Warmth in the cold play

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten.

- Plato in The Republic 

Over the last few days, like the last few weeks, months and years, I have been looking to deal with any kind of stress with three things that I find myself comfortable with: photography, writing and music (only listening to it that is). And in this post I want to write about the third area, something that I've never attempted before. Don't worry, it's not about the healing powers of music, but surely about the magic that one band creates - and a lot of us are familiar with the name - Coldplay. In Dhonispeak, wellofcourse, there is nothing new that can be written about Coldplay. But in my defence, all I can say is that this is probably the first time I'm attempting to write about a musical group, or music at all, and the effect that it has on my life.

Led by frontman Chris Martin, this alternative rock (or any genre that you deem fit) band from England has come a long way indeed. And so has my idol worship for Martin & Co gone up. Be it the timbre of Martin's voice or the unusual sounds that Coldplay manages to produce, there is *that* mystical stone locked away in some deep chamber of their instruments and voices, that makes them magical indeed. Like any good band, Coldplay has songs for every mood known to humans. But, the net result on our neural networks and cardiac compartments is the same: bucketloads of positive vibes that you just cannot afford to ignore. And it could be a half a dozen or just one song from their repertoire that you want to listen to, over and over again. A very good example here is Fix You, one of my favourite tracks, which starts off like a melancholic melody but goes on to transform itself into a peppy church choir-type number.

 
Besides, Fix You is one of those Coldplay songs that I don't mind listening to over and over again. And this number deserves special mention more because in the age of social networking, a lot of my friends on Twitter and Facebook (you know who you are) have recommended this song to me whenever I've been down in the dumps. And I've smiled everytime I've listened to their recommendation, knowing fully well that I've heard the song many times before. It's like that warm hug from someone special which you always look forward to.

Along similar lines is The Scientist from the album A Rush of Blood to the Head, which is one of the hugely popular Coldplay tracks, and is something that I search for on YouTube or on my iPod playlist whenever I want to start my day the possible way. And this one stands out with its beautiful lyrics - again not failing to bring a smile on your face.

And of course, when it comes to good sound with beautiful lyrics, who can forget tracks like Speed of Sound, Clocks, The Hardest Part from the albums X&Y and A Rush of Blood to the Head (not in that order though), or even their first big single - Yellow. Their experiments with sounds is something I noticed (and that's just me, may have happened earlier) first in Talk from the album X&Y, which also had a funny video to go with it. In fact, it remains one of the most intriguing Coldplay songs for me yet. This is a song I listen to whenever I want to intentionally twist things in my head.

On more of the wacky sounds, I feel the tempo picked up in the album Viva la Vida or Death and all his Friends, though the title track of this album again has very meaningful lyrics, with highly relevant intonations for this chaotic world that we inhabit. But, in their latest album Mylo Xyloto, released last year, the band seems to have really pushed the envelope in its experiments with sound. Which is why, on hearing some of the track first, I was shocked and outraged in equal parts and kept on asking myself: "Is this the Coldplay I've grown up listening to?". I even got into some arguments with my social networking friends because of this! But all the rage subsided when I went beyond the outer layers that the accompanying lyrics gave meaning to the unusual sound. And that applies to most tracks in the album - be it the more prominent Paradise, Every Teardrop is a Waterfall or Charlie Brown (the video for which was incidentally released on my birthday) or the slightly lesser prominent Princess of China (featuring Rihanna) and Major Minus (and I was listening to the last two on loop while writing this post).

 

Why am I writing this? Just to pay my own tribute to Coldplay? Maybe yes. But as I see it, for someone who has phases in his music listening that swing from progressive metal to dark trance and dubstep, Coldplay seems to be one of the few bands out there that has been a constant in my playlists. Of course, there are so many more bands which experiment with sound, produce songs with splendid lyrics that are rendered by voices as beautiful as Martin's (if not more). But as I said earlier, their is *that* mystical power in the works of Coldplay that makes fans like me stick on to them, no matter what. As a fanboy, let me add the mandatory sentence that "I'm sure Coldplay will continue to create magic like this in future as well." But more importantly, as my friends on Twitter are aware by now, if there is on shrine I had to build, it would be for this band, because for timeless songs like theirs, no one would mind being "stuck in reverse", would they?