Is it a case of "Just give it another try?"

Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends

No. No it is not.

I downloaded this album when it came out, and kind of listened to it while I was hooked on Forza 2 for the Xbox. While I wasn't paying a great deal of attention to it, I could tell it was "meh."

A year later, for whatever reason, I decided to try it again. I listened to it in the car the other day, which I guess is where I can just listen to music without getting distracted, and it became apparent once more that it's pretty damn mediocre. At least for Coldplay, after setting the bar pretty high.

I fell head over heels in love with Parachutes when it came out. Rush of Blood to the Head was great, but it almost sounded like they tried to do too much too soon. And X&Y was a goddamn masterpiece in my opinion. I was hoping they would keep going further with the sound they'd played with the last two albums, but they seem to have gone backwards.

Maybe again, it's trying something new and recording it before they've really figured out just what the hell it is they're trying to do. The album sounds much more disjointed than any of their other releases, maybe because they tried to please their fans around the world by throwing in some quasi-world-music sounds. As if they were forcing themselves into a new sound rather than just writing music. The emotion behind the music is gone.

Even Brian Eno couldn't save it. The production is fantastic. It's clean, layered, polished, but that doesn't make up for second-rate song-writing.

I'm not saying it's a bad album, I have heard many, many worse, but there's only a couple of songs, Violet Hill included, that would have made it onto Rush of Blood or X&Y.

For some odd reason Pitchfork gave it a 6.9/10, the highest rating they've ever given to a Coldplay album. Pitchfork never ceases to amaze me. I don't really follow their site, because I never agree with them, but when I have looked things up on there it just astounds me that they try to be so against the grain that they will give a shitty rating to something that has received universal acclaim, time and time again. They're like that guy you know that thinks Sammy Hagar is better than David Lee Roth, or that the Michael Keaton Batman movies are way better than the new ones. Just to be different. Shit, I watched Batman again, and Jack Nicholson isn't the Joker. He's Jack Nicholson playing Jack Nicholson playing the Joker. Like a fucking SNL sketch. But that's another rant for another time.

Also, Chris Martin, et al, if you're listening, ditch the Sgt. Peppers outfits. Seriously.

Out of a possible 5 catfish: