By Ellie Shalvarjian
Staff Writer
British rock band Coldplay’s latest album, “A Head Full of Dreams,” feels like the band is more concerned with quickly putting out rushed material rather than putting in the time to create great music.
Overall, Coldplay’s latest album has an inconsistent sound, meaningless lyrics, boring tracks, and horrible construction. Although the quality of their music has deteriorated, Coldplay’s album still has some favorable tracks such as “Everglow” and “Army of One.”
Coldplay has had lots of success with their past work, but their most recent albums have not been up to this standard. The band previously showed excellent handling with instruments and lyrics; however, Coldplay now uses more electronic sounds and values catchiness over meaningful lyrics.
Another central problem with the album is how countless songs tend to lack diversity. As a result of the band’s new electronic sound, the songs sound poorly constructed and chaotic. In contrast to arguably Coldplay’s best album “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends” the sound has deteriorated and the quality of production has declined dramatically.
The song “Everglow” is easily the best on the album since it has beautiful and meaningful lyrics layered on excellent instrumentals, making this track one of the best on the album. The listener can appreciate the lyrics because they are relatable and meaningful since, unlike the other songs, they touch on the relevant and emotional subject of someone leaving.
Although “Everglow” was a bright point in the album, most other songs do not represent this same sound such as the title track “A Head Full of Dreams” which goes back to the original problem of a lack of diversity and low quality of instrumentals. The song sounds a great deal like almost every other song on the album and fails to create a unique sound to engross the listener.
One example of the musicians’ talent being undermined by dull lyrics and extensive electronic sounds is in the track “An Adventure of a Lifetime.” While the production of this song is very impressive because of it’s multiple layers, the influence of electronic music becomes overpowering and obnoxious. The lyrics in this song is a low point for the album because they are repetitive and meaningless.
Furthermore, the song “Hymn for the Weekend” verifies the issue of jeopardizing the quality of the lyrics for catchiness. While the song is enjoyable to listen to, the actual quality of the track is awful. The construction of this song sounds cheap and many noises overlap making it hard to actually focus on what the singer is saying.
Overall, the album disappoints due to repetitive and meaningless lyrics, questionable production, and a lack of instruments. Although there are many faults with this album it can still be considered mediocre since there are a couple of tracks that break away from repetition and have real meaning.
“A Head Full of Dreams” was released on December 4th and can be bought for $9.99 or listened to through various streaming services.
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