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Post by violethill on Oct 25, 2019 11:25:10 GMT -5
I used to hate Mylo Xyloto until I heard what came after. AHFOD makes MX look like The Bends..
I wish they’d have gotten all that pop nonsense out of their system with that record and moved on from it. The last two albums are just sterile rehashings in my opinion.
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Post by glider on Oct 25, 2019 11:54:18 GMT -5
I used to hate Mylo Xyloto until I heard what came after. AHFOD makes MX look like The Bends.. I wish they’d have gotten all that pop nonsense out of their system with that record and moved on from it. The last two albums are just sterile rehashings in my opinion. I don't care what genre they classify themselves, the issue with their songs 2012 to now is it all sounds so disposable. That is the problem with the majority of this decade's mainstream pop - it goes in one ear and out through the other, subjugated to being on the looped playlists of thousands of retail stores PA system across the states. |
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Post by Lennon2217 on Oct 25, 2019 12:21:05 GMT -5
If Mylo Xyloto is a sell-out album, I hope Chris continues to sell-out as long as possible. One of the best pop albums of the decade. Good for you if you like it. But i thought it was a massive step down from Viva La Vida. Less of Mylo Xyloto and more Viva La Vida please. I don't want to see any more Rihanna's or pop star's on any more records. I think the Mylo issue is it sounds hodge podgey. They started to make two records at the same time, one more poppy/electronic and another more gentle and acoustic. They ended up ditching it after a few weeks but decided to combine some of the material into one release. That is the way it sounds to my ears. A mashup of influences and not as cohesive as Viva. Which was excellent. Mylo still contains absolute beasts. Hurts Like Heaven Paradise Charlie Brown Everyday Teardrop Is A Waterfall I’m also a huge huge huge fan of Major Minus. It’s like a darker cousin to God Put A Smile Upon Your Face. I do recognize that people consider Paradise, Waterfall and Princess of China huge sell out songs. Mylo is still miles and miles and miles better than AHFOD. Ghost Stories isn’t really that bad either. Love Always In My Head, Magic, Midnight and O. It’s weak in the middle but whatever. I think all the collaborations over the last 5-7 years really irks me. They don’t need them at all. Be yourself. Be proud. Be here now. |
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Post by violethill on Oct 25, 2019 12:23:36 GMT -5
By the way, If Coldplay haven’t sold out.. No band in history has sold out...
Duets with Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Avicii, Beyoncé
Super Bowl
Going on X Factor and The Voice
Abandoning core sound to fill out stadiums
Having Stargate produce records for them
Making R&B tracks
Putting advertisements for beat headphones in their music videos
List goes on and on
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Post by Lennon2217 on Oct 25, 2019 12:25:18 GMT -5
By the way, If Coldplay haven’t sold out.. No band in history has sold out... Duets with Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Avicii, Beyoncé Super Bowl Going on X Factor and The Voice Abandoning core sound to fill out stadiums Having Stargate produce records for them Making R&B tracks Putting advertisements for beat headphones in their music videos List goes on and on Back in 2002 id never have believed they’d ever be a super bowl half time performer. I feel bad that they just didn’t get to perform all by themselves. Instead we got a mashup of people on their stage. That was a shame. To me anyways. Listen everyone wants to be #1 and loved by everyone. It just doesn’t last forever. |
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Post by The Escapist on Oct 25, 2019 12:36:40 GMT -5
By the way, If Coldplay haven’t sold out.. No band in history has sold out... Duets with Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Avicii, Beyoncé Rihanna and Beyonce are acclaimed artists and legends in their genres, with both of their respective last albums being some of the best of the decade. Selling out is making commercial music because you just want more money, and you don't do the music you actually want to. Coldplay wanted to make pop at a point in their career when they were already the biggest band in the world, hitting new critical heights, and rich beyond their wildest dreams. But for some people, modern pop = sell out, no matter what. ^ Amazing song. |
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Post by mystoryisgory on Oct 25, 2019 13:44:56 GMT -5
The problem with AHFOD is not that it's pop. Mylo Xyloto is pop from start to finish and it's still great. The problem with AHFOD is that it's mostly weak and clichéd songs covered in sickly saccharine production, so it sounds cheesy and forced instead of natural and cathartic. Nothing to do with it being pop.
