I was a senior in high school when I picked up Coldplay’s 2015 album “A Head Full of Dreams” at Target. It was the same Target where I’d bought all of the British pop-alternative band’s previous albums throughout my childhood and early teenage years.
The album wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t satisfying, either. The music was too lighthearted: It sounded like Coldplay was trying to satisfy someone other than themselves. They were reaching for a different base of listeners. “A Head Full of Dreams” just didn’t sound like it was recorded by the band I had grown up on — the one that made music inspired by loss and pain, and more importantly, the hope to make it through those times.
I didn’t get to purchase “Everyday Life,” Coldplay’s latest album released Nov. 22, 2019, at the neighborhood Target. But I listened to the 52-minute-long album with the hope that my favorite band would again create the sounds I grew up on.
“Everyday Life” isn’t the colorful, pop album that “A Head Full of Dreams” was. Instead, “Everyday Life” is Coldplay being Coldplay.
Like two of the band’s previous albums, “Mylo Xyloto” (2011) and “Viva La Vida” (2008), the first song sets the tone for the rest of the album: “Sunrise,” which features a wailing violin solo, signals to the listener that they are in for a thought-provoking, and at times heavy, journey.
“Everyday Life” brought brought me back to some of the band’s earlier sounds.
“Church,” with its high atmospheric tones, sounds like it could’ve been on the band’s 2005 album, “X&Y.” “Eko,” sounds like it could’ve been on the band’s 2008 album, “Viva La Vida,” with lead singer Chris Martin’s voice floating upon the song’s upbeat rhythm. “Old Friends” and “WOTW/POTP” sound like the end of band’s first album; with soft humming and soft-strumming acoustic guitar, it sounds like the band just sat down to practice.
Coldplay isn’t afraid to try out newer sounds on this album, too. “BrokEn” features a Gospel choir singing alongside Martin. “When I Need A Friend” sounds like a closing hymn from a Catholic mass.
The song most likely to be overplayed on every pop radio station, “Orphans,” gives a nod to the notion that Coldplay sounds like another (arguably more famous) British pop-alternative-rock band, U2. Martin draws out his vowels as he sings “Rosaleem of the damascene” (whatever that means) and “Baba would go where the flowers grow,” echoing Bono’s “‘40’” or “With Or Without You.”
And like U2, Coldplay makes a political statement with their latest album.
“Trouble In Town” features a 2013 recording of Philadelphia police officer Philip Nace verbally harassing a man at a traffic stop. And the title of the song “Guns” leaves little room for the imagination.
Though the band hasn’t made overt political statements in their music before, it’s not surprising for lead singer Martin, who’s member of the social-justice warrior group Global Citizens.
Politics aside, the new album strikes deep emotional chords, just like the band’s pre-2015 albums. It dives into different pains many across the globe experience in the modern era.
“Orphans” is about refugees, specifically those in Syria, who long to go back home.
“I want to know when I can go/Back and get drunk with my friends./I want to know when I can go/Back and be young again.”
“Old Friends” is nostalgic, recalling good times long ago spent with a friend:
“And when I close my eyes, when I close my eyes/I see you, you./When I close my eyes, when I close my eyes/You come through, you./Time just deepens/Sweetens and mends/Old friends.”
And “Champion of the World” has a similar message to “Viva La Vida”: feeling what it’s like to be on top, and then losing it.
“So I’m flying on my bicycle/Heading upwards from the Earth/I am jumping with no parachute/Out into the universe./I have E.T. on my bicycle/Because giving up won’t work./Now I’m riding on my rocketship/And I’m champion of the world.”
The album concludes with the song “Everyday Life.” It ties up the varied sounds and emotions of the album. Being the global citizen he is, Martin sings that we all share in the world’s pain, and we do it together.
“‘Cause everyone hurts, everyone cries./Everyone tells each other all kinds of lies./Everyone falls, everybody dreams and doubts./Got to keep dancing when the lights go out.”
Maybe it’s cheesy or corny, but it’s Coldplay. They’re not reaching. They’re just being themselves.
