My roommate bought this yesterday, and I gotta say, it's worth all the praises it got. Coldplay's probably the second most popular British rock band right now, right behind Radiohead. And while Radiohead continue to move in more and more frustrating and fan-alienating directions, Coldplay continues to put out great, heartfelt, pretty accessible rock. Aside from two or three tracks, the music is largely acoustic guitar and piano driven, giving the album a dreamy, relaxing feel. However, these songs have substance. Lyrically, a lot of the songs are more impressionistic than literal, meaning they may not make sense on the whole, but they definitely elicit a certain mood. They remind me of the lyrics of the 60's and 70's, back in a time when it was okay to write a song about the stars and stuff like that. My personal favorite song is the newest single, "The Scientist". Again, most of the lyrics don't really make sense to me, but the music is really beautiful and the chorus sells the whole thing:
"Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the star."
That final line may be in reference to the band's breakthrough single, 2000's "Yellow", written for a friend who had just died. In the song, the singer describes how he would like to escape this world and live in the stars with his recently-deceased friend. Whether this is true or not, it gives the song an added beauty and sadness, in my opinion.
Overall, this album's great, great music to relax to, a little depressing at times, but strangely uplifting. I give it 4 stars.
"Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the star."
That final line may be in reference to the band's breakthrough single, 2000's "Yellow", written for a friend who had just died. In the song, the singer describes how he would like to escape this world and live in the stars with his recently-deceased friend. Whether this is true or not, it gives the song an added beauty and sadness, in my opinion.
Overall, this album's great, great music to relax to, a little depressing at times, but strangely uplifting. I give it 4 stars.
