Viva La Vida

First off, let me thank music blog aggregator, elbo.ws, for making this post possible. It basically allowed me to legally “steal” most of the songs of Coldplay’s new album.

To preface my review/opinions of Viva La Vida, let me say this. I used to be a HUGE Coldplay fan. I bought X&Y the day it came out and was in love with Coldplay for a long time. My story with them pretty well mirrors my story with Death Cab For Cutie. I have falling in and out of love with them for a long time. This cd is again, my “couple’s counseling” as I like to say with one of my past favorite bands.

Basically, Coldplay finally realized that they couldn’t release the same cd 4 times with just a different name. I have to say that I feel like a lot of their music sounds generally the same. They typical included a basic electric guitar riff and pretty simple drums and bass.

But with Viva La Vida, I finally feel like Coldplay sat down and put some time into their songs. Granted, they had like 2 ½ years to make this album. On these songs, they actually develop. It may start quiet and build to something more. Or it may start one way and end a completely different way than you expected. They didn’t stick to the typical, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus, song structure.

Plus, these songs are just so cool. The strings used in Viva La Vida (song, not whole album) are so well put together and arranged. It makes me not even care that drums are generally non-existent. This is the perfect example of what makes Viva La Vida (album) so great. They didn’t need to just have piano be the main part of the music. Other instruments are used in the background (bells for example) that makes it great.

Some other standouts I feel on the album are the instrumental Life In Technicolor, Death and All His Friends, and Cemeteries of London. Violet Hill also shows the new edgier side of Coldplay

So, overall, I really, really like this cd. Granted I haven’t actually gotten the real cd, and I have only listened to it for two days but it is really growing on me. I like to see Coldplay get creative and not be the sometimes-boring old Coldplay we know and sometimes love. Hopefully this is a sign of a continuing change in their music.

Now I can’t write a post about Coldplay and NOT mention the awesome iTunes commercial they put out for Viva l,a Vida. It’s posted below along with another great Coldplay Apple ad.

Also, I have to mention that Coldplay recently released a track pack for Guitar Hero 3, which I can’t imagine being fun, but it may be worth checking out as a Coldplay fan. Like I said, most of their songs have really boring guitar parts, which isn’t a good fit for GUITAR Hero. Maybe a future Piano Hero though.

Cory, Le Blog