ON A RAINY LONDON evening last January, perched high above the wet and crowded city streets in his 30th floor Trafalgar Square loft, Chris Martin takes a sip of espresso and stares helplessly at his computer screen. He’s having problems with a sequence from “Lost!”, a dynamite track on his band Coldplay’s recently-released disc, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. Martin can’t decide whether he likes a certain guitar riff a minute into the track; there’s also the issue of the bass drum sounding too cluttered, and the violins sounding flat. Martin sighs and takes another sip of espresso. He has been analyzing the same fifteen second sequence for almost three hours.
Martin turns to his young daughter, Apple, playing with a toy across the room. He smiles faintly. “Look at her,” he says to me. “She’s more precious than gold.”
***
One could certainly say that again. Though there is something else to which you could apply Martin’s loving description of his daughter as superior to gold, something perhaps even more beautiful, more breathtaking, and more precious – and I’m not referring to his darling celebrity wife, Gwenyth. Viva la Vida, Coldplay’s fourth studio album, is without a doubt its most tickling to date.
The brilliant la Vida serves to usher in a different kind of Coldplay. Liberated from their self-imposed pressure to innovate, they sound – for the first time in ages – user-friendly. It’s true that we’ve come to expect a certain level of genius from this band, but when they actually exceed expectations, as they do here, it’s a clear sign that Coldplay will continue to reinvent themselves and drop more jaws along the way.
This album feels not so much as a statement of where the band has come from, but more of where they’re going. It feels big, open, and alone, like you are listening in on something you shouldn’t hear. All of it rocks; none of it sounds like any other band on earth. It delivers an emotional punch that proves all other rock stars owe Coldplay an apology.
The most heartening thing about Viva la Vida, besides the fact that it may represent the strongest collection of songs assembled by any English band over the past decade, is that it ventures into new emotional territories. On the record, Martin soulfully attempts to come to grips with the suckling insecurity that accompanies worldwide fame – and he uses some slick water metaphors to express it: “You might be a big fish in a little pond/Doesn’t mean you’ve won”, he croons on “Lost!”. Martin conveys longing feelings for loved ones on a handful of tracks, presumably for his wife Gwenyth, though possibly for his children, Apple and Moses, or other relatives. On the ballad “Strawberry Swing”, he throws his convictions about the sky to the wayside, all in the name of love: “Could be blue/I don’t mind/without you it’s a waste of time/Could be blue/could be grey/without you I’m just miles away”.
Maybe Viva la Vida is Martin’s life – settling into things, creating permanence. If so, we may miss the anger and the striving and the discovery that comes as a result (think X & Y). But for now, we can enjoy the beauty of Martin understanding his identity and the craftsmanship that lies in comfort. This album proves itself to be what we all thought Coldplay couldn’t make again: a masterpiece. And thank goodness the bass drum isn't cluttered.
-Theriot
