MUSIC REVIEW: Coldplay silences critics with new CD
Shortly after being criticized for making “music for bedwetters” and being hit with bottles and CDs while playing a show in Washington, Coldplay’s lead vocalist Chris Martin told New Music Express Magazine the band had to make a career decision.
“We were this acoustic-y band and everyone was waiting for Staind and Blink-182,” he said. “We came off stage in Washington and I thought ‘either we stop now and let everyone who doesn’t like us get on top of us or we just go.’ Bollocks to all of you because there’s a few million people who do like us.”
Indeed, their major label debut on Capitol Records has now sold nearly 5 million copies worldwide. Those sales are driven by their hit single, “Yellow,” released in the spring of 2001. A Rush of Blood to the Head, their “better than the first one,” sophomore effort, challenges anyone to throw CDs at them.
Opening last week at No. 5 on the Billboard Album Charts, their latest album is a superb blend of concern for the macro and the micro. It deals with international issues, and feelings of personal loss.
“The Scientist” is the best song on the album. The tune is instantly catchy. It opens with a simple piano and later the guitar picks up the tune. Martin sings it with Bono-esque form, and would make a believer out of any U2 fan.
The song is about love lost and the begging and wallowing that often follows. Simplicity is what gives the song its power, as it says, “Nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be so hard.”
“Politik,” a song written in the wake of Sept. 11, is a wake-up call. It opens the album with Jonny Buckland banging his guitar and demanding you listen to what the group has to say. Martin asks the world to look at Earth from outer space, ponder how small it is, how we’re all in this together and “open up your eyes.”
“In My Place,” the first single from the album, is getting regular airplay and should move quickly up the charts.
Martin turns introspective on “Clocks,” a song where he asks “Am I a part of the cure, or a part of the disease?” This one also has the feeling it was influenced by U2.
Perhaps the comparisons made to Radiohead on Coldplay’s last album should be changed to U2 for this album. “Green Eyes” is by far the sappiest song on the album – take, for example, the line “I came here with a load, and it feels so much lighter now I met you.” That kind of talk wouldn’t work for Fred Durst. But Martin’s powerful delivery gives it a feeling of sincerity seldom found in rock ‘n’ roll.
The one flaw on this album is the slightly boring “A Whisper.” It lacks a hook, but is followed up by the title track, “A Rush of Blood to the Head,” in which Martin again focuses on issues bigger than his dating life, saying, “I’m gonna buy me a gun and start a war. If you can tell me something worth fighting for.”
This is a more mature album than Parachutes. It delves even deeper into Martin’s ever-introspective mind, showing he poured his heart and soul into it.
“It’s about making the most of this amazing opportunity, because we can’t believe we’ve been given it,” Martin said in the NME interview. “That applies to the band and to our lives in general.
“And it’s about girls, of course,” he said. “Because isn’t everything?”
Jared is a junior studying accounting. Comments can be sent to jaredquillen@cc.usu.edu