5. Coldplay X&Y
When Coldplay released their remarkable album A Rush of Blood to the Head back in 2002, they weren’t just a small British band anymore; they were mega-rock stars poised for legendary status. Songs such as “Clocks” and “The Scientist” broke the rules in how beautiful a piano ballad could be. Every song was so musically captivating and lead singer Chris Martin’s lyrics so earnest and, at the same time audacious, Coldplay sounded like the unlikely savior to rock, albeit piano rock. However, with their recently released third album, X&Y, they seem to have fallen into a rut, although, fortunately, a gorgeous rut.
X&Y shows Coldplay going the way of most other rock bands today; delivering the goods, but nothing more. Every song here sounds like a regular rock song from any number of Coldplay imitators today. While on A Rush of Blood to The Head, the songs were more ambitious and seemed to have no basic “verse-chorus” structure; they went in the natural direction that the music lead them. On X&Y, Coldplay, seem ready to hold on to their power and deliver songs that they know will not disappoint loyal fans, rather than try to gain new ones.
“Square One” starts off X&Y with candid lyrics like: “From the start in your own way/You just want somebody listening to what you say/It doesn’t matter who you are,” and pulsing drums, throbbing bass and soaring guitars putting the listener back into the ethereal Coldplay world.
The boys of Coldplay, singer Martin, drummer Will Champion, bassist Guy Berryman and guitarist Jonny Buckland, supply the stunningly sad ballads as well.
“What If?” finds Martin contemplating the unthinkable with his wife Gwyneth Paltrow: “What if you should decide/That you don’t want me there by your side/That you don’t want me there in your life?,” backed by an elegant melody for which Coldplay is now famous. While on “Fix You,” Martin sings in his pretty falsetto with striking organ and piano harmonies surrounding his plight to save his disheartened lover: “Lights will guide you home/And ignite your bones/And I will try to fix you.” The gospel choir at the end adds to the tragically poignant feel of the song.
Songs like “White Shadows” and “Talk” bring back the guitars and add in stadium ready hooks that inspire sing-a-longs at first listen. With broad, encompassing lyrics about equality: “We’re part of the human race/All of the stars and the outer space/ We’re part of the system plan” in “White Shadows” and inspiring words about dreams coming true in “Talk”: “You can climb a ladder up to the sun/Or write a song nobody has sung/Or do something that’s never been done,” one should feel on top of the world after listening to these catchy numbers several times each.
The lead single off X&Y, “Speed of Sound” brings the bombast in more ways than one. With a killer piano hook and towering guitar chords throughout the chorus, Martin’s psychedelic lyrics fit right in: “Birds go flying at the speed of sound,/to show you how it all began/Birds came flying from the underground,/if you could see it then you’d understand.”
X&Y starts to drag after the halfway mark with songs like “The Message,” “Low” and “X&Y.” They are definitely not as catchy as the other songs here and fall below the Coldplay standard that was set by their previous singles.
Rolling piano and a sugary melody filter through “The Hardest Part,” probably the closest Coldplay has come to sounding like Elton John. And on “Twisted Logic,” Martin displays his love for outer space weirdness: “Hundreds of years in the future/It could be computers/Looking for life on earth,” backed by an unexpectedly maudlin melody.
The best tracks on X&Y are appropriately saved for the end. “Swallowed in the Sea” is an uplifting song about staying with his lover throughout all obstacles: “The streets you’re walking on/A thousand houses long/Well that’s where I belong/And you belong with me/Not swallowed in the sea.” The striking organ, Martin’s pain-filled voice and the climactic ending meld into the most beautiful song on X&Y, if on all their records, save “The Scientist.”
The hidden track “Til’ Kingdom Come” is the most stripped down Coldplay has ever been. With little more than an acoustic guitar, Martin lowers his register and delivers heartfelt words of hope and longing for his love: “For you, I’d wait ’til kingdom come./Until my day is done./And say you’ll come, and set me free,/Just say you’ll wait, you’ll wait for me.” It’s the most interesting of all the tracks on X&Y because it abandons the Coldplay stereotypes and proves this band can do so much more than pretty piano rock.
X&Y ends up feeling bittersweet. The songs deliver what fans are looking for: gorgeous piano ballads and powerful hooks. However, X&Y sounds too complacent and forced at the same time. It’s as if Coldplay wanted to stay in the competition rather than blow it away, thus losing their creative steam and settling for a place-holder in their reign as the biggest band in the world.
4. Gorillaz “Demon Days”
After the 2001 release of the Gorillaz’s self-titled debut and the ingeniously weird single “Clint Eastwood,” people wrote them off as a one-hit-wonder novelty band, after all, they’re cartoons! The Blur’s Damon Albarn and Dan “The Automator” Nakamura created the creepy fab-four primates and made some interesting music that took from every genre of music under the sun. The equally weird fact that Gorillaz was a cartoon band made the act even more outlandish.
