Entertainment for Thinkers

It has recently been noted that this summer at the multi-plex was a rather event-less one. With a drop in ticket sales everywhere, and outside of the usual book and toy features (Harry Potter, G.I. Joe, Transformers) there really wasn't that much to have gotten excited about; animation was exciting, but didn't find much of a market outside of families, horror was largely M.I.A., most of the comedies were stiff, the blockbusters were noisy, the dramas were limp. And just when it seemed the season would have ended as unspectacularly as it began (although these fingers are still crossed for Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds), along comes District 9.
Written and directed by newbie South African writer-director Neill Blomkamp, the movie bears the name-tag of Peter Jackson, he of The Lord of the Rings fame, as producer. Jackson's talent as a director won't be re-hashed here, but suffice it to say, it must be a special occasion for him to have attached his name to such a project, even previewing the movie himself at July's Comic-Con in San Diego.
The film is a straight-forward one- from the first jittery frame it seeks to grab and hold your attention. And indeed it does. Meet Wikus Van der Merwe, recently appointed head agent in charge of MNU's (Multi-National United) plan to ship the alien residents of District 9 to District 10. Yes. You read correctly. Alien residents. How did the country (the film is set in Johannesburg, South Africa) become a residence to aliens, you wonder? 20-odd years ago a space ship hovered over New York and Chicago, before coming to a stand-still over the city of Johannesburg. An expedition from Earth arrives and cuts its way into the ship. Inside, the humans find millions of alien worker drones, sick and malnourished, and a massive operation is begun to transport the aliens from their ship to the ground, feed them, and give them a new home. But what starts out well-intentioned (District 9) quickly becomes a concentration camp and a slum. When the slum, and its residents become nuisances for the human residents of South Africa, the MNU decide to evict them.
Van der Merwe is not competent to handle the operation of which he is placed in charge of- the film's first frame proves this, and on his first day, he is contaminated by alien fluid, breaks his arm and has to be rushed to the hospital. Sharlto Copely in the role of Van der Merwe is superb. As the main human interface for viewers of the film, he easily wins our sympathy as the odds against him stack up. A naive character is he, one strongly believing in the system, quickly becoming a victim of the very cause he sought to champion.
The settlement for the aliens became a teeming shantytown like so many ghettos in the developing world, with the relatively minor distinction of being home to tall, skinny bipeds with insect-like faces and bodies that seem to combine biological and mechanical features. Though there is evidence that those extraterrestrials- known in derogatory slang as "prawns" because of their vaguely crustacean appearance- represent an advanced civilization, their lives on Earth are marked by squalor and dysfunction. And they are viewed by South Africans of all races with suspicion, occasional pity and xenophobic hostility. This is where District 9 the film shines; not in its presentation of the aliens, and certainly not in its presentation of the aliens in relation to the city's human residents, indeed nowhere in film history has aliens ever been fully accepted into society without some modicum of hostility and suspicion. Where the film shines is in its allegorical politics- it is no coincidence that this xenophobic hostility takes place in South Africa, in the exact place where apartheid coloured one ethnicity's treatment of the other. That country’s history of apartheid and its continuing social problems are never mentioned in the film, but they hardly need to be. Indeed, the film’s implications extend far beyond the boundaries of a particular nation (as there are even shades of the Nazi concentration camps), which is taken as more or less representative of the planet as a whole.
