Coldplay: Day 16

Alright I'm zooming ahead at light speed. In May 2008, Coldplay began releasing music for their fourth studio album, Viva la Vida or Death and All his Friends.

Coldplay on tour

Before this though they did release a bunch of songs to finish up the X&Y album cycle.

Fix You was released as a single in September 2005, followed by Talk in December, and The Hardest Part in April 2006.

In my unimportant opinion, those were good single choices. The Hardest Part is the only "new" song on X&Y that I highlighted as one I would return to and the other two are two of the highlights on the album. They also released a fair bit of extra songs with the B-sides as well as other assorted music.

Three interesting songs they released were a set of remixes of the song Talk. These remixes weren't done in a typical style where they take the regular structure and add different beats or change the genre, instead they are these long (9+ minute) instrumental breakdowns where the main motif of the song and some of the lyrics are preserved, but the rest of it is just sort of instrumental freestyling.

Talk - Junkie XL Remix

Talk (Thin White Duke Mix)

The Junkie XL Remix is actually a remix done in the genre called Progressive House. That's a term I've heard before, but I'm unfamiliar with what it actually means. It turns out, "house" music is basically a type of dance music where the kick drum (or electronic equivalent) is hit on every beat. This creates a driving rhythm that never lets up. House music is pretty instantly recognizable as a type of music that's played in clubs. Progressive House is a subgenre of house music that began in underground settings as variants on house music (1). The word "progressive," in the musical sense, refers simply to music that "attempts to expand on existing stylistic boundaries associated with certain genres of music." (2) Progressive house in particular put more of a focus on melody than the house music that came before it. You can hear in the Junkie XL Remix the driving beat, but also the prominence given to the signature melodic motif of Talk.

I've only done a small summary of Progressive house music here, from what I've seen from researching this little bit, the genre itself is a bit too wide and diverse to give a full breakdown of what it is. The genre has evolved and split over its ~3 decades of existence with some variants becoming softer, ethereal, or cinematic, while others evolved into the very recognizable festival sounds of artists like Avicii or Swedish House Mafia (think Don't You Worry Child) (3). There's an interesting video where the creator of this song, Junkie XL, actually breaks down this remix (Coldplay - Talk (Junkie XL Remix, 2005) #JXLOneTake) and talks about some aspects of both the song and the surrounding milieu at the time he created it.

I liked all three of the remixes, but the only other one I'll highlight is the Thin White Duke Mix, it has a cool techno, electronica style which reminds me of the Tron: Legacy soundtrack.

After almost two years off, Coldplay returned in May 2008 with the single Violet Hill. This is actually one of my oldest liked Coldplay songs. I also associate this one with my older brother because I remember him listening to it way back in like 2011 or something. This is a really cool song. Tough and driving, a little bit dark, a little bit heavy. The signature guitar riff digs down into the ground while Chris Martin's vocals consistently return to one note that he yells out over and over again over wordy lyrics. To be honest, I never knew what this song was saying outside of a few of the lines because it's pretty difficult to make out some of the words he's saying. Turns out though, Violet Hill is a fairly political song that references war, Fox News (seriously), societal elites, and religion, ending up as a sort of allegory on the modern day through the eyes of a soldier sent to war who laments being a pawn and wishes he had had someone who loved him enough to stop him from leaving. A pretty cool song honestly.

It has been referred to as the first anti-war song from the band (4), and I would say it's fairly explicit in its left-of-center politics, which is definitely another new thing that is introduced here. Coldplay had never really touched on political things outside of vague references before. That being said though, the politics still feel very broad-based, more evoking a feeling than taking specific stances. In this case (and in the case of the whole album as we'll see), a feeling of revolution.

One last thing on the song, although I do think it's a pretty cool song, lyrically and musically, I think Coldplay's somewhat awkward lyricism can still be seen here. I'm not sure I can really explain it, but lines like "When the future's architectured," "And the fox became God," and "Priests clutched onto Bibles / hollowed out to fit their rifles," sound just a little bit corny. And with the priests line it feels like they found a cool rhyme with a cool idea, but it just makes you pause for a second when you read it because a rifle can absolutely not fit inside a Bible. Regardless, not really complaining, just noticing that's how it made me feel.

One version of the physical release of Violet Hill included the song A Spell a Rebel Yell as a B-side. It's pretty obvious at this point, the rebellion and revolution theme, and A Spell a Rebel Yell really just feels like a companion piece to Violet Hill. It literally has the lines "Soldier come home to me / You've been away from me for so long / All I want in this world / ... / Is for you to come home." Short, with just a few other lyrics than the one's I wrote there, I think this song is meant to be just that rebel yell. It also has the first look of the bright, melodic style that I believe characterizes a lot of the songs on Viva la Vida. It's funny, I think most bands would probably keep the angry, hard sound from Violet Hill on more songs if they were making an album about revolution, but I think Coldplay just isn't capable of that. They're too happy, too optimistic, too sweet. And that's okay.

Last of all for this post is the Prospekt's March EP, released on November 21, 2008.

I am going a little out of order here, unfortunately. My original idea with this whole project was to listen through the whole Spotify catalog of Coldplay music and to really just record my thoughts on it. I'm trying to keep with that original spirit, even as the blog has ended up being a bit more expansive than I had in mind originally. What this means though, is that when Spotify's order is incorrect, I follow their order. So Prospekt's March EP was actually released several months after the full album Viva la Vida, but for whatever reason Spotify got that wrong so here we are. This means that my interpretations and reactions are probably a bit tainted by listening out of order, but whatever, this blog isn't meant to be a definitive analysis of Coldplay or anything like that.

