Coldplay, A Head Full of Dreams ‘one week review’
I know this isn’t your typical post, but when the tech mill slows down — as is to be expected when the holiday season approaches, and normal people finally get to actually buy the products rather than hear about them — even bloggers like me need to focus on other things.
I didn’t want to leave a blank spot this week, and thought about writing down what’s been stuck in my head, given that I have no clear pre-outlined schedule and use this space to talk about everything and anything that pops into my mind.
I spent the better part of last week listening to Coldplay’s latest album, A Head Full of Dreams, an have formed my own thoughts.
So, in case you were interested… here you go.
When Ghost Stories was released about a year and a half ago, I was underwhelmed at best.
I had been waiting a long time for a new Coldplay record, and my unanimously positive experience with the previous one, Mylo Xyloto (and its immense tour) had left me filled with joy and hope.
I liked the style a lot, and thought it was a successful experiment.
So of course Ghost Stories was definitely not what I expected.
Not so much in terms of style, which is hardly a correct word to list and critique the British band’s music, but because something in me hadn’t clicked.
While I could definitely feel Martin’s emotions and the implications of the infamous ‘conscious uncoupling’, I found the sounds to be pretty boring, lacking in direction, and most of all the lyrics felt dull.
Its mostly low-key overture made the whole thing passable, but the fact that they hadn’t left a mark made me feel empty and hollow.
Even the beautiful O and Midnight — the two standout tracks — couldn’t save what had been an overall lacklustre effort.
Come December, the majestic Miracle dropped, and a missing tour combined with a sneaky interview made it clear that the band was aware of their status, and at the same time working hard on their roadmap.
Over 2015, several hints made it clear that Coldplay’s return with A Head Full of Dreams was to be in grand style, with a rich, colourful album to be performed live under the eyes of the world.
That is more or less what we got: an album full of colour, power, voices and instruments brought to their extreme, ranging from soft rock to pop, to more dance-y music and classic ballads, all under the direction of the famous producer duo Stargate, well known for their collaboration with artists like Rihanna and Beyoncé, among others.
In a way, A Head Full of Dreams was in fact foreseeable.
On the other hand it turned out to be unpredictable, so it will require some time to mature and be fully judged. Bear in mind that I’m no music expert, and this ‘review’ is just my personal opinion.
And so here we are, headphones on and everything, ready to enter Coldplay’s sound jungle again.
My first reaction was mixed.
The single Adventure of a Lifetime, while not leaving me astonished, gave me a happy feeling and the sensation that AHFOD was going in that direction, and everything more or less proceeding as expected.
Upon first listen, however, I found myself in a contradictory status, trying hard to encapsulate what I had just listened to before even asking myself whether I had liked it or not.
To this day, I still ask myself that question.
The record starts with the namesake A Head Full of Dreams, a catchy and enjoyable intro which exceeds a little in its building, leading to almost two full minutes before pulling the trigger. Its ending, however, begins to make things clearer, and the plunge into Birds manages to quickly bring the album to a really high point.
The second track is my personal favourite because of two reasons: it encapsulates the spirit of the entire album, filtering it down into a four-minute explosion of imaginative pictures and beautiful-sounding vocals and instruments; and, most of all, it’s a courageous attempt, something almost unseen in the band’s discography, which is exactly what Coldplay have stood for in the past fifteen years: surprise.
Albeit divisible in two big ‘chunks’ — everything leading up to Viva la Vida or Death And All His Friends and from Mylo Xyloto onwards — no two albums in their entire production sound alike, and Coldplay’s leap into the genres’ mixture represented by AHFOD is summarised into Birds at its boldest.
The second attempt at this comes with the Beyoncé-featuring pop hit Hymn For The Weekend, a free celebration of life and love which stands out for the singers’ beautiful voices and soft sounds more than anything else. It’s catchy, and it blends in well with the rest of the album, but depending on the band’s push may very well be forgotten in the long run.
Everglow follows, and it represent the first shake: it’s a wake-up call, a safe play, but more importantly a beautiful song: not only it manages to shut down the years-long media frenzy about the Chris Martin’s relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow, whose vocals are featured, but reminds us how simplicity is one of Coldplay’s strongest instruments, whenever they feel like it.
