In harness with producers as diverse as Paul Epworth, Timbaland and Avicii, Coldplay have never sounded more electronic. It shares a simple sparseness with ‘Parachutes’, but the approach is radically different. Next thing, Martin will be buying his hat first class tickets around the world.īut this isn’t quite early Coldplay rebooted.
That puts ‘Ghost Stories’ alongside ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind’.
Neatly, we can call ‘Prospekt’s March’ their ‘Zooropa’, while ‘Mylo Xyloto’ was ‘Pop’ from every angle, all shrill, disjointed highs, little triangles of bunting in search of a thread. Compared album by album, it might go something like this: ‘X&Y’ was as complacent as ‘Rattle & Hum’, ‘Viva La Vida’ - with its knowing “Enoxification”, lively embrace of pure pop and awareness of its surroundings - was as seminal as ‘Achtung Baby’. There’s always been a touch of the U2s about Coldplay’s trajectory, from the vertiginous climb to the stadium big league to, naturally, the hiring of Brian Eno’s fairydust talents. They’ve gone in eyes open, intending to adjust both sound and position, and it’s a familiar strategy. A raw, true Coldplay album might be an unexpectedly meaty treat for the masses, and a weight off Martin’s shoulders. We’ve all lost something here, the beguiling image of the awkward, everyman, not-quite rockstar wooing the Hollywood superstar - but perhaps we can all gain something too. There was a collective sigh when news broke that Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow were splitting up. If Coldplay are ever going to make their own ‘Blood On The Tracks’ (and if you’ve been holding your breath for that, you’re probably in some strife now) this is the time. Go on, chalk that up.Īctually, perhaps he is a bit Dylan. He may not be Dylan just yet, but everyone will be parsing ‘Ghost Stories’ for a different sort of clue, maybe even hamfisted attempts to rhyme “conscious” and “coupling”. Like Noel Gallagher - and doesn’t that just trip off the tongue? - Martin seemed to be filling up space, chucking in a few platitudes to bulk up the bars between big choruses. Once upon a time, picking over Chris Martin lyrics was a sport, a race to guess the rhyming word.
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