But first off though, that album art! It's a painting by 19th century French artist Eugène Delacroix. He's also the painter of the very famous Liberty Leading the People that is the cover of the album itself, so it makes sense that they chose another artwork by him.

The Battle of Poitiers, 1830, Delacroix, Louvre, Paris

The Battle of Poitiers was a French loss in the Hundred Years War that took place on September 19, 1356. The painting is not specifically famous for anything, unlike his Liberty Leading the People painting, so my best guess is they just wanted a painting that evoked a similar feeling of action and motion from the same painter and ended up with this one. This review here described the EP as "Wrapped pretentiously in another Eugene Delacroix painting" which I think is kinda funny and probably true. Using old paintings certainly lends an air of legitimacy, which can also become pretentiousness instead.

So the Prospekt's March EP consists of 8 songs, three of which are remixes, edits, or different versions of songs found on the main album. It's definitely meant to be a companion to the album though, so it doesn't stand alone super well.

I really, really like the song Life in Technicolor ii. I had never listened to it before, and it just blew me away from first listen. It's a really happy sounding song with an instrumental loop that apparently is played by a santoor, an Indian string instrument. The song is actually the full-vocal version of the song Life in Technicolor, which appears on the main album but is just instrumental. Lyrically the song has a theme of love and transcendence through a time of war or turmoil, which is of course thematically on brand for the album, and the chorus is just a massive, bombastic thing that sweeps you up. "Oh loooooove don't leeeet me goooo / Won't you taaaake me where the streeet lights glow / ... / Gravity, release me / And don't ever hold me down / Now my feet won't touch the ground." You should just listen to it, so I don't feel stupid typing out the lyrics.

Something I've thought about before is the idea of people having a sort of natural affinity for certain genres of music. Some people listen to rock music and it just hits right for them, for other people it's R&B, for others it's Frank Sinatra. For me, there's a certain type of pop/indie rock (which sounds like two different genres but they sort of cross over sometimes I think) that just is like my base genre (or one of them, at least). This song feels like it fits right into my base genre and so from the first moment I heard it I loved it. I don't know if this is a real phenomenon or something I invented in my head. I guess really I'm just overcomplicating the idea of personal preference, but I think it's so interesting how I can just fall in love with a song one moment and then struggle to like another song which is well-loved or critically acclaimed in another moment. The other thing that made me think of this recently, is the death of the R&B singer D'Angelo. I had never heard of him before he passed away last month (October), but apparently he was a very influential and important musical artist, so I decided to check out some of his music. And I just couldn't get into it. This is a guy who was inducted into the R&B Hall of Fame, was ranked as one of the 200 greatest artists of all time (by Rolling Stone), apparently pioneered a whole genre of music, and was consistently critically acclaimed throughout his career, and I just didn't really like it (5). Now I'm not naive to the fact that with a question like this I'm possibly delving into questions of race, class, gender, and more, and maybe it's as simple as that. But still. Are we really so different that we can't even understand why we like different things from each other? Is it possible for me to get into a headspace where I can appreciate, say, D'Angelo's music, or something else that a lot of people like, but I don't? Or maybe we just like what we like and there's nothing deeper behind it. That's where this idea of people being naturally drawn to one genre of music or another came from. I'm trying to understand why I like something, and someone else doesn't, or vice versa. Of course, this question is really much deeper than music if you extend it out, but music is what I'm thinking about right now.

Moving on though, the EP is, as I said, really just a companion or extension to the album, and we can see this from the almost identical themes and motifs that run through. The song Postcards from Far Away is a short little piano piece that feels like a snippet of a classical music piece. I can just imagine a 19th century or WW1 era soldier sending home postcards from his posting somewhere in Europe against the backdrop of a green field. Glass of Water is a really cool song that also feels like it could have been on the main album. Similar to Violet Hill, it makes reference to TV and politicians with the line "Televisions selling plastic figurines of leaders." This song actually goes pretty hard, kind of an in-between of Violet Hill and Life in Technicolor ii with a strong guitar line but more of an upbeat feel.

There's a song called Lost+ (with Jay-Z) which is kind of a funny song. There's a song called Lost! on the main album that this is a remix of. The song is solid, but it is kind of funny to hear hip hop and rap mixed in with this style and theme of music.

Lovers in Japan - Osaka Sun Mix is a shortened version of the popular song Lovers in Japan. Basically it cuts out the last like two minutes which were mostly instrumental in the original song. I have more to say about this song later when I get to the album itself.

There's a song called Prospekt's March/Poppyfields which is a really slow guitar song that is just really explicit in the war imagery. Poppyfields, of course, are the eternal image for death and Prospekt, from what I can find, is a character they created, probably a revolutionary leader of some kind. The song feels like a sort of retrospective where the revolution has failed, people have died, and the world is coming to an end (not literally). They didn't end up doing much else with this character Prospekt so there isn't much else to say.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with this EP. I'm excited to listen to the full album all the way through for the first time, not only because it's the first time, but because the style of music that Coldplay began making starting with this album is among my favorite that they ever did, and is a type of music that I really naturally enjoy.

P.S. On the topic of Coldplay and politics, they released a video many, many years ago, kind of a secondary music video to the song Violet Hill which might be the most political thing they've ever done. Behold the Dancing Politicians edit.