LEFT COLD

Although I've only heard maybe four or five songs by Coldplay, I'm fairly sure my animosity toward them is firmly set in place. I've always been vaguely disinterested in them, and with the new album "X&Y" out, I knew I'd have to hear more about them for awhile. But I'm pleased to say this has all turned out quite well for me, if not my friends and colleagues who look well upon the band. First, Pitchfork gave it a measly 4.9 (which sure beats the astonishing 0.4 they gave Weezer, but still). Now Slate weighs in, mostly to my satisfaction:

There are 20 million reasons why a band sells 20 million records, but in the case of England's Coldplay...

Slatester Hua Hsu writes, and the first one is:

They sound a bit like Radiohead, only you don't have to think as much.

Yep. This is the main reason my relationship to Coldplay went from non-existent to indifferent to hostile (the other reason being that I can't get the piano from "Clocks" out of my head. A bit of "Dramamine" should cure this (Update: Better now.)). Assuming that people can get the same thing out of Coldplay as they can from Radiohead — I certainly don't — but without the experimental soundscapes, inventive songwriting and lyrics just elliptical enough to be spooky but not to be overly confusing, then what are they getting? Just a melancholy British rock band? Precisely, says Hsu. But! There's value added:

Whittled down to lines on a résumé, Coldplay ... seems like a band worth rallying behind. The band members strike a modest, good-natured, and workmanlike pose; they don't allow their songs to be used in commercials; they play plenty of gigs for altruistic reasons; and Martin himself has been an outspoken advocate on behalf of clean water, forests, and fair trade—and against poverty, President George Bush, the war in Iraq, AIDS, and handgun violence.

Mind you, this is meant as a compliment. Of course, this is exactly what frustrated me about "Hail to the Thief" — bringing politics into their music partly changed what Radiohead was about. Their albums had always trended toward philosophical questions and circumstances, but they never took sides in something so crass as a political campaign. They had touched on politics with "Electioneering," but even there, references to "cattle prods and the IMF" seemed almost a random formulation, and the overall perspective was one of cynicism about politics as a whole. Apparently Thom Yorke is over that. It was like George Lucas putting thinly-veiled anti-Bush rhetoric into his dialogue: I put up with the annoyance, but that's not what I came for.

Meanwhile, Coldplay's Chris Martin just heroically denounced the evils of corporate capitalism a few weeks back. If his band is writing industry-friendly guitar pop whose politics I'll just have to ignore, I can think of dozens (and dozens) of rock bands I'd go to before Coldplay for that. Not to mention for something approaching a unique sound.

Hsu does end with a thumbs down, citing the fact that the new album is a disappointment:

If it's not the sadness of worldly affairs that gnaw at the aching heart of Coldplay's songs—and the lyrics suggest not—it can't possibly be his own life, either. Maybe it's those bastard shareholders. Worse yet: Maybe it's nothing at all.

Good enough for me.

P.S. — I'd be remiss not to remind everyone of the fact that, regardless of eventual overall record sales, a few weeks ago Coldplay was beaten on the British charts by a ringtone.

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posted by WWB at 11:15 AM |