My Foundered Love

It takes a while for America to notice things that we Europeans take for granted. But I don’t care. I don’t live in America, I live in Europe. Yes, I can’t review 911’s debut album, I can’t review their sophomore album, and hey, I can’t even review their last band’s disc, because, umm, who of you guys have ever heard of them? 911 is a boy band. It’s not like I really want to review them, but I think they were better than BSBNSYNCANDOTHERS [Kristina, I’m sorry for that]. I can’t review All Saint’s last band’s disc that will obviously never make it to the States, because the band doesn’t exist anymore. That album was the business: compilation of pop, rock, soul, funk and garage. All the things you miss!

Unlike American MTV, MTV Europe is to blame for what my musical taste is today. No, we don’t always get cream once we turn on the channel, but if we do manage to filter some junk like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, P. Diddy and others, we would get decent tunes. My love for alternative music started with Skunk Anansie’s Hedonism performed at MTV EMA ‘97 in Rotterdam. My love for Brit-Pop came straight from MTV: Oasis, Blur, The Verve, Radiohead, etc. What I got to see was more of an underground than platinum necklaces and beef eyes. In the year 2000 MTV gave me a pressie of Craig David [garage], Travis [brit-pop, more of a pop but yeah, God is their judge], and Coldplay.

Some claim that Coldplay are the new Oasis, the new Travis, something like Radiohead, something like The Verve. In any case, it’s not original, heard it all before, don’t need it, thank you very much, next please. Hmmmmm… It’s not Oasis, Travis, Radiohead and [of course] not The Verve. The guys play “just the music” that doesn’t fit any genre boundaries. And about “heard it all before”, well, you know, how many notes we have over there? Seven? No wonder some combinations of them can repeat.

Besides, here is nothing close to Oasis or any other Brit-pop band: Coldplay play very technical atmosphere rock where one can find some elements typical for Radiohead, for example. But you will find no sign of Radiohead’s last disc in Coldplay’s music. Now, seriously, do you really need to find any?

Melancholy of a crystal sound, divine sadness, depression with sparks in the eyes: this is the sound of Coldplay debut album. Their only crime is that they’ve done not a one sad song but a one sad album, from the beginning till the end.

Coldplay are four British lads, who couldn’t care less about all the talks of how they sound like Radiohead or Travis or Oasis or Any Other Band. Chris Martin is a lanky chap of 24 years of age, who is fabulous on the piano and has a killer voice. Guy Berryman is a Scot bass guitar wiz of 23; he’s quite sexy too. Jon Buckland is a Welsh lead guitarist of 23, and Will Champion is a 24-year-old drummer a.k.a. the most interviewed member of Coldplay. When the champs performed at this year’s Brits, they worn geezer’s old jeans and looked like they did not belong to the in crowd. “We just want to play music, you know.”

On some tracks Coldplay sound sort of like Travis [depressing Brit-Pop], on some they sound like Dave Matthews. I’m not a huge fan of Dave Matthews; actually I’m not a fan at all. I first heard him on American Tribute after 9/11. Then a friend of mine started borrowing discs from her Russian American Russian friend who studies with her [how far will you go to get Dave Matthews in Russia!] and I got a tiny chance to listen to him. Well, there’s this weird song on Coldplay’s Parachutes, titled, uhm, Parachutes. It’s only 44 seconds long, but most of the Dave’s fans would recognize it as their own. It has a heart-breaking sound of lonely acoustic guitar and four lines of love lyrics; deadly tune.

Coldplay released four singles off of their album Parachutes. I caught them only with their third one, but first came Shiver. It has very upbeat tunes and very sad lyrics about loving someone who doesn’t return the feeling, changing for that someone, waiting for her and never be seen by that person. Second was Yellow. C’mon, we all know Yellow! Once caught my dearest friend grooving to that tune, she cowardly turned off the radio when saw me and said, “It’s annoying, I can’t listen to the radio without being reminded of you!” Whoops! Well, technically Yellow is the queerest track. I still get an impression Chris is speaking in tongues. Even though it’s funny sometimes, sometimes I feel his pain, or maybe it’s my own pain, or maybe there’s no intention for pain in this song. Damn, it’s like understanding poetry. Poetry to an amazingly cheesed off Brit-Pop.

The lyrics make this album and Brit-Pop in general such a unique phenomenon. Writer puts a lot of sense in their words and hey, they even rhyme them sometimes. Voice conveys the feelings from lyrics to our minds. Music keeps up the main style and tone. Perfect harmony of Coldplay in three steps!

And then the third single, right after the fifth track Yellow, goes Trouble. Coldplay picked me en route with that song. I honestly believe it’s the saddest thing that has ever been played in my CD player. Jon does a marvelous job with his guitar, pulling the strings as loose as sad he can make it. Chris is deadly gorgeous. The song is a 100% hit, at least here in Europe it’s something to rock the charts with. It has become my #1 escape when depression fights back.

Oh no, I see,
A spider web, it's tangled up with me,
And I lost my head,
The thought of all the stupid things I said,
Oh no what's this?
A spider web, and I'm caught in the middle,
Oh I turned to run,
The thought of all the stupid things I've done


The fourth single was Don’t Panic, but I’m not going to describe it for you. What’s the point of digging into the meaning of lyrics that you have to understand yourself? What’s the point of describing Brit-pop in words, when I’ve already done that? I’d rather wonder why I’ve started this review in February 2001 for my tenth epinion and never wanted to finish it till today? Why I’m listening to Coldplay in winter more than in summer? Well, folks, that’s just too personal. There are thirty other kids, who did the track-by-track of the album, in every single song described the tone of Chris’s voice and how it’s sexy and sooth, how meaningful the words are. If you want too much information, go read them.

This album is sad, in times depressing, in times puzzling, is really deep and smooth. It has only ten tracks, but those ten tracks are worth your attention. It’s been 17 months since the album’s release. It started straight at #1 and has been hanging in British chart for 33 weeks. If you mention at high tea that you’ve enjoyed latest Coldplay album, you’ll have to deal with the questions like, “And I thought they are just recording it”. However, you can quietly enjoy it anticipating band’s new release.