Van der Merwe is a pathetic little paper-pusher, and it says a lot about director Blomkamp's sense of humour to hang human's moral redemption on his shoulders. This occasional offbeat humor is needed - the material is so bleak that without it, it would be a tough 112 minutes to endure, after all, it is a summer blockbuster. Blomkamp and co-writer Terri Tatchell are not above having a laugh at, say, the aliens' jones for cat food, cans and all, and the popularity of inter-species prostitution. Watching the film, one can't help but be reminded of another nifty alien movie, Cloverfield. Both films use unique camera-work to patch their stories together, leaving the audience to figure things out for themselves, inadvertently subverting an entire genre of film. But where Cloverfield seemed a by-product of our up-to-the-minute Blackberry/Youtube generation, and a somewhat spoof of our need to put a camera in front of something and press the record button, District 9 uses a documentary style to flesh its story out. In a flurry of mock-news images and talking-head documentary chin-scratching, the story is filled in by people Van der Merwe worked and associated with. We get to understand how he became to be in charge of the operation, then we are thrust head-first into how the story develops or, rather, unravels.
It has to be admitted that the film shifts from speculative science fiction to zombie bio-horror and then, less subtly, turns into an escape-action-chase movie full of explosions, gun-play and vehicular mayhem. But it also has to be admitted that the world in which Blomkamp has created never becomes unbelievable for even a second, so much so that one can easily take for granted the carefully rendered details of the setting, the tightness of the editing and the inventiveness of the special effects. And what amazing special effects they are- the aliens are cinematic works of art! Made expressive and soulful, they talk with a mixture of whirring, clicking speech and English. Even if one wasn't paying attention to the sub-titles (yes, there are sub-titles) they are still easily understood. The action sequences are expertly choreographed, easy to follow, and generate a sense of tension and excitement, with the biggest and, quite possibly, best involving a giant robot-like creature. (Take that, Transformers.)
Expanding upon the ideas explored in Blomkamp's 2005 short, "Alive in Joburg", the film recalls the likes of other such dystopian films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, David Cronenberg's The Fly, Spielberg's War of the Worlds and Independence Day. Absent are the high-minded ideals evident in more optimistic productions such as E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Trek: First Contact. Here, the premise is simple: the humanitarian impulses that lead to the planet welcoming the aliens are quickly overridden by greed and xenophobia. Some try to profit from the newcomers while others, ruled by fear, want to destroy them. Some might argue that Blomkamp's perspective is bleak and cynical, but a cursory glimpse at the whole of recorded history certainly validates his position. Just pick any history book up.
At its core the film tells the story- hardly an unfamiliar one in the literature of modern South Africa- of how a member of the socially dominant group becomes aware of the injustice that keeps him in his place and the others, his designated inferiors, in theirs. The cost he pays for this knowledge is severe, as it must be, given the dreadful contours of the system. But if the film’s view of the world is bleak, it is not quite nihilistic. It suggests that sometimes the only way to become fully human is to be completely alienated. When Van der Merwe runs back to District 9 for refuge, the film speaks volumes on how everyone of us, black or white, all need the very same things- acceptance, safety, shelter and sympathy.
The filmmakers don’t draw out these themes with a heavy, didactic hand. Instead, in the best B-movie tradition, they embed their ideas in an ingenious and suspenseful genre entertainment, one that respects your intelligence even as it makes your eyes pop and your stomach turn. And oh how your stomach will turn. Like another witty genre film released this season, Drag Me to Hell, the film's reliance on things that will make you squirm is almost endless. But that's fine- B-movies can get away with that sort of gimmick if it fits perfectly well into the plot of things.
The film accomplishes a rare thing: it's a science fiction story with depth and thought-provoking ideas that still has room for shoot-outs, explosions, and bloody violence. The R-rating is well earned- persons, after being hit by an energy weapon, explode in showers of blood, and Wikus' transformation is just as gruesome as when something similar happened to Jeff Goldblum in The Fly.
By inverting an axiomatic question of the U.F.O. genre- what are they going to do to us?- the movie poses a different kind of hypothetical puzzle. What would we do to them? The answer, derived from intimate knowledge of how we have treated one another for centuries, is not pretty. By realigning our sympathies, challenging what we come to expect from film and indeed entertainment, and by presenting heavy moral themes all packaged up in the neat frills of a summer blockbuster, one can't help but remember another film that did these very same things exactly one year ago- Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. This film may not be as incendiary a work as that, but as the summer of 2009 comes to a close, District 9 will go down as one the season's very best.

