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CD Review:
X&Y, Coldplay
X & Y
1. Square One
2. What If?
3. White Shadows
4. Fix You
5. Talk
6. X&Y
7. Speed Of Sound
8. A Message
9. Low
10. Hardest Part
11. Swallowed In The Sea
12. Twisted Logic
13. Till Kingdom Come (Bonus)
THE LOWDOWN
I took a class last semester that dealt with the history of musical styles in North America (or so the syllabus read, although I should have known that "North America" is basically the equivalent of "U.S. only"). The class essentially began with folk and spiritual styles, and by the second last paper, we had moved on to the Beatles and the British invasion. It can be said that no self-serving music retrospective is complete without a discussion on the Beatles. We listened to a couple of their songs in class, and had a lengthy discussion on their masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. My previous experience with the album was stopped short at "Yellow Submarine," a song I easily learned in the fourth grade because of its repetitive, child-like lyrics (ditto for "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"). We read varying essays on the value of the Beatles' music, as well as its social and cultural implications. Some writers dismissed them as overrated, while others expounded their "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" as a work of genius.
To be honest, I didn't get the Beatles. "Love Me Do," one of their hits, was a simple song that didn't warrant much fanfare. In fact, its repetitive lyrics and straightforward melody would be easily remade as a thuggish Ja Rule song with a catchy Ashanti hook. Similarly, "Help!," "Can't Buy Me Love," and others were okay songs in every meaning of the word. Not exactly something to jump up and down for, at least for me. I'd much rather take the Beatles in their individual efforts than as a group.
There was something in the class' readings that I did get, and that was the hype. The Beatles were loved by many and all, and the almost cartoonish black and white footage of young girls fainting at the mere mention of them doesn't seem so far-fetched if you've lived through the boy-band craze of the early 90's.
Which brings me to Coldplay, another band that I don't get. Since their 2000 mainstream release, Parachutes, Coldplay is the band to beat. They released their first single, "Yellow," and it was over. Similarly, their 2002 A Rush of Blood to the Head was received by welcoming arms. Critics loved them; fans dug their deep lyrics and safe melodies. By the time X&Y was released, everyone had Coldplay fever. In fact, my boss ran out in the middle of the workday and grabbed himself a copy in its initial release date. His frantic mad dash to the local HMV reminded me of anecdotal accounts of Beatle love. Once he had his hands on this copy, he played it non-stop for five hours straight. I couldn't make out most of the songs, sitting as I do very far away from the CD player, but they pretty much sounded like "Yellow" to me. I didn't say so for the fear of being fired, but the CD was lulling me into a comatose state (to be fair, it could also be the work I was doing that day). Of course, dismissing it based on a muffled account isn't very kosher of me, so after a week hiatus from Chris Martin's eerily high-pitched voice, I listened to X&Y.
It's very clear that Coldplay works as a band. Each member (and you knew there were other people in the band besides Chris Martin, no?) is obviously a master of his craft, and their live shows don't suck. Guy Berryman (bass guitar), Johnny Buckland (lead guitar), Will Champion (drums), and Martin (guitar, piano, vocals - he could very well be a one-man band at this point) got together during their first week of college, and have been working together ever since. There is no missing band member who quit before they got their big break; no replaced drummer or fired guitarist (except, perhaps, for the fact that Champion switched from guitar to drums to garner a spot in the band). In fact, it seems that Coldplay has no band politics at all, which makes them a highly approachable and down-to-earth band when compared to the hijinks of Jane's Addiction or Guns N'Roses.
But even if Coldplay wanted to, they will never be featured on a VH1 Behind the Music special. Judging from their music alone, they're simply incapable of it. You can kind of picture a big fight among the band, and Martin writing a deep song about it that reunites everyone in a teary reunion. And then they go to the den to play with Apple, Martin's daughter.
The first single off of X&Y, Speed of Sound, has been played so much in the past month that I don't want to talk about it anymore. Fix You, which is probably going to be the band's second single, is a nice song about failed relationships (not that any songs about failed relationships can truly be "nice," but at least it's pleasing to the ears). It reminds me a lot of "The Scientist," Coldplay's only song that I truly enjoy. While I really dislike repetitiveness in an artist's repertoire, it's way better than reminding me of "Clocks," a song that I grew to hate solely because it was everywhere and yet I still can't tell you what it's about. In Fix You, Chris Martin pulls out his trademark falsetto as he sings, "Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones. And I will try to fix you." Can someone tell me what this man is talking about? Do bones even burn?
In fact, most of X&Y's lyrics are poetic ambiguities (poignant, yes, but still ambiguously frustrating) that cater to the adult version of angst. Coldplay is probably the most quoted band in history, and yet their lyrics don't really convey much beyond vague imagery and convoluted emotion. This works beautifully with Martin's evocatively striking voice and the band's soft melodies, but it doesn't do much to advance the band from where they started. The appeal of Coldplay lies in their lyrics. They are clever, yes, and much better than the muck that is currently playing on our local radio stations. But it's akin to looking at a deceptively deep pond, and being disappointed when finding that once you immerse yourself, it's actually quite shallow.
