|
 The
Major Lift
By
Erik Hage
With
Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends having sold
the most downloads ever (after only three weeks) and sitting
comfortably at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart,
it’s easy to forget that Coldplay loped out of the
gates on the tails of the aging Britpop phenomenon in 2000
as a sort of Radiohead Lite. (Back to those download numbers:
That’s significant, as it’s the one area of growth in a wilting
industry.)
Now, four albums in—and with three years elapsed since their
last—it seems they’ve come back with grander intentions and
ambitions: becoming the biggest band in the world. And EMI,
the band’s label, needs that to happen or the recently purchased
company will collapse. (Cue the Sex Pistols’ “EMI.”) Such
world-dominating ambition once crippled R.E.M. into hubris
and gutted the finances of Warner Bros., who, thinking they
had the next U2, stupidly signed the band to an $80 million
deal in the mid-’90s.
Coldplay leader Chris Martin has spent the intervening years
spawning children whose names mark Old Testament events (Apple,
Moses) with Gwyneth Paltrow, growing his hair out a bit from
its monkish crop, and perhaps planning the band’s current
Les Miserables-alt-chic wardrobe. (They apparently
were too young to recall those jackets on Adam Ant.)
 To
aid their conquest, the band enlisted producer Brian Eno,
who, despite having aided U2’s rise, has a bent for experimentation.
(The other producer here, Markus Dravs, also has a bent for
nontraditional ephemera, having knob-twiddled Arcade Fire’s
vastly overestimated Neon Bible.)
Much hoopla has surrounded the album’s launch, including Bill
O’Reilly terming Martin a “pinhead” for subtly slamming Fox
News on the single “Violet Hill.” A hipster Brooklyn band
also recently tried to increase their MySpace traffic by accusing
Martin of plagiarizing Coldplay’s monster current hit “Viva
La Vida” from them. (1: I listened—he didn’t. 2: Your band
doesn’t get promo in this column. 3: I’m really not listening
to any more indie-rock bands from Brooklyn, Montreal, or Portland,
Ore., until well after the next zeitgeist. Please leave a
message after the tone.)
But enough dancing around it: The album is magnificent and
the sweeping, strings-driven anthem “Viva La Vida” is likely
one of the best singles you’ll hear this year. Regardless
of whether they’re trying to reach U2 status, they’ve made
some great music along the way.
Thanks to Eno and Dravs, the album is more textured and complicated
than previous outings—adding Middle Eastern percussion and
wobbly dissonance—without curveballing the stock Coldplay
gestures (ringing, emotional guitar patterns, piano-twinkly
ruminations, the delicate honk in Martin’s voice).
“Violet
Hill” is darker and more openly declamatory than a lot of
the band’s previous work. “Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love”
should be the next single, despite its length. Here, the band
bury a My Bloody Valentine-style guitar drone in the bright
tumult of aching, anthemic stadium pop. Sure, this is a bit
of an experimental album for Coldplay, but they seamlessly
integrate all that into the band’s essence. And, Johnny Buckland’s
guitar work is still just as striking as it was on 2000’s
“Yellow”; he worries out sonic textures like a shy but essential
secret weapon.
 Over
in the hip-hop universe, Rolling Stone has rolled out
some Wenner-styled hyperbole by deeming Lil Wayne the
best rapper alive. (Based on what criteria?) Wayne has given
his record company fits by pumping out mixtapes and other
such noncommissioned ventures in the three years since Tha
Carter II. (Record corporations don’t get it: You have
to give some to take some—Wayne was the wiser and holds the
No. 2 spot on the album charts.)
With Tha Carter III, he shows the world that the jury
is out on “best rapper alive,” but that he’s a good candidate
for most unusual; he simply doesn’t sound like other rappers.
On “3 Peat,” he nerdily overenunciates. The effect is unnerving,
the rhythm off-kilter, and the rhymes harsh and clever (“swallow
my words, taste my thoughts/and if it’s too nasty spit it
back at me”). In other places, he lapses into a stoned croak
or into bastardized Island patois. The musical beds and samples
are often so minimal and weird that Lil Wayne’s voice has
to carry the day. And carry it, it does, into an unusual realm.
This is some imaginative stuff, for sure.
Far from Wayne’s profane wordplay, the Camp Rock
soundtrack shows that Disney has another High School
Musical -sized hit up their sleeve. (This album is at
No. 3; yes, I decided to actually prepare a theme.) This is
not nearly as smarmy as a lot of the kid music out there—and
certainly no more offensive than the crap that American
Idol has foisted upon us. I think the song “We Rock” is
a bit presumptuous, but I’d rather have my daughter listen
to this than some singer airing her very adult dirty laundry.
Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, despite their protestations,
still sell most of their music to kids.
 Hopefully
Mötley Crüe aren’t selling too much music to kids,
but damn if the Crüe aren’t back in a big way with Saints
of Los Angeles, which is this week’s No. 4—yes, you heard
right. (The fact that I’m 39 and remember standing on the
chairs at Glens Falls Civic Center as a teen while Tommy Lee’s
drumset levitated gives one an idea of this band’s endurance.)
The band haven’t had a serious hit since Dr. Feelgood in
1989. (There will be no Tommy Lee sex-tape jokes here; I’m
better than that.)
Furthermore, the original lineup hasn’t been together on a
record since 1997. And there’s something truly beatific about
47-year-old Vince Neil singing “I don’t wanna go to school/I
don’t wanna get a real job” over the same old guitar pummel.
Age seems to have elevated the band’s sense of irony, however,
and I nearly spat coffee when I first heard “White Trash Circus.”
(Oh no, you didn’t.) “The Animal in Me” has those cringeworthy
lyrics that happen whenever Neil tries to, like, you know,
really say something, but “Mutherfucker of the Year”
shows that rock swings on a continuum: Mötley Crüe at this
end and Coldplay at the other.
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