From The Desk Of Christopher Tucker: Missing The Point With Coldplay (20080619)
From WikiColdplay
There are widespread myths that likely started with a sole critique years ago that caught fire and took off like popular slang. A perfect example of what I’m talking about is that Coldplay is like U2. Please let’s understand this is not what’s up. U2 is like a resurgent country. Coldplay is a more like a department store.
As International Coldplay Week winds down, our man Christopher Tucker embraces The Big Bore that is Chris Martin.
Criticism excels when it misses the point. Missing the point, most of the time, is what a critic does best only when he/she finds a tangentially related point theretofore unmasked. When a critic connects the dots for the reader, it makes the criticism interesting in a “Right on! I totally get that too!” type of way. The reason critics make a living doing that shit, connecting the dots for people, is because they typically have a comprehensive knowledge of the dots. Somehow the vital connection is made.
Now, I don’t have a comprehensive knowledge of the dots across a landscape worthy of any appropriate critical evaluation of any type of art. But I love, for some reason, finding oversights in published critiques and enjoy bringing these to light. Some of these are widespread myths that likely started with a sole critique years ago that caught fire and took off like popular slang. A perfect example of what I’m talking about is that Coldplay is like U2. Please let’s understand this is not what’s up. U2 is like a resurgent country. Coldplay is a more like a department store.
That Coldplay just made a terrific record is hard to swallow but that’s what happened and its flaws are easy to spot yet somehow appreciated. What do I mean by this? Chris Martin, before the chorus on a lot of his songs, for some reason stylistically owned like a block of real estate, will drop a “Singin’…” Dude’s always singin’ something! Anyway, after three records of singin’ something or other, when he doesn’t drop a singin’ in front of the chorus, you’re kind of like “um, dude, where’s the singin’ layup?” Expecting anything to that degree makes a record boring BUT! That’s why Coldplay is good. Because sometimes? People? You need a little boring in your life.
What makes the record good is that it’s a different kind of boring. On “Cemeteries of London” the band sounds like Lush. Parts of this album sound like Elastica. I’m not kidding. There’s some Spiritualized. There’s a bunch of outtakes from Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space peppered throughout this 42 minutes of Coldplay boring awesomeness. There’s even a little Peter Gabriel percussion which, while perhaps fundamentally creeping on a U2 vibe is not to be confused with U2. You’ll have about as much luck finding U2 on this album as you will finding a Macy’s in a Resurgent Country.
It’s not hard to figure out why the album sounds like this but if it was nice to listen to Lush, Elastica, and Spiritualized so long ago (I know that nobody stopped listening to Spiritualized – that’s not the point), it’s nice to hear somebody bringing it up in a boring, yet curiously interesting way. Parts of this album don’t remind me of anything but a memory heretofore seldom conjured of sitting quietly alone, relaxing in my college apartment. And if Coldplay is the band that puts you to sleep – perhaps that’s why. Call them safe. Call them boring. Whatever. Put this shit on and it’s a daydream of days long past – and not the tragic or dramatic ones that typically pop into your head when you cast your memory net. This is a calm day in your life that you’re never going to get to live again. This album is a pleasant, boring, safe, calm day in your life, many, many, years ago. It isn’t going to change your life but it won’t make you feel like you have to either.
