PART ONE: the story so far...
I’ll nail my colours to the mast about Coldplay now: I like them, but I’m not a fan. I don’t analyse their songs and collect their b-sides, but I have all their albums and will defend them against naysayers who see them as a bland coffee-table band with nothing to say. I thought their first two albums were good but I felt frustrated that they petered out after the first half (which isn’t to say the second side featured bad songs, it’s just the energy and vigour seemed to vanish) and their third album was wholesomely consistent and stronger but suffered a rather unfair backlash by the music press after it’s initially successful release. What I liked about Coldplay during this first-three-album period was that, although they were indeed “soft” and saccharine in places, there was still an edge and ingenuity to their musicality which I found very engrossing. Like an auteur film director they didn't always produce wholly satisfying features but their skill with framing and composition always beckoned my interest. But by their fourth album something had changed, they started introducing concepts and themes and characters into their music and turning their live shows into fancy dress parties with extravagant colour schemes and faux military garb… all the warning signs of a loss of inspiration and the introduction of gimmicks. Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends took what I liked about Coldplay and inverted it: their writing had finally become experimental and edgy and their musicality had turned soft.
What could have been accused of being a gimmick on Viva La Vida has been returned to on Mylo Xyloto with admirable abandon and the band have now fully blossomed from shy, angst ridden boys into gregarious men of the world who’s ideological and musical leanings have begun to grow more world-weary…
NEXT: the album...
