Coldplay – feelslikeimfallinginlove
kthxbai
[Video]
[3.60]
Taylor Alatorre: asleepbutoutofbed
[3]
Hannah Jocelyn: Chris Martin is one of the great pop melody writers to ever do it, and “Viva La Vida” and “Warning Sign” aside, one of the most insipid lyricists. So maybe it makes sense the man doesn’t try, but this sounds both obscenely expensive and unfinished. There’s underwriting your pre-choruses, then there’s “I know, lalalalalalalalalala.” The nadir is “La La lo de lo”, which are not syllables that have been or should be said consecutively. The joy of Coldplay is their attention to detail that gives the vague sentiments actual weight. What saves this from being a wash (and why it earns a positive score) is how this sounds like a real band; “Humankind”, which this resembles, sounded entirely made with VSTs, and Jonny Buckland’s guitars (the bands’ secret weapon) are integrated into the song rather than trotted out at the last second. With Brian Eno on board for the proper album, I’m looking forward to the more complex “Arabesque”/”Coloratura” companion piece.
[6]
Nortey Dowuona: Will Champion made the right choice. And he made the right choices here. The drums that slowly emerge chrysalis like at the end are sharp, powerful and strong, striking hard at the snares so well the lalas from Chris Martin feel just as otherworldly as they’re meant to be, with the kick/snare pattern that has loped throughout the song small thin and inexpressive, allowing the keyboard band led by Martin (and including Max Martin, producer of Ready For It, Daniel Green and Rik Simpson, producers of Daddy, and Oscar Holter, producer of Scared To Live) to layer each track of keyboard upon each other until they ebb and allow the band to emerge, trusting Martin’s frail tuneful and winsome voice to lalala his way into your heart.
[7]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: As it turns out, love can be genuine and earnest, and yet pedestrian and unexciting at the same time.
[4]
TA Inskeep: feelslikeyouhadmaxmartinproduceacoverofyellow
[2]
Katherine St. Asaph: Your “Teenage Dream” ended.
[1]
Jonathan Bradley: “Conscious coupling,” the song.
[4]
Harlan Talib Ockey: Standard Coldplay, albeit with less melodic movement or development. The “I know / la la la la la” prechorus is laughable. I will not remember this song in one month.
[2]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: “I was born to kill” is the funniest thing that Chris Martin has ever sung. Everything else is unremarkable — half the lyrics appear to be various “La”s; the melody is a weakly-sketched remembrance of earlier Coldplay songs; Max Martin has done better. It feels unfair to all of us to review this as a song. At this point, Coldplay has eclipsed all critical and worldly concerns. This music is for forces beyond us, for massive festival clap-alongs and the background of inspirational short-form video content. Who cares how the hook goes?
[4]
Alfred Soto: The impregnable normality of the track’s lightly electronic glaze and arena rock aspirations doesn’t produce the requisite affection: he may feel like he’s falling in love, but Chris Martin sure doesn’t sound like it. My guy could have taken his clothes off and danced to the Rite of Spring.
[3]
There’s something about the shiny, soulless tech expo-ness of post-Xyloto Coldplay that makes me want to appreciate them in a contrarian way. Most of the time they are genuinely striving for some version of perfection — Music of the Spheres! — even if their definition of such is far different from mine. But a song like this gives me nothing to work with, because as Hannah notes, it’s given up on trying to say anything before it even starts.
Bar for a positive score is extremely low if all you need is to sound like a “real band”