i've always enjoyed most mopey british guitar bands, therefore, i consider myself part of the target audience with coldplay. despite the ok songs "clocks" & "green eyes" (hope sandoval already wrote that one several times, and better),the rest of this is piss-poor. not that i cared for parachutes (or coldplay in general), but this album is much more contrived and self-conscious than their debut. "a whisper" may be attempting a radiohead style seriousness, but comes out like a third rate house of love (remember them?). "politik" is just bad song, bad direction. "in my place" rivals travis for the credit card commercial sound of all time. who are the bigger tools?
on the last album, singer chris martin did a decent jeff buckley impersonation on tracks such as "shiver". here, the true colors shine through on songs like "god put a smile upon your face", where he reveals himself not only as nowhere near the talent of buckley, but also as a generic melody man all around. "warning sign" confirms this, with the worst cello/string arranging i've ever heard. amateur bullshit. eat it up.
"the scientist" is such a drag. sad song 101. what's impressive is the masses that find it moving. slick & commercial music has never been so empty-headed yet intellectual sounding! coldplay speak to so many and get so many awards, i only look forward to their steady decline. i'm sure their next album will be significantly worse than this. gwynth sez so.