Book of the Month- It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

Laughter is one very good way to cope with weighty or maudlin topics. Author Ned Vizzini knows this. Dealing with such themes as teenage depression and "suicide ideation", the novel, It's Kind of a Funny Story, his second, comes disguised as a book for young adults. But where that pigeonholing may throw some serious readers off, Vizzini writes with enough universality to place him way above his counterparts.
At 19, Vizzini published his first book, Teen Angst? Naah..., a collection of essays based on the writer having attended high school. Like his first novel, Be Chill (about a dork that swallows a pill-sized supercomputer that turns him into the coolest guy in school), his voice as a writer wasn't yet developed. Still, he found a niche among a loyal cult following. Published in 2006 at the age of 25, It's Kind of a Funny Story displays Vizzini's new found maturity. Having spent a brief stint being hospitalized for depression, Vizzini drew on his own life story, giving us something more real and palpable.
The novel begins, "It's so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself." It's an attention-grabbing first line, and one has to wonder what it says about the person who narrates it. His name is Craig Gilner, and like many ambitious New York City teenagers his age (15), he sees entry into the prestigious Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future- getting into the right college, landing the right job, a happy marriage, a comfortable life... He studies day and night for the entrance exam, and eventually passes, being granted entry. That's when things start to get crazy.
At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he's just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. Just reading about his assignments is anxiety-producing — nine classes, unbearable reading lists, four hours of homework a night. One class requires reading two hefty daily newspapers and analyses of the stock market. Within months Craig has "stress vomiting for the first time." The more behind he gets, the more paralyzed he is, until he contemplates jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. Instead, he calls 1-800-SUICIDE and checks himself into a nearby hospital. His mom's response when he calls from the E.R. is touching: "I am so proud of you. . . . This is the bravest thing you've ever done."
Vizzini's humour runs deep, focused not only on the comic impact of any given line, but on the role of humour itself, the necessity of laughter and the realization that it's O.K., even necessary, to lighten up when things seem bad. Once hospitalized, he meets a plethora of characters including a transsexual sex addict, the Egyptian Muqtada, the self-elected President Armelio, and the elusive Humble. When Craig starts to share a laugh about a fellow patient, he stops himself- "I bite my tongue. I can't help it. I shouldn't be laughing at any of these people . . . but maybe it's O.K., somewhere, somehow, because we're enjoying life?" While separated from high school, family and friends, Craig is forced to confront the sources of his anxiety.
Craig's best friend is Aaron, smoker of pot, boyfriend of Nia. In one telling chapter, Craig admits- "I started to work in phases a little bit. For three weeks i'd be cool, fine, functional... Then i'd get bad. Usually it happened after a chill session at Aaron's house, one of those glorious time when we really got high and watched a really bad movie... I'd wake up on the couch in Aaron's living room... and i'd want to die." While hospitalized, Craig realizes that Aaron, and especially his girlfriend Nia, are major sources of his depression. He calls Nia up one night, and dismisses his relationship with her, or so he thinks. The phone call causes Nia to visit him at the hospital, a confrontation that causes his budding relationship with Noelle, a teenage who has self-inflicted wounds to her face, to hit a snag. Leaving a note on his chair one day, Noelle gives Craig an opportunity to meet her. Their meeting is strange, a game of sorts where one asks a question and the other party has to ask another question, with no pressure or need to answer the previous question asked. Soon, they start hanging out, going to recreational sessions before the rumour that they are together starts getting around. Vizzini uses Craig to show how bright, academically gifted teenagers are constantly under pressure and can crack accordingly; through the characterization of Noelle, we see another side of teenage self-hatred- "I cut my face because too many people wanted something from me," she admits. "There was so much pressure... You have to be the prude or the slut, and if you pick one, other people hate you for it, and you can't trust anyone anymore, because they're all after the same thing..." Teenagers have a lot of unhealthy expectations placed on their heads, and Vizzini does not sugarcoat this aspect of the novel. At one point Craig admits- "There are a lot of people who make a lot of money off the fifth- and sixth-life crises. All of a sudden they have a ton of consumers scared out of their minds and willing to buy facial cream, designer jeans, SAT test prep courses, condoms, cars, scooters, self-help books, watches, wallets, stocks, whatever... all the crap that the twenty-somethings used to buy, they now have the ten-somethings buying."
