As The Crow Flies 05.01.09: I HATE Coldplay (or Blandness and All His Friends...)

Posted by Chris Crowing on 05.01.2009

I just can't get behind Coldplay, as they seem to represent much I hate about popular music these days - take a look and find out why.



Through the Fire and the Flames

Once again, I'd like to thank my regular commenters for their kind words - it's nice to be appreciated.

However @ AndrewCrow - I'll freely admit my now long-past 'history of metal' was a deeply flawed and incomplete work - although I did say once we hit the 90s, it would be more 'my story' rather than a fair and comprehensive history of the genre as a whole.

Extreme metal (by that I mean anything darker and/or heavier than 80s Metallica) was something I have come to slowly, and while I was a huge Paradise Lost and Cradle of Filth fan in my teens, it never really led me to anything until the last few years when I have expanded my musical range of appreciation far beyond all previous bounds. Like many have said themselves, it's rare to truly appreciate bands like Tool until you are edging closer to 30, and the same can be said for the better Black and Death metal bands.

As such, to remedy the lapse in my previous work, in a few weeks time I'll do a full column (or two - depending how many words it east up) on my experience with the blacker and more deathly sides of metal, just for you.

I will warn you it won't all be love, as there is a LOT about the extreme metal scenes which I find distasteful but musical and ideological, but I hope, on balance to continue my recent trend of 'making you like me.'

I aim to please - or to offend, whichever suits the particular reader the best.

In any case, here's a tentative schedule for what's coming from As The Crow Flies in the next few weeks.

05:08:09 - I Love the Foo Fighters
05:15:09 - I Hate the Music Industry
05:22:09 - I Love the Future of the Music Industry
and from 05.29.09 - I Love/Hate Extreme Metal

Being this organized - I must be ill, perhaps it's Swine Flu. In any case, it's time for some serious HATRED.
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This week...I Hate Coldplay!

Let this not be misconstrued as an attack on the ability of Chris Martin and company, as they are clearly very accomplished musicians, capable of creating complex songs and executing those songs in a live arena. A great many of my friends are massive Coldplay fans and I would not besmirch their taste by attempting to say that the band are not capable or worthy musicians. In fact this column is more about using Coldplay as an example of a creeping evil I see in the music industry (and society in general) these days...

This is a different hatred to those I have expressed in the past because I cannot lambaste Coldplay for being manufactured, for being overtly fashionable to the exclusion of their musical output, or for having as their driving force a hypocritical and harmful ideology.

My dislike for them is more indefinable, less vitriolic and in many ways of far more concern than the large and obvious evils of fashion, untruth, commerciality and exploitation which I find in other areas.

In fact, it is largely the lack of drive and passion which fuels my intense distaste for the band.

I remember when Coldplay first appeared, one of a raft of British indie bands to surface in the first few years of this decade once the great indie wave of the 90s had subsided and moved on. They were one of the first of this wave to find success, with their first singles "Yellow" and "Trouble" being relatively big hits, and setting the band up for a high profile sophomore effort.

It is no coincidence to me that those early songs are easily my most favoured from their back catalogue. "Yellow" has a very pleasing pace and a heartfelt, low-fi quality of the kind now more associated with Snow Patrol and I've ever been a sucker for such things.



I'd even say that "Yellow" is like the upbeat, less interesting version of "Run" by the aforementioned Ulster band, which is faint praise, but praise nonetheless.



For those wondering - I freaking love Snow Patrol, because of their heart, charm, tendency to pop out at least two awesome songs per album and a genuine desire to help out young Scots and Irish bands.

"Trouble" is closer to Coldplay's signature plaintiff (some might say whiny) piano sound, although of everything they have produced it comes across as the most affecting, honest and is just more aesthetically pleasing.



I have heard a truly harrowing 'dance' remix of "Trouble" played in clubs. I refuse to look up a video for it as I would not have your dreams so harrowed as mine. It's a flat out crime to add hackneyed beats to such a sensitive song.

In short, I have no issue with Parachutes as an album, and my distaste for Coldplay came later, along with their popularity.

Funny how that happens, isn't it?

It has been well established that I will almost always rail against the prevailing fashionable winds, and as Coldplay's success increased, my interest diminished. However this is not just my alternative sensibilities kicking in (in truth I don't have any - when your favourite bands are Metallica, the Foo Fighters and Nine Inch Nails you can only claim a portion of the 'alternative' mindset) but the fact that I was increasingly unimpressed by the verve of their music and their offstage personalities.

OK, to be fair, I became unimpressed with Chris Martin's personality (who can honestly say they could pick anyone else from the band out from a line-up?) From wooing and marrying the blandest, most bloodless actress in the world to having very little of interest to say in interviews, I have increasingly found that I just can't like the guy.



