Coldplay: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends

"My relationship with Coldplay is complicated. I’m quite critical of their later output, which often feels lazy and generic. Even when they do pivot toward the experimental, as they did with 2019’s 'Everyday Life', it rarely holds my interest.

In my view, Coldplay has been on a downward trend since 'Mylo Xyloto', the moment they truly became the biggest band on Earth. They can still sell out stadiums and headline festivals, but I don’t think they’ll ever top their early work. 

Long before the glowing wristbands and chart-topping polish, the band retreated to a bakery, a magic shop, a church and a nunnery to record their most daring and definitive album. The result was ten unique tracks that embraced abstract sounds and varied vocal styles, creating something genuinely singular."

It is fascinating to look back at the approach they took to reach the top. Working with the legendary Brian Eno, the man who helped U2 hit their own artistic peaks with 'The Joshua Tree' and 'Achtung Baby', the band travelled the world, finding inspiration in Spanish churches and even hiring a hypnotist to break old habits. With the help of the notoriously unconventional Eno, Chris Martin ditched familiar song structures in favour of sprawling sounds and hidden tracks. The band ventured away from signature soft-rock instrumentals toward a global aesthetic, deploying santoors, church organs, handclaps, and massive string sections instead of conventional piano and guitar

The result was 'Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends', a record that packs an incredible amount of ideas into its 45-minute runtime, from the opening of 'Life in Technicolor', a bold, two-and-a-half-minute instrumental built around a shimmering sample from electronic producer Jon Hopkins, to the sprawling six-minute epic 'Death and All His Friends', the band takes us on a journey that radiates creative self-belief. This confidence is most evident on 'Viva La Vida'. Now a permanent live staple, it earned the band their first-ever Number One single and sold over seven million copies. Yet, it doesn't sound like a traditional chart-topper. Driven by soaring strings and lyrics about a revolution, Martin imagines himself as a deposed king reduced to "sweeping the streets", a poetic meditation on power that felt entirely fresh.

The album’s depth is found in its willingness to pivot between moods. In 'Lovers in Japan', the band leans into a vibrant, uptempo "tack piano" sound, a DIY effect they achieved by literally hammering metal tacks into a piano's hammers to get that harpsichord-like jangle. This track then bleeds into the ambient, piano-led hidden track 'Reign of Love'. Similarly, 'Lost!' provides a percussive, organ-driven stomp that serves as the album's soulful backbone, while the hidden 'Chinese Sleep Chant' sees the band dive into full-blown shoegaze, with Martin's vocals buried under layers of distorted, swirling guitars.

Then there is 'Strawberry Swing', which remains one of their most atmospheric achievements; its intricate, high-life guitar picking and backwards-looped slides create a sense of nostalgic weightlessness. The band also found a new grit on this record with 'Violet Hill', a politically charged, guitar-heavy track that marched with a jagged, bluesy rhythm and a biting critique of "a carnival of idiots on show."

It's safe to say they didn't totally rip up the rule book; this isn't Chris Martin writing 'Sgt. ' Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band' or 'Pet Sounds', but it remains the most interesting and colourful record of their career, and one of the best-received rock albums of the 2000s. It all culminates in 'Death and All His Friends', a testament to the band's peak confidence. Beginning as a quiet piano piece before exploding into a triumphant, defiant choral chant where the band rejects a "cycle of recycled revenge," it doesn't just end the album; it resolves the journey. The record finally circles back to where it began with the hidden track 'The Escapist', echoing the 'Life in Technicolor' melody and proving that Coldplay were at their best when they were willing to take risks.