On Demon Days however, Albarn proves that his cartoon band has the talent to sustain a long career. With last year’s infamous Grey Album producer Danger Mouse perched at the mixing board, the Gorillaz transform from an arty punk-pop band into an arty dance-pop band. They utilize choirs, techno bleeps and dark electronica melodies with catchy beats to form a younger and cooler version of house music giants Basement Jaxx. And because of this, Demon Days is more fun than the Gorillaz’s debut and makes you move as well.
Days begins with “Last Living Souls,” a string-heavy industrial arrangement that lets Albarn’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics filter through the slow groove: “Just a law, a new begin/Sing a song that doesn’t sin/and it grows/Hey, you know.” A simple throbbing bass line and buzzing computer whirs wind their way through “Kids With Guns,” a delightfully disturbing song about youth: “Kids with guns/Taking over/But it won’t be long/They’re mesmerized/Skeletons.”
The eerie sounding “O Green World” uses every computer effect imaginable to construct a budding synth line that fits with its ghostly lyrics: “O green world/Don’t desert me now/I’m made of you and you of me/But where are we?/Oh no.”
Also, on “Feel Good, Inc.” a brilliant funk line and acoustic guitar flip-flop to produce one of the best dance tracks of the summer. De La Soul lend raps about crushing other emcees with their rhymes: “Can’t fight with us/With yo sound/You kill the INC./So don’t stop, get it, get it/Until you’re jet ahead./Yo, watch the way I navigate.”
The mellow “November Has Come” benefits from rapper MF Doom’s street lyrics about funk music: “These kids is too fast/Juiced off a junk treat/Who could get looser off a crunk or a funk beat?” while the syrupy chorus slowly walks through the trippy electronic blips and guitar strums.
Booming bass and a clunky synth line meld with rapper Roots Manuva’s choppy lyrics: “Cut to the brain/This ain’t no game/I’ll show no shame/I’ll birth this bane/I’ll twist the game,” on the busy “All Alone.”
The Gorillaz’s punk influences shine through on “White Light,” a beat pounding number with computer whizzes and only three words: “Alcohol, white light!” I think the lyrics speak for themselves.
On “Dare,” trancey synth lines and a heavy beat transport the lyrics about dancing to an unexpectedly funky height: “Jump with them all and move it/Jump back and forth/And feel like you were there yourself/Work it out.”
While on “Fire Coming Out of A Monkey’s Head,” actor Dennis Hopper swings in to deliver a spoken-word song about a peaceful village under siege when outsiders awake a terror in their homeland. The song is at once the creepiest song and the catchiest. Eerie synth chords, blowing wind effects and unnerving lyrics: “Waiting for the sunset to come, people going home/Jump back from behind them and shoot them in the head/Now everybody dancing the dance of the dead,” fill the dark tale that will have you second-guessing your own sanity.
The last two songs on Demon Days, “Don’t Get Lost In Heaven” and “Demon Days,” provide the obligatory beat-less tracks that are usually skipped. Both these songs are not as catchy as the rest of the tracks on Demon Days, and without the dance beats present, their weird lyrics seem pointless.
Albarn’s voice aside, Demon Days is an achievement in dance, funk and electronica. The Gorillaz seem to effortlessly blend the genres together into memorable beats that even the most skeptical listener will have to take notice. “It’s a brand new day,/Turn yourself around/ To the sun!,” the choir in the finale of Demon Days refrains. The Gorillaz have captured the sun.
3. Annie
If you’re a fan of indie music, you’ve no doubt heard of the bubbly pop star making her rise through its ranks. However, if you’re like most people and haven’t gotten the chance to hear the rebirth of intelligent pop music, now’s your chance. Hailing from Norway, Annie is a decidedly indie pop star who has long had a fan base across the Atlantic since her debut last year.
Melding smirky lyrics and pure pop hooks, her image evokes the Madonna of old, before the Kabbalah took over. Her debut album Anniemal has its fair share of hit singles- -and pure pop perfection to propel Annie into Madonna’s legendary stratosphere.
The lead single “Chewing Gum” is the sweetest of them all. Bubbling electronic blips and an effervescent harmony lend an air of playfulness that’s been lost in the recent years of over-sexed pop music. Annie tells her friends how she handles the men in her life with enough sass to spare: “You spit it out when all the flavor has gone/Wrap him round your finger like you’re playing with gum/Oh no, oh no, you’ve got it all wrong/You think you’re chocolate when you’re chewing gum.”
On the title track, Annie turns up the cuteness with sparkling synth notes and an infectious “Dah, dah, dah!” refrain that will sugarcoat you brain. It’s perhaps the best track on Anniemal, because of its painful lyrics set to a seemingly disposable beat: “Girl, can’t you see?/Come on now, set him free/Try open up his eyes/And make him realize his misery.”
On “Greatest Hit,” which actually samples Madonna’s first hit, “Everybody,” Annie brings back the eye-winking sass: “Keep it comin’ baby, can you dig it?/Thought I had to look all over for it/It’s not easy but I have to admit/Come on baby you’re my greatest hit,” and blends handclaps, whirring computer effects and breathy synth lines into an oddly off-beat but irresistible hook.
