The Singles Jukebox

In which Coldplay endorse the Arizona Cardinals for Super Bowl 50…

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[4.45]Danilo Bortoli: Last year’s Head Full of Dreams was a pivotal moment for Chris Martin’s ensemble, but not for a good reason. Coldplay’s alleged creativity has reached a saturation point: there’s nowhere to go, all has been done and, more importantly, behaving good doesn’t get you very far when it comes to pop music. In this context, “Birds” doesn’t differ that much from what’s offered in the album — really forced metaphors about escaping, finding yourself, LOVE as an entity to be conquered — which is not a sign of artistic integrity. It is, ultimately, indicative of a creative drought that, at least for the moment, shows no sign of going away. It is, in a way, metaphysical pop when all we need is actually something more concrete.
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Alfred Soto: Let’s give Coldplay credit: only a band this devoted to toothlessness could have devised a shimmer-pop variant on the Strokes’ “Last Nite.”
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Thomas Inskeep: Apart from Chris Martin’s whiny voice and maybe the Edge-like chiming guitar, nothing about “Birds” is discernably Coldplay; this just sounds like a generic pop song. I can only imagine that the reason for their impending “hiatus” is that the rest of the band finally got tired of Martin’s bullshit popstar dreams.
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Brad Shoup: Some good choices (a croaking guitar bit, the ringtone chime of the main figure) plus some odd ones (gulped backing vocals, releasing a second song with “birds” in the title) artificially hopped up and stopped dead at the end.
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Iain Mew: Do you think that Coldplay remembered that two albums ago they already had a song called “Up With the Birds”? It doesn’t feel like self-referencing so much as running out of inspiration, because their new album is their first that offers no real new direction or impetus, just cycling back to Mylo Xyloto with some different producers. Not that it’s a bad album (I’d take it over X&Y) but it says something when the song they pick for second single is even more featureless than “Princess of China”. The only thing that almost saves it is when Jonny Buckland wakes up from auto-chime mode at the end, finally getting it going just in time for the abrupt ending that’s it’s most memorable moment.
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Will Adams: After some revisits, I realized I was overrating this because of the final minute’s glorious flight over the clouds. It’s treacherous ground getting to that takeoff, as the song moves back and forth between enjoyably dreamy elements (like those wispy guitars) and Chris Martin fighting with the accelerated tempo.
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Patrick St. Michel: Frail, speedy indie-pop looks good on Coldplay, partially because the speed of it forces them not to dwell on words, which has hit the brakes on a lot of their music in recent years. This actually has some tension between wanting to dwell but not having the time to do it. Don’t expect this in their Super Bowl set, but then again that’s why it’s a step up for them.
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Katherine St Asaph: Dreampop with guitar seagull cries and string thermals and Chris Martin poisoning pigeons with his voice. It isn’t tropical house, at least.
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Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Coldplay’s attitude of relentless, stadium-filling positivity is getting way too tiresome already, and even with the attractive Phoenix-like beat and the sufi lyrics, “Birds” shows us a band that just can’t shake off their reputation as the poor man’s U2. And about that, Bono himself had his experience with sufism too, only he created a superior song.
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Micha Cavaseno: Bono’s listening to this somewhere, somber. He’s doing that weird thing where he sounds like he’s chewing on bark and looking over at the Edge and the two brothers who can’t play a beat to save their lives. “Well, you must admit,” he starts, running a hand to smooth out his falcon-like head’s crest of hair, “they do sound like us if we tried to make Pop now…”. Clearing his throat, he rises up as Edge strokes his goatee, his only means of communicating when his asshole has instinctively tightened itself up to prepare and play that one chord he’s been playing since 1985. “The problem, though,” Bono remarks, striding the room, “is that they sound worse. Chris, he’s such a good kid, but he makes me sound like Sting with those weird warbles, and I just don’t understand why he hasn’t gotten that out his system. It’s so odd and quite honestly, scary. Plus the drum programming… Imagine Brian letting us get away with setting up drums so piss-poor.” Shaking his head, he sighs, knowing that Eno had stopped almost as bad rhythm tracks being laid down in the studio before. Ah well, a little lie to help one’s friends. “My boys, I worry for Coldplay. They’re quite lost for a good idea these days.”
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Anthony Easton: The jangly guitars, the slow float of Martin’s voice, the processed percussion, the slightly Anglo embarrassment about its uplift… The song is too long by a minute or so, but I think this is the first Coldplay song I’ve genuinely liked.
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