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Post by matt on Oct 25, 2019 18:04:32 GMT -5
MX is a decent album, it’s definitely a legitimate Coldplay album in my eyes. Some aspects are overproduced though - Hurts Like Heaven sounded immense live but on record feels a bit robotic. They should have made it a bit more raw. In hindsight, the pop aspect is well worked, although not as succinct and on point as Viva’s poppier moments but where that album fails is the acoustic numbers. They’re not good at all and they disjoint the album and also indicate the flimsy sentimental tripe of much of the next two albums.
Ghost Stories era has a smattering of great tunes - O, Magic, Midnight, All Your Friends, Ghost Story.... this would make a cracking EP. But the rest of it is damn poor - I think it was Pitchfork that said these tunes were less ‘Blood On The Tracks’ and more like The Simpsons’ Kirk Van Outen’s ‘Can I Borrow A Feeling?’ which I thought pretty funny. It’s not even close to MX in my opinion, but the best tracks are far better than anything on MX weirdly enough. A Head Full Of Dreams had a few decent tunes. But it was the first Coldplay era which gave absolutely no great songs. Even the Kaleidoscope EP I wasn’t getting any vibe.
As post above says, I’m not getting my hopes up yet. But I’ll try and take comfort that Ghost Stories was never billed which the ambient electronics of Midnight falsely suggested for me. I hope reviewers are right in saying the quality is similar throughout. If not, certain to be a single album playlist that disowns the shit songs!
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Post by matt on Oct 25, 2019 18:08:40 GMT -5
I was trying to pin down what band they were reminding me of with Arabesque.
Elbow - definitely a vibe from their early stuff.
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Post by The Escapist on Oct 25, 2019 18:29:03 GMT -5
I can see why some would find Mylo over-produced. I think that's a valid criticism. But for me, it works. Hurts Like Heaven is polished to hell and back, but instead of taking away the soul, that adds a weird kind of futuristic atmosphere to the track. It feels like I'm in an underground party in a metal city in the year 3000, listening to the chart-toppers of the day. And take Charlie Brown, with all the strange alien-ised vocals that don't just play in the intro, but at multiple points during the track, or the gorgeous ambient interludes that sound like lost radio signals between galaxies. Those abstract, mysterious sighs in Up With the Birds. The blaring sirens while Jonny goes ham at the end of Major Minus. The speaker-busting synths on Princess of China. The production is so neon, so intense, so pop-tastic, while at the same time taking the listener somewhere new, somewhere alien. I love it.
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Post by matt on Oct 25, 2019 18:52:22 GMT -5
I can see why some would find Mylo over-produced. I think that's a valid criticism. But for me, it works. Hurts Like Heaven is polished to hell and back, but instead of taking away the soul, that adds a weird kind of futuristic atmosphere to the track. It feels like I'm in an underground party in a metal city in the year 3000, listening to the chart-toppers of the day. And take Charlie Brown, with all the strange alien-ised vocals that don't just play in the intro, but at multiple points during the track, or the gorgeous ambient interludes that sound like lost radio signals between galaxies. Those abstract, mysterious sighs in Up With the Birds. The blaring sirens while Jonny goes ham at the end of Major Minus. The speaker-busting synths on Princess of China. The production is so neon, so intense, so pop-tastic, while at the same time taking the listener somewhere new, somewhere alien. I love it. I don’t disagree with that to be fair and the production does contribute to the overall aesthetic more than any ‘raw’ production could. But on first impression with these tunes, it was the live performances we heard first. I remember hearing these tunes for the first time during the festival season of 2011 well before release. I thought Jonny’s guitar playing really stood out, maybe not as hard edged on record as I’d have liked but it’s only personal preference. |
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Post by mystoryisgory on Oct 25, 2019 19:11:46 GMT -5
MX is definitely overproduced but, like BHN, that's part of its charm. The layers and layers of synths and sound effects give the songs a hazy and dreamlike quality, as much a blend of hues as the colorful explosion that is the album art. It also makes it feel like one of those great adventures you have at night that you never want to wake up from. Yes, the live versions sound clearer, rawer, but I wouldn't want MX any other way.
