Review Summary: Baby, it's a violent world
Viva La Vida transports me to a golden age of renaissance. Horse-drawn carriages trot through lamp-lit cobblestone village streets that are packed with flourishing markets, troubadours singing from balconies of stone buildings that overlook canals, artists sitting in front of large canvasses painting fruit baskets, and somewhere – off on a foggy hill – a gated castle that is both comforting and imposing. How much of this imagery is based upon actual historical context versus fictional media is unbeknownst to me, but real or imaginary,
Viva La Vida represents a simpler past that was also somehow more magnificent. From the moment the opening strings of ‘Life In Technicolor’ are plucked, I’m a helpless passenger caught in this album’s colorful updraft; the melodies swirl around me, lift me off my feet, and carry me away.
Coldplay may have stumbled into some sort of antiquated wormhole, but the music is timeless. The title track – which is far more tragic than its harmonious strings let on – brings to mind the downfall of the Roman empire: “I used to rule the world, seas would rise when I gave the word…I used to roll the dice, feel the fear in my enemy's eyes…I discovered that my castles stand, upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.” These are far-reaching passages that have obvious Biblical roots (for you religious scholars), and while it has a distinct fourteenth century feel to it, the aura of decline is just as relevant today. ‘Violet Hill’ is also an immensely bleak tune; it describes a future time where an authoritative government/media – simultaneously fueled and veiled by false religion (“when the banks became cathedrals, and a fox became God” – reigns mighty: “priests clutched onto bibles, hollowed out to fit their rifles.” Although Chris Martin sings about it all in the past tense, as if describing some long bygone era, it’s clear he’s keenly alluding to something more broadly ominous. As the track winds down to a trickling piano, a picture is painted of a couple sitting silent in the snow after a man tells his lover that he’s off to fight in a war. ‘Violet Hill’ evokes everything from the Crusades to World War II, but again, the implications are universal. Most pop bands never approach this level of transcendence; Coldplay never did again either, and that’s why
Viva La Vida’s imprint can still be felt twelve years later.
It’s remarkable how dreary this album’s stories are able to be amidst such sweeping, uplifting music. Even the most optimistic tracks – ‘Lovers In Japan/Reign of Love’ and ‘Yes’ – feature lyrics about locust winds and dying of loneliness. Misery is one of the most universal human traits, so it actually makes sense for an album that’s aesthetically sprawled across multiple centuries to espouse sadness as its primary emotion. This is a coffin whose final nail is laid by ‘Death and All His Friends’, which fades the album out to gorgeous classical pianos while Martin sings about the endless cycles of violence that plague humanity: “No, I don't want a battle from beginning to end, I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge, I don't wanna follow Death and all of his friends.” Another layer is added when you consider how the lyrical booklet capitalizes Death as an entity, recalling
Relevation 6:1-8’s description of the four horsemen of the apocalypse: Death, Conquest, War and Famine. These are all topics that
VLV dissects at length. Again, this is not your typically cheery Coldplay pop extravaganza – and thank goodness it isn’t.
Every time that the waning moments of ‘Death and All His Friends’ pass through my ears, I feel an overwhelming desire to escape
Viva La Vida’s fantasy renaissance. Something about it draws you in and then drowns you in depression. By the time those final stanzas hit you, it’s not fun anymore. It’s not the pleasant, sunny streets of Rome that I imagined when the record first started. Now it’s laying alone on your death bed, looking back in regret at the bloodshed and greed that runs rampant across the world. It’s about looking at the blood on your own hands and knowing you did nothing to end the cycle.
Viva La Vida is the most beautifully disconcerting pop album I’ve ever listened to, and that’s exactly why it will always cling to relevance. As that harrowing closer comes to an end and begins to transition into a synth loop reminiscent to ‘Life In Technicolor’ – thus bringing
Viva La Vida full circle – it offers a sliver of hope. The cycle doesn’t end with you. Isn’t that an encouraging thought?
