Album of the day (#4349): Viva La Vida Or Death And All His

[albummaster]

Today's album of the day

Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends by Coldplay (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 2008.
Country:
Overall rank: 297
Average rating: 75/100 (from 1421 votes).

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Tracks:
1. Life In Technicolor
2. Cemeteries Of London
3. Lost!
4. 42
5. Lovers In Japan/Reign Of Love
6. Yes
7. Viva La Vida
8. Violet Hill
9. Strawberry Swing
10. Death And All His Friends

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

[HoldenM]

The album where Coldplay and Brian Eno are just like, "Fuck it, we're throwing everything at the wall." And the result is their most dynamic and daring record to date. Easily one of my favorite records ever, and I would argue it's Coldplay's best.

Track picks
1. Life In Technicolor
5. Lovers In Japan/Reign Of Love
8. Violet Hill
9. Strawberry Swing
10. Death And All His Friends
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[DommeDamian]

Just thought of this record then it gets aotd.

Out of their first 4 (and best) albums, this is by far the one I listened to the least (like by faaaar). Maybe I should revisit soon.
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[MadhattanJack]

For what it's worth, I also think it's their best and most-cohesive album, and I suspect the problem with it popularity-wise is that it doesn't have those "anthemic" singles on it like the ones on the first album and A Rush of Blood to the Head (unless you count the title track, which to be fair, was their best-selling single ever I believe). That said, their albums are fairly consistent-sounding, so a lot of people are probably just going to prefer the first one they heard.

Also, this album has a song on it called "42," which implies there's some Douglas Adams fanboyism going on, something I generally avoid whenever possible. Sometimes I worry that I'm developing a severe case of OCD because my TV volume counter goes from 1 to 100, and whenever I adjust it, I never allow it to settle on "42" because I just hate that number so much. I know that sounds silly, and it is, but the title of the song should be "Those Who Are Dead Are Not Dead," and I can't help thinking they totally wimped out by not calling it that. Someone probably told them it "would sound like the title of a zombie anthem" or even an "artsy" zombie movie, and they thought that would be bad because they're all afraid of zombies (which are not real) or were worried that their fans were afraid of them. (I don't know a lot of Coldplay fans personally, but the ones I do know seem fairly comfortable around zombies, which, again, are not real.)

I probably suffer from the standard "hipster mentality" whereby when a band I like becomes "big," which would perfectly describe Coldplay in 2008, I immediately start to look for signs of coasting and/or self-indulgence on whatever their new album is. There's definitely some self-indulgence on this album, but they're not coasting, and the material works fairly well despite (if not because of) the self-indulgence. Who knows, maybe I'll even put it in my Top 100 for the 2000s, one of these days!