So, I've been listening to Coldplay's Viva la Vida album for about five weeks now, and I think I've finally come to a decision about it. I like the songs a lot, I'm always switching my favorites, but the songs are fun to listen to and some are quite pretty.
Last week I realized that the album is very postmodern. In a lot of interviews on the album, Chris Martin was unabashed about the fact that they borrowed a lot of ideas from the musicians and bands they were listening to. I can hear some U2, some Postal Service, and some other melodic themes that sound familiar but I can't place. Very cool pastiche. However, some critics have said that the album doesn't end up saying much at all. They mention war, peace, love, and religious symbols in their songs, but there is nothing clear in any of the songs. I'm not expecting "the Iraq war is wrong and should end" in a song, but the messages are conflicting or too vague to draw any conclusions from.
From what I've read and from the classes I've taken, these are both postmodern tendencies. Vagueness and idea borrowing are not wrong, but they can be a little frustrating. If all Coldplay set out to do was to make a pretty album, they succeeded. But don't tease me with allusions to war and religion if you're not going to give me something to think about.
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