Anniemal is infectious, sugary sweet pop that will give you a cavity from hell, but you won’t feel guilty about going to see the dentist.
2. Common “Be”
With the current music scene the way it is, Common could be considered somewhat of an oxymoron: an intelligent rapper. While most other rappers out there rap about ho’s, rims and platinum chains, Common sticks with issues that matter: love, respect and the furthering of hip-hop music, which he has done his entire career. So who better to have as a partner in crime on his latest and best record to date, Be, than fellow progressive thinker Kanye West. West produced nine of the 11 tracks on Be, and Common should thank the Lord that he found West, which he does in the love ballad “Faithful.”
Be is what comes about when an artist finds his soul mate in a producer.
Be starts off with a building intro of piano and funky synths. Strings blast in to create a whirring storm of notes reminiscent of classic orchestral funk.
Common raps about staying in the moment: “Never looking back or too far in front of me/The present is a gift/and I just wanna be,” and inspiring the world through his rhymes: “Chicago nights stay, stay on the mind/But I write many lives and lay on these lines/Wave the signs of the times.”
“The Corner” is the best track on Be; a perfect example of Common’s truthful lyrics melded with West’s street-thick beats. Common and The Last Poets recite rhymes on street life: “Black church services, murderers, Arabs serving burgers/as cats with gold permanents, move they bags as herbalist/The dirt isn’t just fertile its people working & earning this,” all over a heavy old-school beat and funky, soul piano sample.
“Go” uses a simple piano chord and John Mayer’s “Go!” refrain to craft a mellow groove that serves as a back drop to Common’s confessions of sexual desires: “And like a car that I can’t afford I would want it then want some more/The positions our frames explored let me know she was secure, back for more I wanna go!”
Common raps about his place as leader of new hip-hop on “Chi-City”: “They ask me where hip hop is goin’, it’s Chicagoan/Poetry’s in motion like a picture now showin'” over a funky horn sample and record scratches. On “The Food,” a live track recorded during the now defunct Chappelle’s Show, West lays down his catchiest beat yet over his and Common’s rhymes about their apparent chemistry: “You love to hear the story, again and again/About these young brothers, from the City of Wind/Like juice and gin, in the city we blend.”
Be ends up being the perfect concoction between Chicago’s finest emcee and producer. Common and West deliver the catchy street rhymes and even catchier beats, and then proceed to keep the momentum rolling into more emotional lyrics and groovy, soul-sampled jams. This remarkable achievement finds West and Common the new leaders of hip-hop. Let’s hope they take the reigns and run.
1. The White Stripes “Get Behind Me Satan”
This is real rock ‘n’ roll music. When most people hear that term today, they think of bands such as Three Doors Down or Hoobastank. And while those bands make fine radio singles, they present more glossed-over rock music and hardly change a note or chord within a given song. Three Doors Down and Hoobastank are “meat-and-potatoes” rock. They play the most basic music that a novice guitar player could pick up easily. Their problem is that they simplify their music instead of exploring all of what their instruments can accomplish, opting for broad guitar chords to mask the elementary music they play. Whereas with The White Stripes, even though there are only two members, Jack and Meg White, they use the guitar and drums, and newly added marimba, piano and egg shaker, to full effect, stretching the instruments to their limits and producing the best music of their career.
Get Behind Me Satan starts with “Blue Orchid,” a pulsating guitar romp concerning a negative, disenfranchised lover: “You’re given a flower/But I guess there’s just no pleasing you/Your lip tastes sour/But you think that it’s just me teasing you.”
Jack White sings in a falsetto and shreds his guitar while Meg crashes harder and harder on the cymbals, creating a true head banger.
“The Nurse” lets the Stripes build crushing guitar riffs and cymbal crashes around marimba and piano into an oddly fitting, but perfectly, and creepy, sounding orchestration about paranoia: “The nurse should not be the one who puts salt in your wounds/But it’s always with trust that the poison is fed with a spoon.” A bouncing piano melody and shuffling egg shaker shape “My Doorbell,” an ode to loneliness and sexual desire: “You don’t seem to come around/Point your finger and make a sound/You don’t seem to come around/Not since you knocked it down.”
“Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)” finds Jack White getting frisky with his girl: “So let’s do it, just get on a plane and just do it/Like the birds and the bees and get to it/ Just get out of town and forever be free,” over a tingling piano and marimba melody that is as beautiful as the action described in the song.
And, Jack tickles the ivories on “I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)” a country ballad about needing the woman in his life, but not ready to admit it: “I get my friend when I need one/I need someone to be one/I take anybody I can get/And sometimes I wanna call you/And I feel like a pet/And I’m lonely, but I ain’t that lonely yet.”
Get Behind Me Satan covers every musical mood from hard-rocking guitar jams and bluegrass to intricate piano ballads. The White Stripes know rock music is not about how loud you make the instrument sound, but how far you can stretch and tweak its parts into aurally innovative and breathe-takingly arranged notes that continue to defy the notion that rock ‘n’ roll is dead. With the White Stripes going the way they are, rock ‘n’ roll is beginning to be reborn.