Rip It Up

Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams

Coldplay’s last album, 2014’s Ghost Stories was a maudlin affair that left their legions of fans (mostly) scratching their heads in confusion. Where were the elephant costumes and the knock-off Bluejuice haberdashery? Where was the neon, confetti and guest vocals from ghetto hood rat RiRi? Notably absent of the MDMA-fuelled bliss bursting from every other Coldplay release of the last decade, the downer that was Ghost Stories was obviously a product of the conscious uncoupling that everyone saw coming (seriously, how could you be married to someone who is so out of touch with reality that she thinks vaginal steamers are good stocking stuffers?)

Fret not, A Head Full Of Dreams sees Chris Martin bouncing back with renewed vitality. The vibe of the album is one big disco celebration of life, love and other generalities that literally everyone can relate to. As such, Coldplay’s signature kaleidoscope of whimsy has returned, complete with numerous guest spots from the likes of British rock royalty, Sasha Fierce herself, President Obama (Barack didn’t spit rhymes in the studio, its a pre-recorded sample) and even Gwyneth takes a break from shilling products no one can afford on Joop to lend some background vocals.

This idealised picture of life is so far from the average Joe’s reality that it hampers the impact of A Head Full Of Dreams. While Martin is relishing new-found love and triumphing over life’s trivialities, I’m worrying about how I’m going to pay back my student loans, and how I’m going to get my toilet to stop leaking into the hallway. As a result, Dreams seem silly, its message feels fabricated, like the kind of music a computer would produce if you could type “music that makes people happy” into Google. It’s all a little too neat and tidy, but by now, we’ve come to expect that from Coldplay. Their music is polished to a brilliant shine, much like the diamonds Martin is constantly referencing.

When Chris Martin sang, we live in a beautiful world, on their debut album Parachutes, they did so in a naïve, yet earnest way. The simplicity and rawness of Coldplay is gone, Martin used to sing about looking at stars in the sky, now he sings about reaching them via rocketships. It’s an evolution that had to happen, and because of this there is no way Coldplay could ever replicate the feeling of their first two albums genuinely, they simply aren’t those people any more.

A Head Full Of Dreams is like an acquaintance that you have on social media, everything they do is filtered through some hazy, Instagram-styled sunset where you get to bone Aussie pop princesses and Hollywood A-listers. They never have bowel mishaps courtesy that of shady looking burrito and their status updates never lament their paltry tax returns. Coldplay lives in a fantasy world, and sadly it is a world that mere mortals are completely divorced from.

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