It's been a long time since I've had something to say (obviously), so lot's to catch up on. First things first.....Please send your thoughts and best wishes to all of the people in the midwest dealing with the flood waters. If you can do more, you should.
Ok, on to the trivial stuff.
***Saw REM at the United Center on 6/6. 4th time I've seen the band, and it immediately leap frogged the preceeding two shows to be my second favorite REM show that I've seen. For grins, I've been reading some old reviews of REM's last couple of albums, and I find it funny to read that Reveal, Around the Sun and Accelerate were all reviewed as "return to form" efforts by several reviewers. Now, Accelerate is the closest to that mark, but you can read my thoughts on that in a previous post. Anyway, the show was fantastic. The National and Modest Mouse formed a great 1-2 punch as openers, and REM seemed to be having more fun playing live than I've seen since the Green tour. After opening with Living Well is the Best Revenge, we went 5 or 6 songs without hearing another from the new disc. That's mining your catalog. A few that I wish I could have heard (Driver 8, Auctioneer), a few I was thrilled to hear (These Days, Pretty Persuasion, Fall on Me with Mr. Johnny Marr) and a couple I wish they'd have skipped (Animal, Walk Unafraid), but all in all a fantastic show.
***I've been meaning to tackle Death Cab for Cutie's "Narrow Stairs" with the same track-by-track review as I did for Acclerate. I won't go into that much detail. It doesn't quite resonate with me the same way Plans and Transatlanticism did, but still is a VERY good album. There are some classic tracks, and the song "Cath...." would fit nicely on any of their discs, which is saying something when you consider that they haven't made a bad record yet.
***The real thing that has my brain spinning today is the new Coldplay. I am tempted to wait a month or so to say anything about it. When X&Y came out, I immediately told people that it was fantastic. But over time -- not that much time in fact -- it put me in a place where I was almost done with Coldplay altogether. For all the great moments on that disc, I could never shake the feeling that it was a big band feeling like they needed to make their big record, and while they succeeded more than failed, what I was left with was an album that didn't feel like a band effort. Slick production is fine, but sometimes a simple approach serves a song better, and nothing on X&Y sounded like that was the case.
Something I really hate about the CD era and now the digital download era is that the music industry seems to be compelled to always fill up the extra space allowed by the formats. More often than not, I come away from albums thinking that it would be a classic if only it weren't for those two songs in the middle that just suck. "Viva La Vida" shows this as well as any big new album does (Accelerate, at just over 1/2 an hour proves the point as well). This record feels like something the 4 band members did together. It has a unified feeling, and if you're an iTunes nerd like me, you'll actually be treated to that rare bonus track that is actually better than the album version (the song Lost).
The album is a bit of a stretch for the band, but doesn't stray so far that it doesn't sound like Coldplay. Thankfully, Brian Eno seems to have told Chris Martin that the falsetto is more effective when he DOESN'T use it on every song. It shows up, but feels much more in tune with the moment of the song where he busts it out. There are some departures -- Lovers in Japan is nice mid-tempo number that has a piano riff that would have been at home on any alterna-pop record that came out in the early 90's. Viva La Vida has an epic sound, and the phrase "That was when I ruled the world" will swirl in your mind long after you listen (if it's not already after seeing it in iTunes commercials). Violet Hill is as close to brooding rocker as these guys have ever churned out. There are also two hidden tracks that are nice diversions from the normal Coldplay formula.
This one probably won't win over all the Coldplay haters, although my wife comments that she doesn't mind the song from the aforementioned iTunes ad (Coldplay makes her cringe and sometimes leads to migranes). But if you liked their first two albums, and especially if you, like me, found X&Y to be good but a little disappointing, I think you'll be happy when you hear the new album.
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