La Vida No Loca - Coldplay analyzed by

We write about music we love and The New Yorker writes about music as a study of interest. And they've just done a great piece on Coldplay with a squirt of subtle sarcasm. Is Coldplay warm milk or just quietly dependable?

Listen to this:

For the band’s second album, Martin started singing in free-floating slogans. “Am I part of the cure? Or am I part of the disease?” is a line from “Clocks,” perhaps the group’s loveliest song. The music evokes the song’s name, revolving around three circling and falling piano arpeggios. The payoff comes when Martin stretches out the words “you are” in a falsetto sung over the piano figure. You are what? Go figure, and I haven’t the slightest idea what is going on with the “tides” and the “clocks” in the lyrics. Doesn’t matter. “Clocks” is a big-budget “Ooh!” with lots of pretty lights—it works. At the end of the song, Martin repeatedly sings, “Home, home, where I wanted to go.” There’s the only part you need take note of—an essentially conservative sentiment, and probably a comfort zone for a guy who grew up thinking he wasn’t particularly cool and lost his virginity at the age of twenty-two.

I was all for Parachute back then, but this band is just so vague. As Pitchfork puts it: "A grandma-friendly, Radiohead-normalizing, disarmingly polite rock band led by a man who sounds like he's still yearning for puberty"