Mylo Xyloto<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Coldplay’s fifth studio album (or sixth, if you count Prospekt’s March<\/i> as an album, which I do) came out two weeks ago, but due to Amazon being a bunch of raving maroons, I didn’t have it until about five days ago, making Mylo Xyloto<\/i> the first Coldplay album since Parachutes<\/i> that I didn’t have on day one.<\/p>\n
Over the summer, Coldplay released the first single from MX<\/i> — “Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall.” I was indifferent<\/a> to the song, frankly. I liked the B-sides that came with it more; “Major Minus” was more like what I wanted, and “Moving to Mars” was sublimely lovely. I might even go so far as to say that “Moving to Mars” is one of the ten best things the band’s recorded.<\/p>\n Ironically, “Moving to Mars” made me feel far<\/i> better about Mylo Xyloto<\/i> than “Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall” did; if the band felt like they could leave a track like “Moving to Mars” off the album, then Mylo Xyloto<\/i> must be something special indeed.<\/p>\n Then Coldplay had to take away any goodwill I was beginning to feel by releasing the video for “Paradise<\/a>.” Something about the video was just… off-putting<\/i>.<\/p>\n I suppose I should state for the record that I generally don’t “get” videos. I’m used to experiencing music as<\/i> music. Adding a visual component as a framework for understanding music or imparting the meaning of music doesn’t make sense to me.<\/p>\n Suffice it to say, I had a low opinion of “Paradise” because of the video. Thus, when the album finally<\/i> arrived, it was with some trepidation that I put Mylo Xyloto<\/i> in the CD player, and I listened to it without much enthusiasm.<\/p>\n And I didn’t like it.<\/p>\n I didn’t get<\/i> it.<\/p>\n I understand, from reading about the album, that it’s some sort of dystopian rock opera, about two lovers — Mylo and Xyloto — living in an oppressive totalitarian future.<\/p>\n Okay, sure. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n I gave the album a few more plays, and with each successive play, I liked it a little bit more. This isn’t unusual; I didn’t like Elbow’s The Seldom Seen Kid<\/i> the first three or four times that I listened to it; it took hearing “The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver” just<\/i> so to unlock the album for me.<\/p>\n Now I love Mylo Xyloto<\/i>. The album’s a grower. I love the sound<\/i> of the album. “Paradise” now makes me happy when I hear it, “Charlie Brown” (which has nothing at all to do with Charles Schulz, as far as I can tell) is amazing, and then that leads into the gentle and lovely ballad “Us Against the World.” Even “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall,” which I was indifferent to, resonates with me. The second half of the album doesn’t stand out to me in quite the same way, it’s not quite as memorable, though “U.F.O.” is a moving love song and the track that features Rihanna, “Princess of China,” is solidly enjoyable. And the final track, “Up With the Birds,” is strangely haunting.<\/p>\n Mylo Xyloto<\/i> marks a return to the form of X&Y<\/i> after the art-house pretentions of Viva La Vida<\/a><\/i>. It may not reach the heights of A Rush of Blood to the Head<\/i> and I may rank it fifth out of Coldplay’s six albums (counting Prospekt’s<\/i>), but it’s still a very good album and a damn fine piece of work.<\/p>\n I quite like Mylo Xyloto<\/i>, even if its rock opera-esque storyline has totally passed me by. :h2g2:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mylo Xyloto. Coldplay’s fifth studio album (or sixth, if you count Prospekt’s March as an album, which I do) came out two weeks ago, but due to Amazon being a bunch of raving maroons, I didn’t have it until about five days ago, making Mylo Xyloto the first Coldplay album since Parachutes that I didn’tContinue reading “On Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[804,394,4098],"class_list":["post-6108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-chris-martin","tag-coldplay","tag-music","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}