Coldplay - Parachutes (July 10, 2000)

Talkin' about Coldplay with my friends today, I found out one thing: most of friends of mine didn't heard about them till "Viva La Vida..." Was so shocked, and decided to make a post about "the early years" of Coldplay: PARACHUTES.

While you're listening this album, you forget about your city, your job... So calm, so light, you can't find any song in there that can make you even dance. You only have to lay down on your bed and fall asleep after "Everything Not Lost".

So let's review each song of PARACHUTES:

1. Don't Panic. I dunno why, but Chris Martin had decided to make THIS song the opening one. It's one of the Coldplay's songs I can dismiss and make no mistake... Whatever, it's my opinion...

2. Shiver. Forget all of the words about the opening track, and you can listen to this song 2 or 3 times, and you'd not get tired of it... This song reminds me OASIS' "Listen Up": so sticky and "delicious"... ahh, forgot one thing: this song was their first single... *)

3. Spies. This song is the longest song on the album (after "Everything's Not Lost"). But you could not notice it... It's slow, it's long, but you'll be lookin' for your time that passed by you with the fantastic speed... Love the songs like this one...

4. Sparks. The best Coldplay's song ever... No comment...

5. Yellow. The song without any sense in a lyrics, but it's so good, it's so bright, so yummy... so YELLOW!!!

6. Trouble. The second bad song in this album, so pop, it's full of piano and overemotioned Chris' vocals, so disappointing... But if you want to get a full impression of PARACHUTES, don't "fast forward" this song and listen to it till the end...

7. Parachutes. A 46 seconds "spit" (love this word), but I think if this song was longer, even if it was 1 minute song, it'd be boring...

8. High Speed. My brother turned this song on when we were driving in his car at night. I felt how my brother's foot started to push the gear harder and harder... Dangerous song if you're driving in a car.*) If you are disappointed by tracks 1-7, this song will bring you back. Back to the earphones... Calm and fresh tune...

9. We Never Change. A bad song #3... It reminds me Oasis' "Sad Song", so simple, so sad (wow! *)), so primitive, and Chris' vocals are so pressing, so emotionally hard... I'd better go on reviewing... the last song, "Everything's Not Lost". I like it like I like (like to speak this way*)) "Sparks". This track is the longest in the album (7.16..), I never felt this time, I enjoyed the song, where all of "ingredients" are balanced and there's no "OVERs".

Whatever I said in this post, we should accept one thing: COLDPLAY had a good start, had a good growth, and have not so good (for me and not for all) present...

Love each other and don't forget about your mums... Love u so much...

In a bit... DOYS.

Muse - Showbiz (April 28, 2000)

All the globe is now in "museomania" and their new album is the one most looked forward to perhaps among boys and girls of all possible generations everywhere! I am a part of that crazy crowd too and just can’t wait to absorb another portion of muse hysteria that will live forever in my mind. But as far as the new album is not out yet (officially on September 14) I re-listen to their older albums and among them has its own irreplaceable place- Showbiz, their first album. This is where all started…this is when we all got sick with Muse…So what it was that made us sick?

First, you get a Sunburn feeling the sun spreading its rays right under your skin with Mathew’s piercing vocal first entering into your world and making you feel you never heard anything weirder before. Now hold on! You’re sunburnt but your temperature is something close to 37 C, you’re not sick yet. Just a flu.

Soon you feel you start trembling from a fever as your muscles weaken and you know Muscle Museum started with it's bass march! “I don’t want you to adore me I don’t want you to ignore me!” is what is on your mind but it’s too late! You already ADORE them...! And even the ending pleading solo, kneeling and begging, can't keep you from getting sick…Don’t try to resist it even if all around repeat “Hate this and I’ll love you”...

Now you are already about 38 C and to get cooler you run to a Cave…But there, in the cave all the possible energy and heat that a guitar can produce “burns your heart away…” and then makes it melt with a soul catching outro solo so beautiful you can’t even grasp it. You madly run out of the cave and when your temperature is already close to 40C you feel you need to make it start Falling down. The temperature falls down a bit due to a pretty bluesy lullaby and you have a sweet sleep…but then! You suddenly wake up by crazy drum roll of and feel perfectly Sober! You are ready to return to your normal life with normal work, normal people and normal feelings...But then you feel you have been controlling your feelings for too long and you are ready to return to Museomania to get sick again to lead yourself to a self destruction… Showbiz expresses the real scream of your soul trying to get out of its cage! You continue your escape from this “normal” life by listening to Escape.

This philosophically perfect song tells you can’t escape your own insignificance and brings to you thoughts of the meaning of life and the truth and love and passion and sense! But all these feelings are already Overdue…You then realize you need an unintended, unexpected Fillip to inspire you again for you to escape your meaningless…The best love ballad ever brings to you this Unintended wonder which airy chords take you high and high…And suddenly you find the Uno, the one that spins your head with a breathtaking tango!...but there are so many Unos in the corridor full of doors leading to nowhere… your hysteria is getting to its peak when you all of a sudden wake up in fever and realize you are sick again and again...

