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Coldplay – Everyday Life

Florian Buechting Media Review No Comments

Coldplay - Everyday Life

Coldplay - Everyday Life
1.75

Rating

 1.8/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Ethnic album with a lot of influences

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Too much: hard to listen to when not a

In the last twenty years, Coldplay was definitely one of the most successful European acts. On 22nd November 2019, the Brits released their eighth studio album Everyday Life, which is in fact a double album split in two halves.

 

Coldplay – About The Artists

Coldplay is a London-origin rock band. The band was formed in 1996 and used Coldplay as a band name quite soon after using “Pectoralz” and “Starfish” before. In fact, the band contains of four musicians, lead singer Chris Martin, Guy Berrbyman, Jonny Buckland and Will Champion. However, they describe themselve as a band of five members, including creative directly Phil Harvey. Their first release was the 1998 EP Safety, followed by their first single, Brothers & Sisters, which already made it to the Top 100 of the British charts. The album Parachutes contained the first successful recordings. Yellow made it to the Top 10 in the UK, Australia and Ireland. The first No. 1 single was Talk, which topped the Netherlands, after the band already released very successful tracks like Clocks (2003) or Speed of Sound (2005).

Coldplay were always more successful on the album side, though. Their debut Parachutes already topped the UK. while two years later, A Rush of Blood to the Head did that in the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and Switzerland. Thereafter, Coldplay albums felt to have a fixed number one position in multiple markets.

 

Coldplay – Everyday Life – The Album

In fact, Everyday Life is a double album, which features two parts, Sunrise and Sunset. The tracklist, by the way, has been initially disclosed in a Welsh newspaper. Despite being split into two sub-albums, the overall playtime of the 16 songs is only 52 minutes.

 

Coldplay – Everyday Life – Sunrise – Track by Track

The first eight songs of the album form the Sunrise.

1. Sunrise

This first track of the album is just a classical music arranged (mainly strings) introduction track. Not really atmospheric, though

2. Church

The first song track Church feels to have a quite classic Coldplay atmosphere. It deals with love, religion – topics which are reflected throughout the album. I like the atmosphere of the track, though I struggle with Oriental singing towards the outro of the song.

3. Trouble in Town

Trouble in Town topics deals about racism and xenophobic attitudes, also in the Western hemisphere. The interlude is a dialog between a policman and a fictive person. It makes it even harder to get into this track.

4. BrokEn

A very interesting song, as the gospel choir in here feels to be stronger than Chris Martin. Too brave and a touch of uninspired to me.

5. Daddy

A song about how a son is moving away from his father. Daddy is gentle, slow, quiet – and that it feels to easy to me not to listen to Coldplay in this song.

6. WOTW / POTP

WOTS / POTP  confuses me completely. The song sounds as if they would have recorded Chris Martin and an accoustic guitar from quite far away. There is even something like birds singing and other sound in the background. Wonder Of The World – Power Of The People, but no wonder and no power in this song to me.

7. Arabesque

With more rhythm and wind instruments, Arabesque definitely has more power than the songs before. While the first verses are in English, parts of the song are also in French. The song shall unite people and sew peace to the world.

And we share the same blood
Yeah, we share the same blood

I just doubt that sufficient people will listen to it.

8. When I Need a Friend

While the song starts in English and sounds like a – very slow – catholic church song, the Sunrise part of the album ends with Spanish lyrics. After eight songs, I am still not in the album (and I heard it multiple times before writing…)

 

Coldplay – Everyday Life – Sunset – Track by Track

In the second half of the album, we got the Sunset.

1. Guns

Advertise a revolution, arm it when it comes
We’re cooking up the zeros, we’ve been doing all the sums
The judgment of this court is we need more guns

The eighth song on the album, the first one of Sunset – another very different sound: a very fast, nearly hectic acoustic guitar in a song which is a critic to the US attitude towards guns.

2. Orphans

Orphans is the first song on the album, which really gets me. It is a combination of classic Coldplay sound and a choir, which is supoorting the chorus. The topic is about the results of the Syrian Civil War.

3. Èko

This song is about the capital of Nigeria, Lagos. I like to listen to the track – at least for a while. If you really want to concentrate on all the messages of this album, Everyday Life is just too exhausting.

4. Cry Cry Cry

A song with a strong piano in the melody and some cultural references in it. Only the bridge has some sort of message:

Don’t want us to hurt each other
Or cause each other pain
Don’t want to fear what we don’t know
We’re in this together, baby
We’re as singing is to rain
So I’ll never, ever, ever let you go

It just feels thin, too easy, to me.

5. Old Friends

Like most of the songs on the album, Old Friends is very slow and unremarkable. Chris Martin and his colleagues seem to want to force us to listen to their messages. This one is about long-lasting friendships.

6. بنی آدم  / Children Of Adam

This song is one of the most confusing of the whole album to me. It is mainly instrumental, but then quotes three different lyrics: an Arabian one about humanity, a reference to a John and Alice Coltrane song and a Nigerian gospel. A metaphor for equality and peace – but does it really work like this?

7. Champion of the World

The previous track directly runs into Champion of The World, which is the best song of the album to – maybe also just because I am most used to that kind of sound. It is definitely the most characteristic arrangement if you listened to the band before.

8. Everyday Life

The double album, which is finally just one CD, concludes with its title track. The chorus alters slightly through the song

‘Cause everyone hurts, everyone cries
Everyone sees the colour in each other’s eyes
Everyone loves, everybody gets their hearts ripped out

There is truly a reference to R.E.M.’s Everybody hurts in here. The song has a strong “We share the same feelings message” – I honestly doubt if my feelings match the one of the authors when I listened to the songs.

 

Coldplay – Everyday Life – Spotify

Here is the Spotify pre-listen link to the album:

 

Coldplay – Everyday Life – My View

This was one of these albums, which I listened to, listened to again, started my review and finally decided to read some other reviews of the same album before I published it. Unfortunately, this did not decrease my confusion and uncertainty. Some critics comment Everyday Life as a masterpiece, some others see a fail. I like the topics the band was rising in this 2019 album, but I also feel that the way they did it and experimenting with so many different styles of world music and cultures was simply a fail.

I love if artists want to transport their messages – vice versa, I am often tired of the “Girls, Beer and Cars” songs in country music. But if you do so, you don’t just have to care about the message, but also the way you are transporting it to your listener. No, Chris Martin & Co., I just don’t have three, four, five hours to again and again listen to Everyday Life intensively, doing nothing else and exploring all the detailed messages. This is unrealistic nowadays. Bad luck, but you have to find another way to make the world a bit better.

 

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