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Post by glider on Oct 25, 2019 19:22:10 GMT -5
Good for you if you like it. But i thought it was a massive step down from Viva La Vida. Less of Mylo Xyloto and more Viva La Vida please. I don't want to see any more Rihanna's or pop star's on any more records. I think the Mylo issue is it sounds hodge podgey. They started to make two records at the same time, one more poppy/electronic and another more gentle and acoustic. They ended up ditching it after a few weeks but decided to combine some of the material into one release. That is the way it sounds to my ears. A mashup of influences and not as cohesive as Viva. Which was excellent. Mylo still contains absolute beasts. Hurts Like Heaven Paradise Charlie Brown Everyday Teardrop Is A Waterfall I’m also a huge huge huge fan of Major Minus. It’s like a darker cousin to God Put A Smile Upon Your Face. I do recognize that people consider Paradise, Waterfall and Princess of China huge sell out songs. Mylo is still miles and miles and miles better than AHFOD. Ghost Stories isn’t really that bad either. Love Always In My Head, Magic, Midnight and O. It’s weak in the middle but whatever. I think all the collaborations over the last 5-7 years really irks me. They don’t need them at all. Be yourself. Be proud. Be here now. Main issue with Ghost Stories is it was middle of the road and painfully safe. Outside of Midnight there wasn't anything musically brilliant that they weren't already good at. Sad Chris with piano - been there, done that. I can understand if those songs mean alot to people on the other hand. At its pop moments, the infamous Sky Full of Stars was their first disposable pop hit. And with A Head Full of Nonsense, we got an albums worth of it. Hopefully with Arabesque they're back to pushing their boundaries. On Mylo Xyloto: It's a decent record where the original vision for it was smothered in the studio for having too many cooks in the kitchen. The dreamy soundscapes of Charlie Brown and Hurts Like Heaven soar but at the same time the Rihanna colab is way too overdone in my opinion, and doesn't even sound like Coldplay, more like Chris Martin solo. For me all the songs in which they have collaborated with other pop artists sound like Chris Martin feat. them rather than a cohesive band. |
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Post by The Escapist on Oct 25, 2019 19:50:31 GMT -5
The more I listen, the more I'm loving Orphans. It captures the romantic, adventurous vibe of Lovers in Japan, and then pounds it through the pop bombast of Every Teardrop is a Waterfall. Nothing new for the band, but a joyous mix of their best chart-topping tendencies. The perfect balance to Arabesque.
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Post by mystoryisgory on Oct 25, 2019 22:39:58 GMT -5
Just took a listen to the Kaleidoscope EP, which may have been the first time I ever listened to it in full. And holy hell, it's actually pretty decent?? All I Can Think About Is You is a moody, laid-back track with a great bassline and swirling guitars, Miracles (Someone Special), despite its beyond-cheesy name that unfortunately is also shared by one of Coldplay's worst songs, has a really cool beat that makes Big Sean's verse fit right in, in fact perhaps more than the Coldplay song itself. A L I E N S may be an MX outtake but its stuttering beat is far more interesting than any percussion on that record. And Hypnotised is Coldplay-by-numbers but sounds like a band just simply doing what it does best, a flex if you will. The less said about Something Just Like This, the better.
How are these four songs so much better than nearly every song on AHFOD??? Surely it can't just be because Stargate doesn't have their fingerprints on them? I suspect that it's because it feels like a whole band was involved in the songs, unlike AHFOD which all too often felt like a Chris Martin solo album (and perhaps should have been released as such). Maybe Coldplay never lost it, they just needed Chris to take a step back from the front seat and stop trying to force sugar bombs of "happiness" into their songs.
