Coldplay – X&Y Review

Coldplay, for better or for worse, are probably the biggest stadium rock band in the world right now. That may not mean much to the indie illuminati who’d rather see Coldplay crash and burn, but it’s really an amazing story. They released Parachutes in 2000 and didn’t really make much noise until “Yellow” became one of the most-played songs in the history of radio. The rest of the album outside of that one monster single was quite good if introspective, and didn’t really garner much in the way of attention, at least on the dials of radio.

In 2002, however, Coldplay released the follow up to Parachutes, and it was a doozy. A Rush Of Blood To The Head sold 20 million copies on the strength of several huge singles, including “In My Place” and “The Scientist”, and was named one of the top albums of the year by critics around the world. I know this to be the truth because I ended up giving it my Album of the Year award.

Three years later, Coldplay are finally releasing the highly-anticipated X&Y. Depending upon who you talk to, this album was either scrapped one or two times, completely re-recorded several different times, and nearly broke up the band on countless ocassions. Whether or not any of this is the truth is irrelevant; what is the concrete, undisputable truth is that Coldplay have probably just made the album of the year once again, and may have created something that will be remembered twenty years from now as fondly as The Joshua Tree is.

And that’s really the heart of the matter here. In order for Coldplay to become U2, which seems to be their unending goal, they have to have a spectacular third album. It’s one of the rules of rock and roll; in order for a band to reach the next level and have a career that lasts 20 years, they have to release an amazing third album.

It’s the ghost of U2 that haunts Coldplay the most, I think. You can tell it in the bones of this album, in the backdrop of sounds that accompanies every track. Coldplay realize that U2 and the career they’ve had is the goal for any kind of British rock band with the sound they have, and so they do the only thing they really can do: take bits and pieces of U2, combine it with the Beatles and other influences, and throw it all together into one fine masterpiece of an album.

X&Yis full of highlights, and by “highlights,” of course, I mean “singles”. “Speed of Sound” is the first single from the album, and despite my plea to Chris Martin and company to never again use popular riffs in the intention of creating a easy hit single, the song has grown on me with repeated listenings. The song soars and flows with majestic lines about creation, beauty, and looking around you to see the wonder of the world we’re living in. Sure, it’s arena rock material, but Coldplay are arena rock, and this song (and many others on the album) seem inspired by the thought of a full stadium of screaming fans holding aloft cell phones while Martin sings out the lyric for the song.

“Fix You” is likely the second single from the album, and it’s more in the vein of “Yellow” than the first single is. The song is instantly singable and memorable, and builds and builds to a huge finish with dozens of voices that, again, gives me the thought that it was created with a stadium crowd in mind. This is a small band that became huge, much bigger than they probably ever dreamed, and this album feels like they’re trying to accept the fact that they’re probably the biggest rock band in the world at the moment and so they are writing material to fit that concept. It works more often than not, especially in moments like “Fix You”.

“Swallowed In The Sea” is my personal favorite song on the album and easily my favorite song of the past few years. It’s an ode to a lover, or a brother, or someone with an emotional connection, but the real beauty of the song is in the structure. Beginning with a simple swing-beat melody, Chris Martin begins to build a song with repeating lyrics, subtle melody changes, and heart-on-sleeve emotions that climaxes with Martin belting out “how good is it to live with nothing left to give/forget but not forgive”. The melody is used constantly and shifted expectantly until the very end, which sees Martin crash back down to earth by saying “you belong to me, not swallowed in the sea”.

“Twisted Logic” is just about as blatant as a Radiohead rip off can get, but the band makes no apologies about it nor do they try to cover it up. It’s a great song, especially when done by Radiohead, but in trying to master the Radiohead sound, Coldplay come off just a bit underwhelming. It’s the weakest track on the album, mostly because they don’t take the Radiohead influence and incorporate it into the Coldplay sound, instead opting to just assume the mantle of a Radiohead cover band for the track. The band also takes pulls freely from several other influences ranging from Strauss to Kraftwerk, but none of those “tributes” are nearly as bad as this track tends to be.

One of the most surprising cuts on X&Y isn’t technically even ON it. There’s a hidden track at the end of the record called “Til’ Kingdom Come”. It’s a song Martin wrote for the late Johnny Cash that the music icon never had a chance to record, and it shows Coldplay and particularly Martin in the most frail state they’ve been in since Parachutes. Listening to the song, I can clearly hear Cash singing these lyrics to his wife. Does it fit on a Coldplay album? Not anymore, I guess. But the truth is that it doesn’t have to, because it’s a strong song in itself and there’s millions who will enjoy it for what it is.

Many people expected X&Y to be an ode to Martin’s wife Gwyneth Paltrow and daughter Apple, and while there’s definitely moments derived from the home front in most of this material, Martin doesn’t overdo it. The songs are wrought with hidden messages to his wife, but Coldplay make sure that the rest of the world are included, too. That’s a smart choice, especially with the anticipation surrounding this record. This album isn’t cold, not by any stretch of the imagination — it’s merely bigger than the previous two albums. But it HAD to be. Anything less than a stadium rock epic probably would have taken the band back a few steps, and so they have released an amazing album that is friendly, accessible, and full of influences that will leave something for just about everyone. It’s also the Album Of The Year, no matter what else is released this year.