Jul/08©Chris Farley
Coldplay
Artwork from Coldplay's Latest Album
A year ago, I really did not like music. To a certain extent, I still dislike music to this day. I can’t stand rap (for philosophical reasons because it’s awful) or country music (because it’s just bad). I almost changed my tune (no pun intended) when Coldplay came out with their new album a few weeks ago. First, I just downloaded “Viva la Vida” after hearing it in an iPod + iTunes commercial, but after a few days of trying to resist, I downloaded the whole album. I still dislike most music, but I’m a bit of a Coldplay crazy now!
Coldplay has managed to blend excellent music with provocative lyrics. Alternative music groups have a tendency to make their lyrics so outlandish that you are more likely to find their meaning by visiting your local astrologist and using a decoder ring than listening to and thinking about the lyrics. Viva la Vida is probably the most played song from the new album, but the song also has the most interesting lyrics. The song begins:
I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own
The song is what somebody with whom I work would call “kill yourself music.” I admit the song isn’t upbeat, but the lyrics are fascinating. I can’t post them here for copyright reasons, but the song is about a fallen hero. I’ve often wondered what happens when people fade from the spotlight and this song expresses that. After the Clinton years, for example, I wondered how Clinton coped with moving from a busy life as commander-in-chief to the memoir-writer-in-chief.
Coldplay isn’t afraid to leave several minutes of silence, either. “Life in Technicolor” has about a minute without vocals at one point.
Other great songs include ” Clocks“, from an earlier album (with a great piano section you may recognize) and “Lost!” from this album. Even the people that don’t usually like this type of music should at least listen to “Viva la Vida.” It remains my favorite.
Leave a comment
No trackbacks yet.
9:42 pm on July 18th, 2008
Once again a great blog post! I was thinking a similar thing the other day about a friend of mine who severely dislikes music in general, not dissimilar to yourself, and whom also loves Viva La Vida. I think you correctly identified Coldplay bridging the gap between "non-conformist" and public-sector; if that makes sense? The one thing I would say is that don't discount all other types of music, all music has some meaning and reason behind it, and decoding that is the fun part… how many people that listen to rap say to you that they don't listen to classical music because its "rubbish". This is just another way to say that they can't understand the complex cultural, social, political and economic factors (amongst others) which made the music turn out the way it did, along with its "WOW" factors which essentially turned it into a "hit". Similarly even rap contains these factors, however not being a fan of rap you will probably have to do some digging, but it will be worth it because even if you don't end up listening to rap on a daily basis, you would have learnt how to decode a wider variety of music. With all of that said, I think I'm going to go and listen to Viva La Vida… Saturday morning after Thursday and Friday's national holidays…. should make for some interesting interpretations!!!
7:18 pm on July 19th, 2008
"Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired" (Boethius cited by Storr). I am disturbed that Our honarable Blog Writer does not "like music." Surely this is a punch line and he is not a de facto music hater. Perhaps we can hear more about this in future blogs.
2:19 pm on July 22nd, 2008
You're right in saying I should be a bit more open to rap, but it sounds so uncoordinated that I often wonder why it's even considered music. That said, there is a lotof cultural background to rap and that would be worth looking into. IfI ever stop playing “Viva la Vida” on an endless loop.