Coldplay's album rivals Sgt. Pepper's -- in being overrated
Viva La Vida leaves behind the band's clean, simple past.
Published Feb. 10, 2009
Before you invest your time in this article attempting to come away with anything, I'll be upfront and start with a kicker: I think Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band sucks. It was my favorite album by The Beatles for three weeks in eighth grade before I realized Revolver was the ultimate Beatles record and that every top 100 album of all time list -- the majority of which have Sgt. Pepper's at their peak -- is completely fucking wrong.
So, that said, if you think all of my credibility is lost, you might want to stop reading.
Still with me? Maybe it's the fact that I think concept albums are lame or that anything overtly grandiose makes me feel queasy and underdressed. It could also be that I have killer ADD when it comes to songs. I usually listen to the first minute and 45 seconds before I press the skip button. Imagine me sitting through an entire album based on the same concept. (John Lennon did argue, though, that Paul McCartney's baby was, aside from the reprise, just another album and not a concept at all. Just goes to show rock critics will disagree with you if you aren't The Cute One.)
So when I first heard "Viva La Vida," the atomic bomb (subtle U2-Coldplay reference?) of a second single from Coldplay's fourth studio album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, I was immediately reminded of Sgt. Pepper's, if not because of the stupid outfit Chris Martin was wearing in the iTunes commercial and has continued to wear without explanation for the past 10 months.
But I fell in love with the song. More appropriately, I fell in love with 30 seconds of the song -- arguably the best 30 seconds. After watching the commercial replay over and over again on YouTube, I spent $0.99 on the single at the iTunes store. And it sucked.
I can handle most things in small doses -- goat's milk, Auto-Tune, the smell of the marijuana from the apartment below mine that seeps into my bathroom in the morning and super deliberate music are among these things. But that's just the point -- concept albums and polished production are all right now and then, for a short period of time. Stuff might even win you a Grammy (or three, if you were Coldplay at this year's Grammys). Call me a minimalist, but Viva La Vida and Sgt. Pepper's, in my opinion, are in the same stupid, bedazzled boat.
Revolver was good because it was so clean. It started out with the crisp-as-no-other "Taxman" and included stripped-down tracks like "Doctor Robert." Released a year after the Beatles dropped the hand-holding, "P.S. I Love You" theme with Rubber Soul, Revolver mixed in just the right amount of laid-back experimentation. No one's saying it was recorded in Ringo's garage with a Mr. Microphone, but the production didn't rival what was put into Sgt. Pepper's. And that's what makes it listenable. If I was going to draw sweeping conclusions, which I am, I'd say 2000's Parachutes was Coldplay's Revolver.
Remember Parachutes? It was a cute little album. While most will remember it by singles "Yellow" and "Trouble," the lead single (in Europe) was actually "Shiver," which is, to date, my favorite Coldplay song. Before Coldplay was rocking out against a new-age Flying Windows screen saver in that one Apple commercial, Chris Martin was modestly dressed in a black windbreaker as he walked on a beach in the music video for "Yellow." That's it. He walked on a beach for, like, three minutes. That's all he did.
It was clean, simple college rock. In fact, the video for "Shiver" featured Chris Martin wearing a ratty old Rolling Stone lips logo tee and looks like it was recorded inside a cinderblock. In the end, Parachutes won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.
But that was almost 10 years ago. What we know now is a Chris Martin and a Coldplay completely unrecognizable from their former Parachutes selves. And that's fine. Artists grow and change. The Beatles are probably the best example of that. And I guess when Vanilla Ice went metal. But with that change, some of the old stuff gets lost in the shuffle, when in reality -- especially when reality is my opinion -- it was the best to begin with.