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Performing "Christmas Lights" at the BBC Top of the Pops Christmas Special 2010 Right now, I'm in a little bit of a lull for Coldplay music. In between 2008 and 2011, they didn't release very much, just some singles and a live album. Some of those singles were connected to the album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, and some were connected to their next album, Mylo Xyloto (pronounced "Zylohtoh") which would eventually release on October 24, 2011. Before we get to Album #5 though, I'm gonna jump around to a few different places in between those years. On December 1, 2010, Coldplay released their greatest Christmas song: Christmas Lights. Christmas Lights is a piano ballad about a guy who goes out walking after a fight with his partner and sees the Christmas lights out on the streets. It includes some classically nonsensical Coldplay lines like, "Up above candles on air flicker / Oh, they flicker and they flow // And I'm up here holding o...

Coldplay's fourth album was released on June 6, 2008. The full title, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends is a bit of a mouthful. It's an interesting title because the phrase "Viva la vida" is Spanish (apparently it can be translated as either "Long live life," or "Live life" (1)), while the album cover is a famous French painting. I remember being confused about this when I was younger because I vaguely grasped that this album was referencing the French Revolution, but the "Viva la vida" did not appear to be French, based on my high school French knowledge. The phrase "Viva la vida" actually comes from a painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1). Apparently, Chris Martin found it inspirational that she would include these words in a painting despite all the hardships she endured in life. The painting on the album cover is of course, Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix ( La Liberté guidant le peuple) . Liberty ...

Hey Coldplayers! ( Apparently that's the official fanbase nickname for Coldplay...) Today I'm going to be going over Coldplay's second full length album: A Rush of Blood to the Head. And get excited, because for a lot of people, this is the last good thing Coldplay put out. These all come from this  article, which by itself is really a perfect encapsulation of the phenomenon of Coldplay Hate. That someone had to write a whole article to justify their enjoyment of a musical artist, and not even for anything controversial that the artist did, but simply because it was so socially unacceptable to like them. So gear up because after this it's only downhill from here haha. In all seriousness though, I think this phenomenon says more about a certain time and place than it does about Coldplay themselves. While I don't have much personal familiarity with British culture, I would say that maybe British people tend to prefer a bit of cynicism and edginess to their humor, cul...

Well  I got six new songs for you guys today. On August 5, 2002, around eight months after releasing their last song, Coldplay returned with a bang, releasing hit single In My Place, along with the B-sides One I Love, and I Bloom Blaum (what?). As an aside, I realize now that B-side is the term for all those extra songs that are released along with the main singles, like how in my last post I talked about how the singles Trouble and Don't Panic had other songs accompanying their releases. B-side (as opposed to A-side), was the term that referred to the back side of the cassette or record (vinyl), while the A-side contained the headline song or songs, the B-side usually contained songs not necessarily intended to " receive attention ". The existence of B-side songs was thus a product of convenience: There's extra space on the physical medium used to record songs so something might as well be put there. In another previous post I talked a bit about my feeling that band...

The next few songs are the true beginning of the Parachutes era for Coldplay. They released Shiver, along with a couple other songs which don't appear on the album, on March 6, 2000, a few months before Parachutes. This practice of releasing non-album songs along with their singles is something we don't really see these days (at least that I can think of). I have no actual evidence for this, but it feels like bands back in the day would record songs much more often and just release them, even if they weren't perfectly crafted, or their absolute best work. These days it feels like artists have to make sure each song they release fits correctly into their brand and album "era." My uneducated guess would be this has something to do with the digital/streaming age and how maintaining brand purity and reputation is almost as important as your actual music quality. And of course we have You-Know-Who to thank for the explosion of popularity in the word "era." ht...

Today I started in earnest on the X&Y album, and listened to a single that was released with Speed of Sound but not included on the album. I only listened to these two songs, the single, Things I Don't Understand, and Square One, the first song off X&Y, and they didn't leave much of an impression on me. After Speed of Sound, which felt like a revolution in their style, these two songs return to the slow, gentle electric guitar and plaintive Chris Martin crooning that characterized A Rush of Blood to the Head and even Parachutes, somewhat. Although those two will probably not become favorites, I will say that they aren't unenjoyable to listen to. Even the standard-fare Coldplay songs still bring a pleasing sort of background music atmosphere that while not particularly compelling, doesn't hurt your ears.

     So if you are reading this, you probably at least saw that the entry before is titled "Coldplay: Day 13," which doesn't make a lot of sense. I decided a month or so ago that I wanted to go through and listen to the entire music catalog of Coldplay (as found on Spotify), in order. Despite being a fan of Coldplay for around 12-13 years now (about half my life), I realized that I still have never listened to a good chunk of their music. So I began this project a little while ago, and then a few days ago when I was working on this (i.e. listening to music), I realized that I wanted to document this journey a little bit, and so decided to write a blog. So I did my first write-up for the songs I listened to a few days ago, and then while moving forward, I'm also going to do a retroactive for the first 12 or so days. To be clear, a "Day" does not mean I am doing this project every day. It just means times I sat down and listened to a chunk of songs. Looking ba...

So I finished up the last of A Rush of Blood to the Head era with another Christmas song: 2000 miles. I did not realize Coldplay had so many Christmas songs in their catalog. I remember listening to Christmas Lights a lot on my mission, but that was the only one I knew. This one was pretty nice though. A relaxing piano, and some lyrics that appear to be vaguely about a loved one being far away (or maybe being far away from loved ones) at Christmas time. I notice the song includes the line "It felt like Christmas time" at the end of the song. Christmas Lights (which I haven't gotten to yet on this endeavor, but I remember pretty well), has the line "Doesn't really feel like Christmas at all." It seems like Chris Martin has some kind of interest in the feeling of Christmas, and whether or not the Christmas season lives up to that idea we have in our heads of what it feels like. Anyways, that concludes the AROBTTH era and I started up right away on their third ...