speakers/bob-geldof.jpg

The world needs songs with anthemic choruses that can go into the cultural heritage of being sung as football chants and in classrooms all over the Western world.

Any football fans attempting to adapt Coldplay songs for the terraces would be laughed out of the stadium, Geir.

Norwich fans are missing a trick

NB Just because I like the new album a bit doesn't mean I'm on Geir's crazy train there.

Classrooms all over the Western world full of children singing anthemic songs is a pretty amazing image tbh.

In 2009 they were pledging allegiance to Obama.

xpost Brian Eno did not produce the new record.

Right, he just provided "Enoxification", per the liner notes.

He enosulfied the tracks.

It was his idea to hire Rihanna.

I think Brian Eno should produce Rihanna.

And then he should produce Katy Perry. Get Dr. Luke and Max Martin on the next Coldplay and U2.

Eno's not averse to loud records anyway. He's a sound manipulator, not an audiophile. He's got little interest in pure fidelity, his music just tends to sound interesting.

I'd love to spend just, like, a single day in Geirworld. It must be fascinating to be that insane.

You know how you do that thing where you look at WAV files in Audacity before deciding if you want to listen to a record? I'd imagine it's a bit like that.

Ha, you know I actually only do that once in a blue moon, right?

Yeah sorry, you kind of left the goal open for that one.

Classrooms all over the Western world full of children singing anthemic songs is a pretty amazing image tbh.

― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Wednesday, October 26, 2011 1:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

"Schoooooooooooool's out.. for... SUM-MAH!"

Last time I did it was with Mylo Xlyoto! It doesn't actually look all that bad, and I thought it sounded OK too.

Ha, you know I actually only do that once in a blue full moon, right?

I finally got around to listening to Mylo Xyloto in full yesterday. Putting aside my feelings towards the bands lead singer/lyricist for one moment, I found that the production of the record, as skilled as it is, saps the energy from tracks like 'Hurts Like Heaven' and 'Charlie Brown'. When I watched them play these songs live on the Glastonbury coverage, they seemed to have far more of an urgency to them than what is displayed on the record. Also, if they were going for a pop album this time around, and the big singles that go with such a thing: they've failed miserably. 'Paradise' and 'Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall' are both terrible songs and don't hold a candle to ANY single that Coldplay have released prior to this album. There's a lot of talk about "anthemic choruses" in this thread, but over the course of the album I didn't hear very many.

Bar the opening salvo of 'Mylo Xyloto/Hurts Like Heaven', which admittedly begins the album quite well, the track sequencing of this album is all over the place and doesn't seem to make any sense to me at all, and even though there are 'interlude' tracks on this album in the form of instrumentals (obviously placed there to give the album flow and continuity), it still feels like a mixed bag of tracks just thrown at the wall rather than a whole piece. The fact that I can't discern exactly what the 'concept' of this album is meant to be without referring to interviews with the band speaks volumes - the record should stand alone and succeed without explanation. This album doesn't.

I came away from the 'Mylo Xyloto' experience feeling like I'd listened to a whole slick load of nothing. Emptiness masquerading as something far more substantial, all surface and no depth - and I struggled to find a keeper on this record: the 'Yellow'/'Clocks'/'Fix You'/'Viva La Vida' of this record just ain't there.

Thanks for writing that. That's why I haven't listened to this yet, despite being a relative fan. Those first two singles were stinkers, which to me was a big red flag.

I suppose of all the tracks, 'Hurts Like Heaven' seems like the most obvious "single", but while it opens the album well, even that seems to pale in comparison to some of Coldplay's most well-known and popular singles! 'Charlie Brown' has the trademark 'custom built for stadiums' ringing guitar lick, but I'm not convinced it's in any way a good song.

If they release the Rihanna duet ('Princess Of China') as a single, it won't surprise me at all.

They already have!

They already have!

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Wednesday, October 26, 2011 4:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Oh, so they have!! That figures, then! They've had their 'Radiohead moment', then their 'U2 moment', and now they're having their 'hooking in the pop kids moment'. I suppose entire essays on Coldplay's "populist" and "careerist" tendencies have already been written in abundance - but if we were to overlook that, the big problem with their attempts to 'hook in the pop kids' is that, perversely, they don't seem to have written many, if any, good pop songs this time around.

Very good, nuanced Pitchfork review. Much harder for a critic to praise them than to kick them.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/reviews/albums/15953-mylo-xyloto/

Read an interview with Martin in EW that claimed initial sessions with Eno went in a more subtle, acoustic direction, until they were all, fuck it, we like being rich and famous and stadium filling. Too bad. Maybe we would have gotten their "Laid" (the album) moment.

Re: THAT pitchfork review.

While Coldplay will always be more enjoyable than groundbreaking and their artistic advances seen as smart troubleshooting than divine intervention, Mylo Xyloto works because the band once again manages to sound like Coldplay without sounding like any of their previous LPs, maintaining their stadium-spanning grandeur while subtly challenging preconceptions.

I'll readily admit that the album doesn't sound like any other Coldplay album, even if it does sound like a Coldplay record. But to say that's the primary reason why an album 'works' is just bizarre as far as I'm concerned, not to mention looking at the album in a very simplistic way. Is the material any good? Does the song sequencing work?

When you're at Coldplay's level, pop acts are your competition and Mylo places itself in a lineage of ultra-mainstream rock records spanning from Born in the U.S.A. to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-- swaddled in synths and gilded by state-of-the-art production, but never too off-putting if you still insist that "real music" is played by men with guitars.

Yes, a fair point in a way. But is the material as good as that of 'Born In The USA'? Will it resonate like that album? Will it be seen as a 'classic' years down the line in the same way as 'Born In The USA'? I mean, I'm not extremely hopeful on either count, but y'know, these are the questions that immediately come to mind when I read something like this...

They don't want to completely do away with Coldplay qua Coldplay-- they're still four normal-looking guys who introduced themselves with frail post-The Bends Britrock like "Yellow" and "Trouble". But they continually ask, why limit themselves to that?

Of course. Why limit themselves to that. Is the material any good? Have they written enough great 'pop' songs to justify making a shiny 'pop' album?

While there's no shortage of venomous carping at Coldplay's expense, I've never heard anyone complain about Jon Buckland's guitar tone or the rhythm section not being up to snuff. All sonic tinkering aside, Martin is still a full-time target serving as the perfect avatar for Coldplay, undeniably well-meaning, painfully earnest, and lord, does he try. When Martin tells you that Mylo Xyloto is a conceptual love story inspired by the White Rose movement and The Wire, don't you at least believe that he believes it?

The reason Martin is still a full-time target is because he's undoubtedly the personality and the focal point of the band? Of course I believe that he believes it. The problem is that I don't. He fails to convince ME.

the innocence lost on the Muse-like stargazer "Charlie Brown"

Christ, no. People can say what they like about Muse (and they undoubtedly have), but I couldn't ever see Matt Bellamy singing a lyric like "took a car downtown where the lost boys meet", which is so Springsteen-like it hurts, and is so unconvincing coming from an upper-middle class son of an accountant from Devon.

"coming from an upper-middle class son of an accountant from Devon."

Can we stop doing this? Especially when you invoke Springsteen, you have to allow songwriters to inhabit characters from time to time.

Not that I want to defend Martin's lyrics at all, but, I hate when people do this.

you have to allow songwriters to inhabit characters from time to time.

True. But I don't feel this particular songwriter is any good at it!