For all that songs like "Clocks", "The Scientist" and "In My Place" from 2002's A Rush of Blood to the Head are well played and competently put together, there is less charm and heart in them than the warmer songs from the previous album. The next album X & Y is even blander, with the most notable song, "Fix You" coming across like the weak dregs of whatever inspiration went into "Trouble", squeezed near dry to make "In My Place" and the last flaccid piece came out as "Fix You."



All verve and charm appears to have drained from the work in favour of attempting to convey frailty and passivity through annoyingly trilled vocals and dull piano lines. Still that is merely bland and weak, it is no reason for hate...

It might sound terribly petulant of me, but the final straw that broke the camels back with my tolerance for this band, and their apparent incipient godhood was Chris Martin capering about onstage with a message about climate change or something similar scrawled on his hand with a marker pen. What the fuck?

Now, I'm not having a go at artists who want to talk about 'world issues' - in fact I view it as almost a duty of the creative among us to incite passionate responses to the issues of the day (or else I wouldn't like Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Pitchshifter as much as I do) but Martin's manner really grates on me, and it's not JUST a matter of furious delivery appealing to me moreover Martin's more sedate style. Well it does, but that's not the point...



I applaud Sir Bob Geldof for his unstinting charity work, and I have a lot of time for the likes of KT Tunstall (who is a similarly middle of the road figure to Martin, but infinitely more likeable) when they talk about climate change etc. as it seems they genuinely MEAN it, and their rants are rooted in empathy and concern.



Martin on the other hand seems to be the kind of entitled, never-had-a-bad-day-in-my-life kind of prat who gets all interested in these things because he thinks he should.

It is of no coincidence to me that Coldplay seem most popular among those kind of 'upper middle class' twats who make a great show that they recycle, who love to think of themselves as being oh-so bohemian and intellectual, while still voting Conservative (American's think Republican) and generally trying to act all proletarian while really being so incredibly stuck up and out of touch with real issues that it beggars belief.

There are many stars who's supposedly righteous and philanthropic attitudes come across as more than a little false - alongside Martin, u2's frontman Bono is one of the greatest examples of this.

In fact, there similarities in the band's histories, albeit over a much longer time frame. u2 were originally an interesting band, leading up to their commercial apotheosis with the Joshua Tree. To their credit they continued t vary their sound in the albums which followed, as Zooropa, Achtung Baby and Pop stretched their accessible post-punk sound into more eclectic areas.

However from 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind, the band returned to the trademark (and massively successful) sound of the Joshua Tree and have ploughed the same, played-out furrow ever since. Likewise, over the same period, Bono's tendency to hold forth of the ills of the world, from famine to climate change has increased exponentially - and to my mind pretty hypocritically.



The analogy I'm making is that both bands seem to have less and less passion for music, less to say in their songs and pull inwards towards a safe, bland, passive approach (which seems to impress the masses) while deciding to hold forth on the generally accepted, seemingly righteous and empathic issues of the day, i order (it seems to me) to validate their existence as these supposedly great human beings.

Yes, I'm cynical, but I like the people who preach to me to at least seem like they mean it.

The much vaunted release last year of Viva la Vida (Or Death and All His Friends), was seemingly supposed to confirm Coldplay's status as a genuine musical heavyweight, alongside the likes of u2. It may well have done so, seeing as they have a tour booked in the same stadiums that u2 are touring this summer (although somewhat strangely with Jay-Z as their support.).

For my two cents on Viva La Vida (which surely translates as 'long live the life' or something like that) I think that the album manages to be pretentiously bombastic, lyrically immature and ultimately just as dull as it's predecessors, despite it's more exuberant production.



I read this review of the album on the AWESOME http://www.rateyourmusic.com last year, and split my sides laughing - it perfectly illustrates my point. All credit to the author, the incomparable atomicWedgie...


I have to say, I wasn't expecting a new U2 album any time soon. They've got their two albums in for this decade, I figured. Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard a new U2 album playing at the record store last week.

"What's this new U2 album you're playing called?" I asked the kid at the counter.

"Coldplay?" he said. Dope must've had wax in his ears. I clearly had to avoid confusing him with things like band names and multi-syllable words.

"This one, this cd that you're playing this very second, the notes of which I can hear ringing in my ears. What's it called?!" I spoke loudly and slowly so the young genius would understand.

He pointed to a rack of new releases. "Viva la Vida," he said with a smirk. The little shit. At least I knew what the release was called now.

"You have that in vinyl?"

He pointed to a rack of records next to the new release cds. "Comes with a cd," he said. "Fuck cds," I thought, but I kept that to myself. I was getting the new U2 album on vinyl and just from the snippet I was hearing at the store it sounded better than anything I'd heard them record in years.

