The hype around the release of Coldplay’s eighth studio album ‘Everyday Life’ has been surprisingly minimalistic. The double album has sneakily crept up and been released into the world with very little promotion while their lead single ‘Orphans’ struggles to even crack the Top 20 worldwide.
I’ve always been a fan of a good concept album so when I heard that the British five piece would be releasing a double album with a sunrise and a sunset theme, I was beyond intrigued and excited to see how emotional they would get me. But the execution has left me devastatingly disappointed.
In comparison to the rest of their discography, ‘Everyday Life’ is the bands least impactful record to date. And to put that judgement in perspective, I’ve always appreciated when the band have experimented with a concept, with ‘Ghost Stories’ and ‘Viva La Vida Or Death Of All His Friends’ being my favourite albums of theirs which are unpopular opinions. But with ‘Everyday Life’ they just blend together so many conflicting ideas that sonically feel out of place.
From the opening orchestral delivery of ‘Sunrise’ it’s a production that would work in a live show or a movie setting but for the opening of this record it’s just a little… too much.
Launching straight into the radio ready ‘Church’ they offer a song that could actually be a future it for them and someone needs to get on marketing this track to radio and media ASAP because it could save the flop status they may earn with this record. But that’s where the commercial potential stops.
A lot of this record is quite minimalistic at heart and hears them trying to be politically woke in a time that is important to be doing so, but they are doing it in a very artistic and round about way, when they should just be straight up instead.
The barber shop and doo-woop stylings of ‘BrokEn’ and ‘Cry Cry Cry’ had me instantly fascinated and intrigued, which should have been an idea they dived more into as it was one that created a unique talking point for them.
This record has a very art-house sentiment, with all of the dialogue excerpts in the cinematically charged songs like ‘Trouble In Town’ and “بنی آدم” which are poetic at their seams. But I wanted more from the entirety of the record. Some songs felt like they had more effort put into them than others did and that’s not a note that you want to make on a band of their calibre.
But this whole record had me thinking things that I didn’t want to think about them as they are a band who have “legendary” status in the current musical climate and it’s painful to see them just flatline so hardcore with the majority of this record.