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Post by mystoryisgory on Oct 25, 2019 23:44:44 GMT -5
Ok so, after listening to the Kaleidoscope EP in full I decided to give AHFOD a spin from start to finish for the first time in years. You can find my review of it soon after it was released in this thread and see how it compares.
A Head Full of Dreams: This is nicer than I remembered. Nice channeling of sparkly U2 vibes. But I still stand by my initial assessment that it seems to run out of ideas midway through. Even after four years it still seems like Chris decided that this song didn't have enough attributes that so obviously scream "Coldplay", so he was like "why don't we make the second half only a bunch of 'oh-oh-ohs' because every Coldplay song needs that?". This is what I'm talking about when I say that AHFOD sounds forced and cheesy at times. Chris and the rest of the band should've known better than that.
Birds: Just like the title track, this is way more beautiful than I remembered. However, though the production is sickly polished like a department store meant for tourists all throughout the album, this is the song that suffers the most by far. Stargate added way too much glitter to something that should've been more organic and natural. With a more creative production this could've sounded like a Viva outtake. And burying Johnny's guitar solo is a crime Dave Sardy would've been proud of!
Hymn for the Weekend: Here's where the real reckoning occurs! This song was definitely not nearly as deserving of the hate I threw at it when it was first released. This is actually a half-decent song, and wayyyy better than sickly sweet duds at the end of the album. That being said, what struck me as very strange was that, despite having a lot in common with very happy mainstream pop songs I really like, almost nobody in this song seems to be having fun??? Chris sounds oddly bored singing what's clearly meant to be super fun and let's admit it, silly. When you've got a song with lyrics as goofy and cartoony as this tune's you need to have the performance just as OTT to match the lyrics!! That's what makes great party songs great party songs!! Instead, the effect is not too different from showing up to a frat party when you're suffering from depression. Only when Beyonce makes her grand entrance does the song begin to take off, but instead of riding that momentum, the song just ends. I swear to god, if Chris had given this to any other pop singer, they would've made this song into a riot and floor filler classic. Instead, it's one of the biggest missed opportunities in Coldplay's catalog. I suspect the reason Chris couldn't pull this song off is because he's not a pop singer at heart. As much as he wants to be one, he just doesn't have the charisma to pull it off.
Everglow: Unlike the first three tracks, this one hasn't gotten any better with time. Still way too sentimental to seem as genuine as even the weakest moments of Ghost Stories. Remember when Coldplay could write these kind of ballads in their sleep? It's clear that Coldplay can still write them, but when they try to hard to make a "moving" song, unfortunately this is what results.
Adventure of a Lifetime: Hearing this one played way too much on radio when it was released has made me sour on this tune, despite liking it at first. But there's no doubt, production-wise this is by far the only slam dunk on AHFOD. The mixing is full of energy, twists and turns, hooks abound! It's even the only song on here that sounds genuinely happy!! Unlike every other song on here, this one benefits from the production that Stargate gave it. The band definitely made the right choice in releasing this as the lead single, and there's a reason this one has had more staying power in the public consciousness than Hymn for the Weekend.
And here's where the true slump of the album starts. I really can't be arsed to address every song on here, because everything here is simply boring and not much to write about, but I will say that Army of One starts out very nice with its unabashed embrace of RnB, but becomes very boring quickly because, like the title track, seems to run out of ideas midway. Almost makes me wonder if Chris felt constrained by the fact that this is a Coldplay album that he didn't embrace pop influences enough. And that Amazing Day is by far the worst offender here. I can't even fathom how Coldplay though that song was even worth recording. Not even the best performers in the world with the best producers could salvage this.
