Coldplay - Everyday Life (November 22, 2019) Album • Page 6

My $0.02:

If it makes you feel any better about the overall message of the record, there’s everything from Nigerian gospel chants to references to Buddhist philosophers. Especially based on the title track, it seems like they’re going for a global “we’re all in this together” feel. In my mind it would be more disrespectful to not include Arab regions.

None of the above has anything to do with the depth of Chris Martin’s commitment to engaging with these cultures, but at the very, very least he is an equal opportunity offender of being shallow vs having some weird thing about Arabic culture to sell a record. That’s not really something I can speak to other than the brief promo they’ve given for this album, where they’ve discussed traveling the world and recording in fits and starts.

 

That clip of the argument in the middle of "Trouble In Town"; what incident is that from? Is that something on Youtube?

 

Racial profiling and harassment in Philadelphia, PA, 2013:

 

Yeah, Philip Nace who had a long history of this behind him:

YouTube cop Philip Nace pulled off the street as second video surfaces

 

I can only speak for myself on this given the sensitivity of it, and can't really weigh in on whether it's their place to have done it to begin with, but when that dialogue starts to come in on that track it really hits hard. It's the most surprising moment on the record to me.

 

I don't dislike this anywhere near their last album; it's just I'm not getting any special vibe from any of the songs, apart from "Daddy". It's just like, mehhhhhhh. "Champion Of The World" is the most "Coldplay" song on here.

 

My main criticism is that the optics of the promotion feel rough to me. Which, I can’t tell if equal opportunity appropriation makes it better or worse, lol. More than anything, I hope there was more collaboration than appropriation, y’know? Like, I hope there were diverse artists who performed on here and/or had songwriting credits and/or did the design work, etc.

And, of course, also hope I dig the album, lol.

 

I don’t hate this album but there’s definitely filler here. Some of these tracks are completely unnecessary but the stuff that works seems to work really well. I genuinely enjoyed some of this. It’s definitely a huge step up from the last album, which I absolutely disliked.

 

I didn't really like any thing on here and I loved a fair bit on their last album.

 

Oh yeahhh I'm really digging this album. It definitely reminds me of Viva in a lot of ways.

Early favorites are Trouble in Town, Daddy, Old Friends, Eko and Champions

 

Also I'm surprised Orphans never made it onto the Billboard Hot 100.

 

Great interview with Chris about the album:

 

Glad they chose not to play it overly safe this time around. Agreed with someone who said it sounds almost like a mixtape - but that's a good thing IMO. Thoroughly enjoying it.

 

Good interview. Interesting that he said they'll only be doing 7 shows for this album's tour cycle. I'd imagine they'll be doing a few big festivals next year. Maybe Coachella and/or Lolla?

 

I back this 100 percent. And those songs are all pretty dang solid.

 

I was reading this comment while listening to the track “When I Need a Friend” and the thought crossed my mind that I think you might dig this album.

 

As far as the music goes, the songs with extensive writing credits on Spotify are "Church", "Arabesque", and "بنی آدم". ("Champion of the World" has credits for everyone in Frightened Rabbit.) Coldplay is the only performing credit on the album, despite some clear features and interpolations on songs like "Ekó".

EDIT:
That said, there's a TON of info/credits on the Wikipedia article for this album, and it seems like there's a lot of collaboration here.

 

I reviewed it here. I didn't focus on the appropriation discussion (didn't feel like my place to comment), but more on what it means for Coldplay as a band going forward.

Some reviews need cultural context or political commentary, and they're almost always better for that, but on this one I just decided to focus on the music itself. And the music itself is very good.

If anyone has questions about the credits message me - I have the vinyl booklet.

 

Really liked this, great work man!

 

This is a lot more experimental than I expected.

 

For a 16-song double album, I wish this had a few more actual songs on it. Quite a lot of this music is lovely but feels transitional (“BrokEn”, “Èkó”). It’s an interesting reaction to the global reach of this band and at once a large and small response to AHFOD, which was presented as a grand climax.

EDIT: Sounds like from that YouTube interview, this is the intentional calm before the storm. Chris talks about how they’re working on “something else” (I assume related to the booklet teaser), how this intentionally isn’t a “blockbuster, Avengers-level” album, and how “Orphans” (definitely the most straightforward banger on the project) was originally written for this unnamed next thing. They’ll be back to grandiose sooner rather than later.

 

I think the actual songs on this album are pretty great though. I don't really care for any of the instrumentals or interludes at all, but the production here sounds absolutely glorious and I feel like you can really hear and feel the band playing together, which is something I love and feel like was obscured by the production style of AHFOD.

Early favorites for me are "Champion of the World", "Trouble In Town", "Arabesque", "Guns", "Orphans" and "Flags", although I pretty much think all of the more traditional songs on this are fantastic. The slower songs here are great as well, although I think the 3-song stretch of Eko, Cry Cry Cry, Old Friends really grinds the Sunset part down to a complete halt and should've been broken up by something with a little more oomph, even though all 3 songs are pretty good.

"Flags" would've gone a long way toward making this double album feel like it had more songs I think. That song gets stuck right in my head and I love the background singing / harmonizing which is almost like shout-singing but not overbearing. Such a cool sound.

 

Some of this does feel incomplete

 

The live version of "WOTW / POTP" from Jordan sounded like a completed version of the album version, which sounds like a rough demo. I'm gonna try to rip that track from YouTube.