Now, I'm not saying that Coldplay should be so easily dismissed because I don't get their lyrics. There are plenty of songs that I don't really understand but still enjoy, and I'm not exactly a literary critic that can dissect prose as well as those who actually do this for a living. The feeling and emotions that one Coldplay song can evoke is much more than a straightforward ballad, like Britney Spears' "Everytime," could ever hope to do. On the other hand, I feel cheated when I constantly hear Martin crooning and oohing at me to cry or break down, just because he likes singing about it. As far as poetry goes, it's lovely. I'm just not sure that you could take it and pack it into a 13-track CD and have the same punch.
In X&Y, the themes of "fixing" yourself (or others) (Fix You, X&Y), feeling "lost," (Square One, Talk, Swallowed in the Sea), coming "undone" (Square One, The Hardest Part), and being "broken" (X&Y) emerge as the frontrunners. Just hearing these affecting words make me feel melancholy and sad. Except, didn't this already happen when I heard A Rush of Blood to the Head?
X&Y, the title track, is another noteworthy song. It's slow (editor's note: so are about 75% of the songs, and even when I might call a song "fast," trust me, it's still slow), relaxed, and seems like a continuation of Fix You (for instance: "when something is broken and you try to fix it, trying to repair it, any way you can," Martin sings at one point). The song grew on me, and continues to grow with each repeated listen. You can also say this of What If?. As Martin says of the song, "The happier you are, the more you have to lose." This love song about broken hearts and taking chances prominently features Martin's piano-playing skills, and what fine ones they are. The song starts off on a sad note, but as the lyrics grow more hopeful, the band jumps in for a glorious crescendo (when I say "glorious," it's all relative).
White Shadows, clocking in at 5:28, is the CD's longest track. This time, the electric guitar is the instrument of choice. This song, coupled with Square One, Low, The Hardest Part (which sounds a little bit like it could have been penned by a post-Beatles, pre-gypped-by-Michael-Jackson Paul McCartney), and Twisted Logic, might be the most frantic songs on the album. In fact, Twisted Logic, which welcomes the band back for Buckland's guitar solo, is described as the "angriest" song on X&Y. I'm sorry, but I think I've heard angrier being done by Hilary Duff. If Coldplay was angry, they masked it well. A Message may be the most straightforward song here, and probably one of the weakest. It's, well, a message of…love. Martin might do angst and despair well, but declarations of love are not his forte. Perhaps Gwyneth persuaded him write a cheerier song to include in the album.
Square One is about desolation and finding ground in such a messed up world. "It doesn't matter who you are," Martin says, repeatedly drilling this sentiment into our already paltry existence as the melody alternates from subdued to frenetic. But Martin isn't rubbing it in, he's commiserating with us - even as his career has catapulted him into the territory of mattering to others. And then he asks, "Is there anybody out there who is lost and hurt and lonely too, but they're bleeding all your colours into one, and if you come undone as if you'd been run through some catapult, it fired you," and I become obsessed with trying to figure out what he's saying. This could be some shoddy transcribing on my part, but it still doesn't clear up the bleeding of colours or being strapped to a metaphoric catapult. Swallowed in the Sea has a certain nursery rhyme feel to it, and becomes more enjoyable once it picks up after the first verse. The harmony doesn't quite agree with the song's somber subject matter (coming to terms with death), but it works.
To end this review, I'd like to quote someone whose sentiments I share but who says it way better than me: prolific media critic Chuck Klosterman in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (slightly edited from its original context because Klosterman swears up a storm):
"…Coldplay, a British pop group whose success derives from their ability to write melodramatic alt-rock songs about fake love. It does not matter that Coldplay is absolutely the shittiest fucking band I've ever heard in my entire fucking life [his attitude, not mine; I could easily name twenty bands who fit this statement better]…none of that matters. What matters is that Coldplay manufactures fake love as frenetically as the Ford Motor Company manufactures Mustangs…[Martin] isn't even making sense. He's pouring fabricated emotions over four gloomy guitar chords, and it ends up sounding like love. And what does that mean? [I think that's the rhetorical question I'm trying to answer after hearing X&Y.]"Although I admire and covet even half of the musical prowess that Coldplay possesses, I still can't fully grasp why the band is so revered. I read the glowing reviews, and I was disappointed to find that I didn't agree, as much as I really wanted to. Might this be Coldplay's White Album, as some have suggested? I think John Lennon is rolling in his grave. ¤ C.Ho.
X&Y:
(out of 5)
X&Y (IF I WERE GOING THROUGH A HEART WRENCHING BREAK-UP AND WERE DRUNK):