Up&Up: This is definitely a career highlight. Coldplay's Champagne Supernova, complete with every bit of the same bittersweet nostalgia and sadness. It's a true triumph. Still salty that Stargate didn't mix the two guitar solos higher, but that's a minor complaint.
Overall, I definitely feel that I rated this album too harshly when it came out. It's still Coldplay's weakest album by a long shot, and obviously, Fun through Colour Spectrum are weak songs at best and still deserve all the hatred I threw at them when they first came out, but I surprised myself that the title track, Birds, and (most surprisingly!!) Hymn for the Weekend were far better songs than I remembered. Surely that's gotta count for something?
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clueso
Madferrit Fan
Posts: 80 
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Post by clueso on Oct 26, 2019 4:04:15 GMT -5
This is a really good summary. So i can agree on basically everything.
The production on Birds and Up&Up is absolute horror. It hurts because both are really good songs - with some of the better CM lyrics on the record.
And as for the title track, thats true. It was the one finished in the very last moment since they couldnt decide how it should end up. Somehow one can actually feel that.
Anyway, despite of not being their best album to date, what really stands out are their live perfomances. I've seen many bands but no one delivers that energy, joy and enthusiasm like Coldplay does. I'm always flashed after every concert. Even a song like Princess of China is an absolute killer with Jonny doing the guitar riffs.
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Post by lahaine on Oct 26, 2019 5:25:59 GMT -5
Coldplay will probably never get back to the heights of the first four albums,but at least a step away from the awful cold and heartless sell out pop of the last few albums. I've read around and the songs are meeting with a lot of meh but I think it's the best stuff they've done in a decade imo. I see a few around here like Mylo Xyloto, but I was really massively disappointed by that album and still am.
Still a great live act.
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Post by The Escapist on Oct 26, 2019 6:07:32 GMT -5
Great write-up mystoryisgory, your point about Chris' vocals on Hymn for the Weekend not being expressive enough is dead right - I was pleased by how invested he sounds on Orphans, he seems much more eager to wring the melody of all it's worth. However, I'll say this: Everglow doesn't deserve half the hate it gets, while Fun deserves twice as much. Everglow has a sweet piano line, some tasteful samples and guitar licks, it feels fully fleshed out, and the melody is nice. I enjoy it. But Fun? Probably my least favourite Coldplay track of all time. An insipid, forgettable, instantly-dated bit of Solo Chris Martin. Someone said Princess of China sounded like a Martin solo song, and I couldn't disagree more. For all it's structural short-comings, that track bursts with bass and rhythm and guitar lines. Fun, on the other hand, is like a puddle of lukewarm colourless water. None of the vibrance and ambition that made Mylo so great. Just the kind of bland nothingness that Chris could quite literally write every single day. People seem much more ready to diss Everglow than Fun, and I'm not sure why. I think the former is a vastly superior song, even if neither are more than a 6/10. |
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Post by Lennon2217 on Oct 26, 2019 8:49:44 GMT -5
CALL ME DADDY!
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Post by Lennon2217 on Oct 26, 2019 10:10:32 GMT -5
“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to." - Kylo RenI'm sick and tired of having to enter the A Head Full of Dreams thread to talk new Coldplay. I want to forget that album. Forever.  Everyday Life - November 22, 2019SunriseSunrise
Church
Trouble In Town
BrokEn
Daddy
WOTW / POTP
Arabesque
When I Need a FriendSunsetGuns
Orphans
Èkó
Cry Cry Cry
Old Friends
بنی آدم
Champion of the World
Everyday Life[/font]
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Post by Lennon2217 on Oct 26, 2019 10:11:29 GMT -5
Orphans official video
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Post by Lennon2217 on Oct 26, 2019 10:12:54 GMT -5
Orphans
Arabesque
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Post by Lennon2217 on Oct 26, 2019 10:17:18 GMT -5
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Post by Lennon2217 on Oct 26, 2019 10:19:37 GMT -5
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Nov 4, 2024 5:04:30 GMT -5
Nov 4, 2024 5:04:30 GMT -5