Chris Martin and Noel Gallagher have been mates for a while now, and the friendship is starting to rub off. Not content with covering Songbird during gigs, the Coldplay man has now adopted an Oasis-style approach to his music.
The comparisons between this new Coldplay single and Oasis’ Lyla are striking, but more in terms of marketing than the actual music. ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ is clearly the message with Violet Hill.
Much like Lyla and Oasis’ Don’t Believe The Truth, Violet Hill wasn’t even scheduled to make the cut for new Coldplay album Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends. Somewhere though between band and record company – and in this case we are talking about EMI in its worse state for years – a decision has been made to release this track, which unsubtly ticks every generic box of what we expect to hear from the band, as the trailer to the new album.
The thing is Violet Hill isn’t a bad song, it’s just very Coldplay. There’s nothing here that will surprise, shock or remotely threaten to break boundaries. The band may have taken a Radiohead inspired approach to releasing this track for free on the Internet, but the comparisons with Thom Yorke’s lot firmly end there.
Okay so there’s a bit of a guitar solo from Jonny Buckland, sounding a return to the Rush Of Blood era and away from the dark X&Y atmosphere, but aside from that it simply is Coldplay by numbers. Piano led, with distinct highs and lows, it’s all very black and white with the usual accompaniment of contrived lyrics. Quite whether the rest of the new album will be the same is anyone’s guess, but counting ourselves amongst those who have championed Coldplay through all the criticism, we certainly hope not.