Quote:
Originally Posted by adidasss
A slight digression, I think it's fascinating so many people criticize X&Y as their worst album. Apparently it's been panned by the critics and it's come to a point where even Coldplay are starting to distance themselves from it saying something along the lines "We hadn't had time to rehearse it, if we had, we would have cut some songs from it" and something about making a conscious effort not to have "epic" sounding rock songs on Viva la vida, as opposed to X&Y. I think it's their best album myself, and obviously the public ate it up because it's also their best selling album (10 million and counting)...I really don't understand all the hate.
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I don't really see it as any surprise. Critics never look at albums in isolation, but rather with respect to context. And I agree: any record by any given band
ought to be viewed in relation to the same band's previous work on the one hand, and the contemporary music scene on the other hand.
That X&Y lacks ambition in contrast to its predecessors is uncontroversial. On
Rush Of Blood, Coldplay pushed far and beyond Parachutes to come up with something sonically more expansive and developed. After that, instead of pushing even further, X&Y is the album where Coldplay go from being a somewhat interesting British alternative rock band to a "stuck-in-our-niche" formula band.
The album
is essentially a deeply formulaic rip-off of everything Coldplay had previously been. The band themselves, as you point out, seem to echo the disappointment reflected by many of the reviews. That only goes further to reinforce the idea that it was a lazy work-record. If not, they'd have more pride concerning it and shun the negative feedback.
I do think, however, that taken totally in isolation, it is an enjoyable and competent record. I just find it difficult to get past the facts of the circumstances. I don't enjoy an album merely for how it sounds, but for what it actually is. I feel that background and history add to the enjoyment of records, as they do to books and movies etc.