Coldplay's fourth and highly anticipated album, "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" comes at a crucial point in their career as well as the business future of their label EMI/Capitol.
During this day and age we have watched the gradual fall of the mega juggernauts of the music business industry as music becomes an increasingly digital media based enterprise, and the major labels are just slowly curling up and dying away as artists go independent or join up with indie labels.
EMI/Capitol, Coldplay's major label keeper, are treading on precarious ground right now. They are in the middle of restructuring - company bought out by a private equity firm Terra Firma - new CEO Guy Hands is on board - A&R department cut by 1/3, and also with the dramatic departure and huge success of Radiohead and their subsequent 'free content' download offering back in 2007 with 'In Rainbows', the music industry world has been topsy-turvy. Now here comes Coldplay, super star success and carrying all of EMI/Capitol's hopes and dreams for a future. So it looks like EMI will not be looking for new bands, but rather be holding on dearly to its successes and saturate the market with them.
That is a lot of pressure to carry, even for a Rock Giant such as Coldplay.
Back in 2005 - with the release of their previous album X&Y - Chris Martin (the frontman of Coldplay) had said that "Shareholders are the great evil of this Modern World." Back then, Capitol had taken great lengths to ensure that the album X&Y would have heavy sales to keep the business afloat, and once again, we find the band in the exact same predicament, unfortunately at this point the critics are leering on the side lines just waiting to pounce since many sophisticates were disgusted with Coldplay's last record. (NY Times, 'The Case Against Coldplay', June 5, 2005, by Jon Pareles) Pareles pointed out that, "It's supposed to be compassionate, empathetic, magnanimous, inspirational. But when the music swells up once more with tremolo guitars and chiming keyboards, and Mr. Martin's voice breaks for the umpteenth time, it sounds like hokum to me. " Even though, the sophisicates were repulsed, the rest of the world revelled in the album which sold over 10,500,000+ worldwide.
Furthermore we find that after the commerical success of X&Y, Coldplay was almost near the end of being a band as well. Chris Martin in an interview with Brian Boyd (Columnist for the Irish Times) stated: "After the last album we weren't really talking to each other, we were falling apart. We didn't own ourselves: there were too many swanky dinners, too many award ceremonies. We could almost just have phoned in the songs for the new album from our holiday homes. I wanted to burn all the awards, erase the past."
So now we have, EMI's business at risk here, Coldplay's need to please both their existing fans and the naysayers, and now the very future of the band at risk with the potential of falling apart at its seams. With so much pressure riding on their success with this album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, the title almost seems befitting. Is this the death throes of the band, or the 'Achtung Baby' of their careers?
The band has been compared considerably to U2 and their arena rock greatness; they have even compared themselves to U2 a number of times; so for them to enlist Brian Eno in the production of the album - the ambient music genius - was a wise decision. Brian Eno is closely related to U2's fantastic soundscapes, and helped develop the band throughout their albums Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby to name of few. 'Achtung Baby' for U2 was a grand departure from their earlier sound and proved a huge success, and now with Coldplay's Viva La Vida it proves to be a comparable counterpart since it has been labeled as an 'experimental' album for them.
With Brian Eno onboard (who dislikes chords, and clever progressions), the album pushes more towards textures and rhythms... essentially more primal and less heady. The album overall musically, and presentation wise is a solid cohesive album. The influence of Eno is palpable (with world music galore) in tracks like Life in Technicolor (which uses a hammer dulchimer at one point), Lost! (which reeks of U2 with church organs and soaring Edge-like guitars); Reign of Love (Martin's classic piano with shimmering, humming ambient noises in the back); Yes/Chinese Sleep Chant (lots of middle eastern flourishes care of Davide Rossi and his violin arranging); Death and All His Friends and The Escapist (Life In Technicolor with Martin's wistful vocals.)
Of the album my personal favorites are Strawberry Swing which is a great upbeat song filled with delayed guitars and anthemic choruses, and also Viva La Vida. I hate to admit it but the album's title track - string sections bursting, and the trademark anthems screaming- is infectiously catchy.... this track is almost a guilty pleasure since it is so blatantly poppy. Thanks to EMI/Capitol this song is going to be hounding the airwaves for at least the next two years - as well as TV with their Apple iTunes commercial spot.
Martin's lyrics are as awkward and vapid as ever, but still catchy nonetheless. He is no Bob Dylan or great revolutionary song writer - but he has a knack for great hooks, and anthemic chants which could get any stadium full of thousands of fans roaring in response.
So in the end - it looks like Coldplay came out of this career knot unscathed. After the initial sales of the album, the pre-orders on iTunes, and purchases since the albums release in June (316,000 copies sold on the first day of release), Viva La Vida sat in the no. 1 slot in the U.K., Japan, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany back in late June right after its release, so now at least EMI/Capitol will be happy for the next year or less.... until the inevitable threat of the future of the music industry knocks on their doors again.
The problem with the album is that it tries too hard to please way too many people - by enlisting Eno they tried to give it an artsy edge to satisfy the critics (which sort of does, but not really, because you still have the same band as before); they try really hard to please the huge fanbase they already have (by including signature anthems and Chris Martin heart on the sleeve vocals), but it seems to still be over used; and they also need to please their major label masters by ensuring that the tracks have plenty of 'pop' to them for radio play and tv spots.
So the album might not quite be an 'Achtung Baby' of artistic success and development, but they sure gave a valiant effort on their newest release.
-Andrew D.B. Joslyn
reference:
Brian Boyd, "Chris Martin: 'Coldplay will never be cool'"
NY Times Article, Case Against Coldplay by Jon Pareles.
Rolling Stone
LA Times:
