after much hesitation, I chose such a beginning. Usually, such concluding remarks will be placed at the end of the article (Weibo). But I think, for Coldplay, the usual so-called "music criticism" doesn't mean much to them, and critics naturally don't have to draw a prison and tie themselves up. In the past month, the music I used to commute to and from work every day was Ghost Stories. As a result, I can recite every song in it, including the synthesizer string and the guitar Riff used in it, and I can accurately hum it. In fact, this is the magic of Coldplay. In their early years, they made British guitar pop songs that looked like Radiohead《The Bends, and Yellow》《In My Place were no less than High and Dry. Since then, they have used Viva La Vida to pay tribute to The Beatles. The band members are not only fully armed, dressed as a mixture of hippies and Royal Guards, but also use the sitar, the standard instrument of the Beatles' psychedelic period, as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band did. Life In Technicolor is full of Beatles' shadows, and Lost! "Even like Sir paul mccartney's music; Later, they moved closer to U2. In Mylo Xyloto, those guitars in Charlie Brown were repeated, and Jon Buckland(Coldplay guitarist) sounded like U2' s "Edge" style. Nevertheless, no one has ever said that Coldplay plagiarized. On the contrary, a large group of Chinese music circles represented by Chen Qizhen's Lying in Your Wardrobe carefully imitated Yellow and produced a large number of derivatives. This is Coldplay's talent. Time flies. No matter what the outside world is like and how their own music evolves, it will always have a pleasant, coherent and charming melody, and this powerful melody will always override the style. You have to admit, except for the old hooligans like Rolling Stones, most of the great bands in the world are melody masters: The Beatles-paul mccartney and even the king of golden songs in the whole pop music category; Nirvana-don't wait until people are unplugged to know how well Ke Ben's songs are written; Radiohead-even brainless apps like "Beauty Shooting" have secretly stuffed their "No Surprises" in the background music; Beyond-In this bowl of chicken soup for the soul, Ka Kui Wong served the soup base of Divine Comedy. This makes them wear a rock coat, and at the same time, compared with other kings and queens in pop music, they don't fall in the wind. In "Ghost Stories", when what we heard in the first single was contrary to the normal state of the band, we were initially uncomfortable, and then it was like an addict who had been flying leaves suddenly discovered that there was such a thing as LSD in the world.
a band that goes beyond style is terrible. This means that even if he plays retro disco, you will be as happy as a brain powder. It happened that Bob Dylan once said sarcastically: I am actually a dance artist. So, when Coldplay came up with Magic on his new album, my initial reaction was: Tang Tiantuan, why should we learn The XX, the younger generation, and construct the whole song with such simple electronic beats and undercurrent bass? If we go back to the root, U2 played this kind of thing ten years ago. But in the end, the wooden guitar swept the string and led the sound wall to sweep up, and the lead singer Chris Martin's signature falsetto rushed to the top of the wave, so I had to surrender. Another first single, Midnight, was even more outrageous. At midnight, when everything was silent, the electronic atmosphere was like an hour and a minute when a piece was hurrying away. The band was patient and didn't add any percussion instruments in the first half of the song. It was only at the last minute and a half that the imagination flew a little for a while, and then it returned to the boundless night. If I hadn't heard it with my own ears, I would never have believed that the British Mission could (or dared to) make such a noble Leng Yan Nordic electronic music. As for the last single "A Sky Full Of Stars" before the album came out, I don't care if I hold the white flag already. Let's dance to the beat! People who don't enjoy themselves in Mylo Xyloto, raise your hands in the kitsch key ups and downs! Welcome the best dance band of the year-Coldplay!
after the p>Party craze cooled down, the dancers fell on the dance floor. Therefore, if it's just "nice", then Ghost Stories is not much different from Lady Gaga and Katy Perry's records, and the so-called "artistic sense" can't be said. But they are Coldplay. Once, I thought "Viva La Vida" was a masterpiece. When Martin appeared as a lonely king, he sang "Listen to the Jerusalem bell, and the Roman cavalry sang through the mountains and seas; As my mirror, sword and shield, my missionary stands outside the frontier. "The magnificent epic in the song has already surpassed the allusion to Louis XVI, and the capacity of life has been broadened, which may be the upper limit of a pop record. But then, in Paradise, they not only outlined the image of a little girl looking forward to the world, but also introduced the important image of "butterfly" throughout the album. In the "Elephant Edition" MV, the elephant who escaped from the zoo crossed the whole city and staged a "Madagascar"-style great escape, and finally reunited with his band mates on the grassland, and the camera suddenly cut to the scene of the concert, Coldplay on the stage. At this point, heaven is not only a place of beautiful imagination, even an audience without any religious background like me can't help crying for it. Climbed one peak after another. This time, in Ghost Stories, Coldplay is determined to make the whole record project more extreme and perfect. If you have paid attention to their previous single Atlas for the movie Hunger Games 2: single spark can start a prairie fire, you will find that the album concept of Ghost Stories has been premeditated. As the Hercules in Greek mythology, Europeans always portray Atlas as a giant with his back on the earth, and he often even appears as a celestial globe. Including the name of The Atlantic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean evolved from Atlas, meaning "huge". Coldplay not only sings bows and arrows, the sun and God in Atlas, but also shows the sky map like Andromeda Nebula in MV-all these things appear again in the cover of Ghost Stories: a pair of angel wings with necklaces, labyrinths, stairs and lovers in it ... The background is sapphire ocean and sky, and stars are dotted among them. Astronomy and religion have always been inseparable, and the ocean is a part of the stars. Not only the above-mentioned Atlantic Ocean is an example, but also the song "Oceans" in Ghost Stories, which is a complete starry night.