It’s a song that could fit well into almost any other album, what fans describe as the “Coldplay-est” track, and I couldn’t disagree. It breaks the pace up intelligently, and gives every old fan something to relate to. It certainly is among the top three of the entire set.
Adventure of a Lifetime is in all honesty really hard to judge, as having consumed it in the past month makes me want to skip it most of the times.
This is not to say that AOAL is a bad track, quite the opposite: it places itself somewhere in between Hymn For The Weekend and Birds, going for the easy listening of the former and the originality and style-pursuing strength of the latter.
It works well, but at this point of the album it becomes a little hard for the listener to focus on what exactly the band has set out to achieve, as sounds overlap a little too much due to the heavy-handed production.
Fun is well placed in this regard: its sound is more genuine, thanks to the acoustic guitar, and Chris’ voice merges beautifully with Tove Lo’s; I am not 100% sold on the lyrics yet, but much like Birds, Fun sounds like an attempt to diversify and surprise. It works great, and while it embodies the spirit of AHFOD less than you would expect, that probably turns out to be nothing but an added strength.
Things start to get a little weird here: Kaleidoscope, which is essentially a reading of Persian poet Rumi’s ‘The Guest House’, albeit beautiful by itself (and meaningful, given the importance that Martin attributes to it for his ‘rebirth’ and the ideas behind AHFOD) does not fit in particularly well musically, and results a tad out of place.
Even more so when Army of One kicks in, immediately afterwards; like Everglow, it sounds like Coldplay playing it safe, which is not a bad decision itself, but the ultimate result is far from the aforementioned ballad’s, which the band has mastered since their early stages, and adds very little to the overall mix. As someone else put it, “it’s just kind of there”.
The weirdness continues with the hidden track X Marks The Spot, which is as forgettable as its presence in the tracklist.
To say it bluntly: it doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t mind Chris’ lower vocals, but the sound is flat and the lyrics are borderline nonsensical. The rest of the band is also nowhere to be found.
I definitely wished they had worked on something else to fill up the time tank.
Amazing Day is the safest bet of them all: a truly ‘old Coldplay’ song, which some people love to death and some other will just like; I am part of the second group, and despite my deepest appreciation for some of the lyrics (“life has a beautiful, crazy design”; “can there be breaks in the chaos of time?”) I am not madly in love with it.
The continuous downhill rolling really hurts the record for me, and creates a notable crack in the flow.
Colour Spectrum is a nice instrumental intro which brings us to what I deem to be the real star of the show, Up&Up.
If Birds showed Coldplay at their boldest, Up&Up represents the band at its best.
This song has absolutely everything in it, from its sound to the lyrics, to the placement as last and, particularly, the amazing, unconventional structure.
I hadn’t listened to such a complex Coldplay song since arguably Viva la Vida, and am so happy to see those ideas finally applied to the ‘second-era’ Coldplay.
Several instruments, voices and styles mix magically in a bombastic, colourful and rich song which fires up (and up!) the band towards the sky like a meteorite, leaving us with two magnificent guitar solos — featuring both Johnny Buckland and Oasis’ guitarist Noel Gallagher — , joyful choruses and the album’s perfect wrap-up in its ending line, ‘believe in love’.
What the history of A Head Full of Dreams tells me is in fact exactly this: it is not so much a story built upon a musical style, but rather a feeling of positiveness upon which the band created its uplifting sound.
The music here is just a means, and loving AHFOD means deeply connecting with its underling messages, which the music only amplifies, not define.
Overall I like it.
I don’t necessarily love it, but have nonetheless great expectations for their live performances on tour: the key musical problem of A Head Full of Dreams is its overproduction, which makes sounds really hard to extrapolate and differentiate, almost giving us a 45 minutes long record where Coldplay land, play and take off like a rocket in a blink.
These songs will play nicely along the rest of the discography, and the toned-down production will make the various instruments justice, I am sure of that.
As for now, I will try to make the most of it and tune in with the record’s joy as much as I can. To have your head full of dreams really is the best way to enjoy it.
