We finally got internet back last night after it mysteriously cut out sometime during Monday afternoon. Turns out we missed a payment. But we’re back up and running, and I can finally publish this post. Goody.

I thought I’d chat music for a bit. More specifically, I’d like to talk Coldplay and I’d like to talk Weezer. Both brought out new albums last week and I’ve listened to each a bunch of times already. Which is pretty good going, to place things in salami context. They’re both quite reasonable, although for very different reasons. Both carry Splattermail recommendations.

Viva la Vida or Death And All His Friends is Coldplay’s long-anticipated follow-up to 2006’s somewhat mediocre X&Y, and a repeat performance it could well have been were it not for the unmistakable, and at times near overwhelming, influence of super-producer and Roxy Musician Brian Eno.

Coldplay are a band on the brink of metamorphosis. In the space of 8 years and primarily centred around only three albums’ worth of material, Chris Martin and friends have become one of the biggest acts in music today. That’s a shit-load of pressure. Parachutes and, more importantly, A Rush Of Blood To The Head were what really made Coldplay. It’s never easy to improve on a massive debut, but Coldplay did just that. X&Y was supposed to make them gods. But it didn’t. Which, understandably, is why they’ve now turned to Eno, the guy who turned U2 from an angry rock quartet into the most influential NGO in the world with 1987’s masterpiece The Joshua Tree. I guess Coldplay are hoping that the miracle-maker hasn’t lost his touch.

Well, Viva la Vida is a great album, but The Joshua Tree it aint. “Lovers In Japan / Reign Of Love” may sound a lot like “Where The Streets Have No Name”, but trying to tackle U2 at the pinnacle of their craft was never going to be an easy task. My personal high point is the titular “Viva la Vida”, and then because it simply has to be a sequel to The Cutting Crew’s “(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight”. Violins are delicious.

Hell, it’s a good effort, but the disc lacks any discernable instant classics, unlike The Joshua Tree which opened with three: the aforementioned “Streets” setting a breakneck tempo, building buzz ahead of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, frequently considered one of the best songs ever written, and then plumbing the depths of despair with the heartbreaking “With Or Without You”. That’s quite a threesome.

Song arrangement is not optimal on Viva la Vida. “Life In Technicolor”, the layered instrumental introduction, builds expectation by delaying Martin’s falsetto until the first minute into track 2 (the same device is used in “The Joshua Tree”), but the slow, measured “Cemeteries Of London” fails to deliver. It’s a bad selection – like promoting Boeta Dippenaar to the top when you should be backing a pinch-hitter. “Lovers In Japan”, or even “Viva la Vida” or “Violet Hill” (the first single) would have been far better choices. Anyhoo.

The fact that the album fails to kick off on the right note really throws the continuity of the remaining tracks into chaos. Which is a pity, because there are some genuinely good songs there. At the end of the day, Viva la Vida offers plenty of repeat listening, thanks chiefly to competent songwriting and Eno’s nuanced, sometimes OTT, theatricalities. Coldplay may be bigger than ever, but they’re still failing to repeat the successes of their first two albums. Goes to show that all the cosmetic instrumentation and artsy bollocks in the world just can’t beat simple guitar, bass, drums and hunger. Ok fine – and piano.

Here’s a morsel:

Righty-ho. Weezer’s Red Album. Going to keep this one short and punchy, because I overran it with Coldplay.

On a first listen, you’d almost be excused for fobbing the album off as a bit of a joke. The tracks, for the most part, are relatively simple compositions and the lyrics are, at times, suprisingly immature. And if the Red Album was the work of anyone else, I’d tend to agree.

But let’s set a little perspective here: Weezer’s Blue Album and Pinkerton were among the more important things to come out of the nineties, and the band is pretty much responsible for introducing the world to emo. And I’m not talking about emo the way it exists these days (stupid clothes, eyeliner, nail-polish, miserable c*nts, Thirty Seconds To Mars), I’m referring specifically to the underground punk movement born out of the US college-scene that never really took itself too seriously. Believe it or not, there was a time when the emo label wasn’t an invitation to mockery.

The band has never really managed to pull out anything since then – but then there’s never really been a sense that they’ve been trying to. Their albums since Pinkerton have all been quite listenable, their sound remaining consistently jock. If anything, Weezer are perhaps a little guilty of engineering their own downfall – their influence on the rock/emo scene seems to have nullified their importance somewhat and rendered a tad homogeneous what was once a very distinctive, very creative sound. Disappointing.

But if you can get past the simplicity, you’ll hear a band that doesn’t give really a fuck and are simply enjoying themselves with their own flavour of dancy pop-rock (something that lead singer Rivers Cuomo has stated before). And they do take the time to knock the piss out of their legacy in the process: “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived” is an elaborate portmanteau, drawing on elements of hip-hop, glam-rock, eighties power rock, alternative, pop and others and blatantly mocking the ridiculous and fucking pompous music-by-numbers overtures of hacks like Green Day (on “Jesus of Suburbia”) or, worse still, My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome To The Black Parade”, in which the latter shamelessly licks from the former’s still unimpressive shit-stained bogroll. Hey, Thirty Seconds To Mars cocks – how about these apples: MCR blows too!

And now back to the Red Album. Sure, it may not be a great album in the traditional sense, but it’s a lot of fun and it’s easy, uplifting listening. If you’ve heard “Pork And Beans” (or count yourself smongst the 7 million plus who’ve seen the YouTube video) and you liked it, then the Red Album should be right up your street.

Here’s “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived” – great!

I guess the Weezer bit wasn’t short after all.