You may ask, what is the relationship between the stars and the ghost story? Don't you know that the core of the whole album is neither a starry sea nor a ghost, but love. In March this year, Christopher Anthony John Martin and his Oscar-winning wife, Gwyneth Paltrow (Weibo), broke up, ending their 11-year marriage. The heavy news of this entertainment circle has also become the talk of Ghost Stories outside of music. Martin has written many songs for "Pepper" over the years, such as "Fix You", which has cured countless sad people. Their public statement also stated that "although we still love each other, we still choose to break up". A few months ago, the paparazzi even revealed that the two still lived together after their divorce, and even wore a wedding ring, on the grounds that Gwyneth believed that "the happiness of their children was the first priority". Will the two get back together in lightning? Why don't we look for the answer from Ghost Stories? "What is magic? What is truth? Being with you is magic. I was broken and torn in half. I call it magic, when I am near you. " (Magic) Comparing love to magic is nothing new. In the storm of love, no matter how much you suffer in the process, you are still pious and human nature. As the chorus sings at the end: "If you ask me, do you still believe in magic after all this?" Well, yes, I believe. " Best of all, the MV of "Magic" invited Zhang Ziyi to star. She played the lover of the circus owner and was humiliated. Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, plays an apprentice. He has always been fascinated by Zhang Ziyi and practiced magic. Finally, through his skillful hands, the circus foreman has disappeared. This MV, which pays tribute to the famous Italian director federico fellini's "Lonely Trilogy" and "The Road", is presented in black and white silent film, accompanied by Coldplay's restrained and turbulent feelings and the performance of "International Chapter", which can almost be locked. The cover of Magic's single also ingeniously adopts the same strong medieval Byzantine painting style as the cover of MV album, except that the main vision is changed from wings to pigeons, which are the most commonly used props of magicians, and there are playing cards, stages, magicians and female assistants in pigeons, which are closely related to the song content and MV. In the album, we can also hear "Ink" describing unforgettable love. With a brisk electronic beat, such as blinking stars, Martin sang: "I have left a tattoo on my body for a lifetime, and I have a pocket knife engraved with your name ... You shine like a star, emitting colorful luster of love, which is my lifelong desire"; The hymn-like "True Love" is self-anesthesia after love ceases. "The flame of true love flashes between your eyes and mine. Please tell me that you love me if you don't cheat me any more." The electric guitar solo at the end of the song makes people feel pale and powerless. Another's Arms, which tells the story of my lover's separation, can be circulated in your ear until you unconsciously sing, "The world is worthless to me, as long as I have your arms". This song reminds people of the classic film Ghost, and the shadow of the lover is just in line with the theme of "Ghost Stories". At this point, the stars, love, ghosts and spirits, all the connection points have come out. Coldplay wants to tell us through this album that everyone is a star and we are lucky enough to meet in the vast universe. Although I will leave one day, whether it is because of illness or emotional breakdown, these things actually happen in the Milky Way. Just like the starry sky we look up at now, perhaps those shining stars were dimmed hundreds of years ago, because we are so far apart that we have the illusion. The album is called "ghost story" because the lost and nonexistent love gives us the illusion that it is nothing more than that. As the true theme song "A Sky Full Of Stars" of this album sings: "I don't care, not at all, even if I am shattered. Because in this starry night sky, I feel like I am with you. "
Wang Anyi once said that there are often two kinds of writers who write love stories, one is the ninth-rate writer and the other is the best writer. The same holds true for pop music. Most of the love songs we hear are ninth-rate works, but Coldplay's Ghost Stories is undoubtedly first-class. In those ninth-rate love songs, it is either to comfort the lovelorn, or to provide you with a sweet dream of loving me and loving you. But in the world of first-class love songs, such as Coldplay, the album has not solved any practical problems at all, the veil of tenderness has been lifted, the old life pattern has been broken, and a brand-new world is presented to us, although no one can say whether it is good or bad. This is true love, real life.
The last song of Ghost Stories is called . Such pure piano music may be traced back to the essay "Postcards From Far Away" many years ago. "A flock of birds are hovering in the sky. They remind you of love. I always stare at the sky and pray before dawn. They come inadvertently, and they will leave inadvertently and fly away. " In addition to simulating some bird songs, after the whole song ended, it stopped for about 1 seconds and began the surge of the band again. This is not only an Outro, but also an Intro, which is seamlessly connected with the opening song "Always In My Head" of the album, so you can understand why this song is called "". Love is such a cyclical process. Just like Stephen King's Dark Tower, Roland (Weibo), the gun man at the end of the novel, finally climbs the dream tower, but finds that everything he experiences on the way is just an illusion and as silent as a mystery as escher's non-European geometric space. Tell me, is this a work of art or not?