I didn't wait to put the record on when I got home. I went straight to my turntable, and after revelling on that unmatched feeling of removing the shrink wrap on a new record, I tossed it onto the turntable. I have to admit, at first I was a little disappointed. We've heard them do this intro before on the opener of The Joshua Tree. It's the exact same keyboard part, just played a little faster. Well, it didn't take long for the song to open up a bit, and then I understood what was going on--U2 was paying homage to themselves with this track. Soon The Edge's trademark digital delay sound was filling the room along with Bono's nasally vocals and I was in heaven. They haven't sounded this good in years. Bono's voice is a little thinner than normal. I suppose it's age.

There are a lot of keyboards on Viva la Vida, more than one would expect from the Irish lads. I suppose it could have something to do with the theme of this record. They've done albums about God, death, adolescence, America and Berlin, what better way to tie the music into this record's theme--the French Revolution--than with lots of piano. The revolutionaries played piano a lot, right?

Side one is full of soon-to-be-classic U2 songs, including "42", "Lovers in Japan", "Cemeteries of London" and "Reign of Love". Didn't they already record a song called "Reign of Love"? Is that just my imagination? Could be, I suppose. It's got some great Rattle and Hum-era guitar tones on it, like stuff from "Heartland". That Edge, he's a freakin'' genius. "42" is one of the better songs on Viva la Vida, a fine match to its predecessor "40" from War. What happened to "41", though? I haven't been following the band closely enough, I guess.

Side two is pretty good, too. Bono gives us some of his falsetto vocals on the title track. Good stuff. The funny thing is, occasionally, and especially on side two, it does sound a little like Coldplay. I can see why that little record store twit would be confused.

Viva la Vida is easily the best U2 album I've heard in a long, long time.

I think you get what I mean. This next bit might appear a tangent, but I am coming round to something...

There is a recurring them in many of the fictions that I like (the work of Terry Pratchett, Iain M. Banks, J.R.R. Tolkein, Janny Wurts etc.) that the very worst kind of evil is not the obvious and opposable kind, (for destruction fuels creation and keeps the wheels of the world turning) but is the kind of grey limbo of bloodless uncaring that disbars us from change, be it physical, emotional or spiritual.

This is the realm of the Auditors, of the Nazgul, of (almost) every taxman, modern language teacher or promoter you've ever dealt with. In my (admittedly somewhat cynical and jaded) view this homogenizing and passive plague is one of the greatest evils of our time.

Music is meant to be a conduit for our emotions, it is supposed to make and help us FEEL. Music should be the thing that helps you work out your rage and depression, and also lift you up to a higher state of emotional being - that's how I feel about it anyway.

Bands like Coldplay, u2 (since Pop at least) as well as the likes of Razorlight, Keane and all the manufactured pop nonsense and insincere Emo (Madina Lake and Hawthorne Heights especially spring to mind) I have railed about in recent weeks fail this basic test, and seem to act as a kind of Prozium for our society - (if that goes over your head, watch the awesome movie Equilibrium.)

I simply demand that my music be something that evokes a response other than apathy in it's own right, even if it is only amusement or having a beat I'd want to dance to.

I have often railed against a perceived lack of quality in modern popular music, but just as hateful is a lack of passion. I will always attack acts I believe to be manufactured, who subscribe to a false or dangerous ideology or that I just don't like, but I will usually bow my head in acceptance of a band I don't like but can appreciate that they have skill.

However, robot-like technical proficiency will not suffice, especially when mixed with such a pale imitation of emotion, empathy and care.

In one line, I'd rather listen to a band that were less good, but cared more.

To offset one last argument - I have an avowed love for bands like Snow Patrol and the Foo Fighters who many would accuse of being just as bland and formulaic - but I find a charm and pleasing aesthetic in their work, that is utterly absent from the acts I have railed against above - YES, this is a question of personal taste, and for all those out there who do really liked Coldplay, U2 and etc's recent output, then that's just great for you.

Likewise this is not the rant of a knuckle dragging metalhead against 'un-extreme' acts - I have tremendous time for Sigur Ros, Bjork, Air and a plethora of very non-controversial and decidedly un-loud singer/songwriters. It's a question of aesthetics and passion, and those acts I have pegged as soul destroyingly bland and passive fail a very personal and singular test with me.

As such, I appreciate that many will disagree, and I fully expect a barrage of hate in the comments box below, but the simple fact remains, that if you can't make me care, nod my head, or even smile a bit with your music, then you have failed.

This holds doubly true for those acts who are set up as genre defining or 'excellent' by themselves and the media, yet who still fail this basic test - and it holds trebly true for those acts who hold themselves to be of sufficient stature and righteousness to attempt to lecture anyone on their charitable or environmental habits. As one of my good friends is wont to shout at open mike nights, "sing bitch, then we'll decide if you are worth listening to!"

Perhaps I've been unfair on Chris Martin and Co, (especially on the rest of the band) and I'll admit, they were just the most obvious and convenient target for a rant which is in part aimed at the whole industry.

Slainte
Chris Crowing

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