When was the last good Coldplay album? Throughout its 10 album discography, Coldplay has taken fans on a rollercoaster of sounds and styles, culminating recently in “Moon Music,” released Oct. 4, an upbeat but ultimately underwhelming album with more forgettable tracks than not.
Since the 2014 hit “Sky Full of Stars,” the penultimate song of “Ghost Stories,” Coldplay has leaned into a watered-down pop style that — at worst — sounds like a sophisticated version of the band Imagine Dragons. The sweet melancholy of “Parachutes” (2000), the dark and beautiful “Rush of Blood to the Head” (2002), the immaculate “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends” (2008), and even the kinetic poetry of “Mylo Xyloto” (2011) have been long gone from Coldplay’s music, and “Moon Music” follows suit.
While its best tracks are truly beautiful, these are the exceptions on the album, and most of the songs blend into a bland collection of generic pop sounds.The album begins with the song “MOON MUSiC,” one of the album’s highlights. “MOON MUSiC” sets a celestial tone using a collection of orchestral, electronic and acoustic sounds, a combination employed in the best moments of the album. Unfortunately, the bulk of the rest of the album is made up of enjoyable but somewhat forgettable pop songs very different from the first track. These songs are just OK, but throughout there are some standout disappointments.
The song “WE PRAY” is the most egregious form of an Imagine Dragons knockoff on the album. It is boring and cliché, with a melody too reminiscent of Rixton’s 2014 hit “Me and My Broken Heart” and an overly repetitive chorus, but it at least has nice Trans-Siberian Orchestra-esque motifs. Another song,“GOOD FEELiNGS” is also a disappointing, boring track that feels like an attempt to get onto the Billboard Top 100.
Coldplay is not known for its elaborate lyrics, and this album features the band being the least lyrically imaginative yet. In “ALLMYLOVE,” the chorus’ lyrics “you’ve got all my love/ Whether it rains or pours/ I’m all yours” are cliché and don’t progress into anything much more interesting throughout the verses. Not all the album’s lyrics are so boring; the chorus of “AETERNA” “This must be bliss/ Must be for this I exist” flows nicely and is later rhymed with “this extraordinariness,” showcasing the album’s most impressive and satisfying lyricism.
Track six is simply titled with a rainbow emoji and is a personal favorite. If the song “GOOD FEELiNGS” is one of the album’s most generic tracks, then the song titled with the rainbow emoji is its least. The song showcases the album’s strongest (and rarest) elements: cinematic orchestration, ethereal electronic sounds, and simple but beautiful acoustic moments. It also features a nice audio sample of American writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou on Oprah’s “Super Soul Sunday” singing an African American song with the lines “When it looked like the sun wasn’t gonna shine anymore/ God put a rainbow in the clouds.”
The album ends on a good note in the tenth and final track, “ONE WORLD.” This song is worth pulling out your high-quality headphones for, especially to hear the introductory bass line. Chris Martin’s vocals bring the album to a nice close with the lines “In the end, it’s just love” sung repeatedly over a dramatic symphony of strings, guitars, and drums.
The highlights of “Moon Music” are “MOON MUSiC,” rainbow emoji, “AETERNA,” and “ONE WORLD”; the remaining songs are decent party music, but not worth much undivided attention. The overall best collection of Coldplay is its 2008 album “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.” Coldplay’s 2011 “Mylo Xyloto” has a similar feel to the upbeat, poppy “Moon Music,” but with more sophisticated musicality and lyricism.
In an interview with the New Musical Express from earlier this month, Martin said that the spirit of Coldplay is about “trying to find the joy.” For all its faults, there is a palpable sense of joy in “Moon Music.” This earnestness can make the album refreshing on its surface, even if it falls flat when examined much further.