We all do it but I don’t think we’d want them to change their ways really do we? – That Glastonbury headline performance when they came on and played half a dozen cracking new tunes before anything anyone had heard before. Imagine not having to get up to go to work and having all that time available to sit on the end of your bed for hours with an acoustic guitar, occasionally strolling into the piano room to tinker away at midday in your underpants, hang-glide down to the studio, invite some musicians over that you met on holiday and bang out a song before supper is served.
They all have zoo’s in the back garden situated on the other side of a high wall that sits next to the swimming pool and they get to chomp away on a big vegan roast every Sunday afternoon, cooked by their servants with their huge families by their side whilst they slap each other hard on the backs and smoke big cigars (probably – I don’t know, that’s all been made up as well).īeing ordinary can have its benefits but this is one album too far to be honest.Īnd they’ve released it just before Christmas. Whilst we’ve all been spending the last few years chasing the next adrenaline rush after the last adrenaline rush in the world of rock and roll and getting our thrills here there and everywhere this lot have all now moved into their big houses, along with loads of rescued abandoned animals. Sometimes ordinary is OK though, sometimes its nice to hear something nice and simple you can sit back and drink a cup of tea to even if a larger percentage of our lives is usually spent searching out something slightly more unique, challenging and inspiring.
Quite ordinary, straight, risk free and polite. They probably always have been, it seems apparent in their music. I don’t know, but at a wild guess I imagine that Chris Martin, the two others whose names I was going to Google (but can’t be arsed now) and the drummer are pretty clean living. Closing a decade defined by stadium-sized hits of optimism, Coldplay manages to grow even bigger with Everyday Life, absorbing flavors from across the globe with their most indulgent and, perhaps, poignant album yet.No drugs were taken in the making of this record and that’s just the first of a few things I’m going to be making up about Coldplay in this review. If this all sounds like a lot, it is, making this effort a scattered but fascinating anomaly in their discography that requires a few spins to truly take hold. Interpolating Pakistani and Iranian poets, the voices of Femi Kuti, Tiwa Savage, and Alice Coltrane, and Nigerian church choirs, Everyday Life lifts spirits on a rhythmic, worldly scale, just as church bells and gospel singers elevate intimate moments like "BrokEn" and "When I Need a Friend." While every track offers its own special moments, absolute standouts include the devastating "Daddy," a stirring piano-based weeper that sounds like early Keane the bright "Champion of the World," which interpolates Scott Hutchison's "Los Angeles, Be Kind" and epic showstopper "Arabesque," a horn-drenched peak in their catalog that showcases Femi Kuti and his band and Belgian rapper Stromae. Rather, in typical band fashion, rays of hope, perseverance, and life shine through the darkness.
Breaking further away from their standard output, Everyday Life also takes a stance as their most political statement to date, decrying police brutality on the infuriating "Trouble in Town," addressing firearm control on the sardonic "Guns" (which also has the honor of being the first Coldplay studio track to feature swearing), and putting a relatable, human face on the global refugee crisis with the otherwise joyful "Orphans." While these moments are intense (for Coldplay), they don't completely overwhelm the album. Their least immediate or mainstream-friendly effort thus far, the unconventional set veers into multiple genres and various directions, which requires listeners to surrender to the experience. However, Everyday Life exists in its own strange, unpolished world, which frontman Chris Martin described as "totally raw" and pure.
As traveling troubadours hopping across continents and seas, Coldplay captured some of that sonically revolutionary spirit found on Viva La Vida while pushing the pop-sense positivity à la A Head Full of Dreams. That spirit continued to course through the studio, yielding their ambitious 2019 double album, Everyday Life. Traversing the globe and selling out stadiums, they absorbed plenty of sounds and stories from fans around the world, which helped inform their experimental Global Citizen EP. Capping their record-breaking A Head Full of Dreams era in 2018, Coldplay cemented themselves as one of the biggest international acts of the decade.