The Dandy Warhols - Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia (August 1, 2000)

Okay, if you like psychedelic rock, then you ought to know The Velvet Underground. And if you know - and hopefully love - The Velvet Underground, then the first thing that associates with them in your mind will be - and that's for sure - a banana on the cover of their album. That's it, the very banana made by infamous pop-art king Andy Warhol. And that's when we get to the point - The Dandy Warhols. Obtained their name from the pop-art guy, changed it a bit to sound twice as interesting, and voila - started playing psychedelic music to perfectly fit the style of The Velvet Underground followers!

Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia is band's third studio album, released in 2000, and by all means it's the most remarkable record they've ever produced. As already obvious from the title, the album is a representation of modern understanding of bohemia - thirten small pieces of stories about who seeks what and why. While some go seeking for god and others open their mind to find themselves, the rest may be flattered just by things they own. The record starts with soft and smooth Godless with tender melody played by acoustic guitars fulfilled with harmonic sound of trumpet. The song is kind of a prologue to the topic raised in the album stating that certain sort of people never really search for anything, just remain passive, thoughtless and thus - soulless:

As thoughtless as you were back then - 
I swear that you are godless

As a contradiction to such attitude, Godless fades into the next track called Mohammed, where a man is struggling each day to find a freedom within, but "all this demons, harass my soul" - says he and lives on with desperation and loneliness. The tune is filled with acoustic guitars, soft drums and a collaboration of solo-guitar with a trumpet, which makes it sound profound and in its full extent. This is what might bring one to the policy of denying - and agression: Nietzsche starts with strong riffs like Nirvana's and psychedelic vocals, almost breathing out the mantra: 

I want a god who stays dead
Not plays dead
I - even I - can play dead

.. on and on and on again. The words of a thinker, the idea of hurt. Teenage anger towards the one who's never even proven to be there, a rebel against the usual. Where the usual is.. the one presented in fourth track - Country Leaver. Village life, bluesy guitars, small world of calm and joy, cowboys and dances on the tavern tables, and a guy who's tired of all this and just wants to go travelling the world. Though he knows pretty well that travel would change him a lot - from a bright country boy to a big-city punk. Solid logically continues the storyline, by placing the hero into a train and providing him a brand-new life to start again. Song is positive, with strong influence of The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed respectively, and it opens the topic about people searching for hidden treasures in their own subconscience: "I must have a door in the back of my head", as the lyrics say. But Solid illustrates the first stage of such nature, the lightest one by all means. Second stage comes with Horse Pills - one falls down as low as possible, ready to do anything just to get a dose so he might feel good again. For some priceless few moments. The music is agressive, lyrics are made of dirt, and you can almost feel the terrifying reality The Dandy Warhols try to tell. 

But the darkest hour is just before the dawn. And the next stage is getting off the drugs, the dirt and the horror:

Like it or not
Like a ball and a chain
All I wanna do is get off
I feel it for a minute - 

That's the Get Off - a ray of light after the nightmare. This time our hero seeks himself, the lost and forgotten part of him, while trying to slip off the drugs and come back to normal life again. Next song is an ode to other side of reality - state of infinite dreams with Sleep. One is tired, one wants to live happily ever after, even if that life would be surreal and totally made-up. Song itself is dreamy and soothing, perfectly describes the state of mind within a tired body, with head in the clouds, and the imaginary wind touching your hair. 

And - we're back to act one, scene 9 - the Cool Scene. The highest value is someone's appreciation of who you really are, but therefore you go and try to look better in that special someone's eyes. Look cool, maybe? Or even perfect? Would being cool matter as much as having cool things? Would that be enough to enter the list of modern bohemia? This are the questions raised up by Bohemian Like You in between the lines, while talking about cars, and modern, "alternative" tastes everybody adopts to look original and wanted - by his or hers special someone, which is in fact a truly casual thing:

I'm getting wise,
And i'm feeling so Bohemian like you,
It's you that I want so please,
Just a casual, casual easy thing.
Is it? It is for me.

On to the next sketch - Shakin'. A lazy and ignorant attitude towards everything that could've been important - "You were getting older, I was getting wiser not". That idea was also noted in the following track, Big Indian, which gets us back to the start of the storyline - the search is now for just the happyending, no big drama or high stakes included. 

When the future is frightening
And I seem to be fighting it
Well soon as it's brightening
Then I, I feel fine 

That's not a manifestation of wisdom, for "you never get wise, you only get older". The sunny tune leads us to the closing track, which was very symbolically named The Gospel and represents an end to any kind of searches, whether they were made in order to find god, or wisdom, or some new motto to keep you running for the rest of your life, who knows? And the last words sang out on the album were "I will take you home", a perfect ending for the epic story, don't you think? 

Cheers from Jude,
stay tuned for more