Though dealing with depression, the novel is never depressing, and always offers what one can recognize as hope. When Craig discovers drawing as an outlet for healing, his art takes a refreshingly original form, creating beauty from confusion. For some, it may not ring true that Craig adjusts so quickly to life on the ward, falling into the rhythm of the patients' various shticks with ease, though his relief-based high from jumping off the treadmill could explain it. That he achieves so much during a five-day stay — inspiring a perpetual sleeper to join the living, starting a relationship with a skittish girl — also pushes the limits of believability. The most obvious solution to Craig's problem doesn't occur to him until the end, but that is entirely plausible, as it's his entanglement in the responsibility of meeting expectations that has made him lose sight of other options.
Vizzini is an able writer, his characters at times are formulaic, but in his development of them all, he makes them very believable- there's the doting mother, the father who cracks jokes to ease tension, the out-spoken sister easily embarrassed by her older brother, and of course all the crazies at the mental hospital- these are are all characters we know well, but what Vizzini does with them all is imbue them with a bit of pathos and a lot of humour, allowing us to invest interest in each one. The most note-worthy of them all is Craig. As the protagonist, he has a strong and clear voice of his own. Craig Gilner is a palpably real character worthy of a place in the reader's long-term memory.
The self-deprecating tone of the novel lends itself to the overall tone of humour, and how else should Vizzini have presented his heavy themes? With a book of this nature, similarities to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar will abound. But while that novel is ground-breaking for its emotional honesty, It's Kind of a Funny Story stands apart because its author is not trying to give insights into depression, or give us an understanding of depression. His book is more concerned with presenting a character that is on the brink of a personal break-through, not self-destruction, a character that could very well be us.
The catalyst for that personal breakthrough is Noelle. In Craig's interaction with her, he comes to realize that "Everybody has problems. Some people just hide their crap better than others." Noelle, in her own way, gives something to look forward to when he is eventually released from the hospital at the end of the text. Indeed, she is the one who urges him to create something from his childhood when he had a creative block in an arts and craft session at the hospital. At that point, he is reminded of the maps that he would draw when he was youger, maps that he would encircle in pictures of the shape of a human head. It's these very creations that Craig comes to realize as a source of his happiness, an aspect of his life that he would like to pursue and develop on his way to feeling whole.
One of the most disturbing realities present in this novel is the many characters who need meds to cope with getting through school. These youngsters are under so much pressure to do well, they often have to deal with and overcome many anxieties and emotional instability in their lives. In his presentation of these characters, Vizzini makes a statement on the youngsters in our own lives- we all know them, they sit the GSAT and CXC exams every year; they're the ones who've just been accepted in college; they're the ones we watch on the National Spelling Bee, Schools Challenge Quiz and National Schools Debate every season. In their pursuit of excellence, these youngsters are often pushed to the very edge of unhappiness, sometimes unfulfillment and self-loathing when they experience failure. We know this to be true- we were there ourselves. Through Craig's character, Vizzini warns against this and presents great ammunition for his stance. We root for Craig to heal, and we root for all the others in the same boat — perhaps piloted by much more demanding parents than Craig's.
As much as it is a text for young adults, lending itself to readability (it should take much less than a week to get through), Vizzini has presented a rich, humourous, satisfying and memorable story. His motifs of depression and unhappiness, as well as his themes of self-actualization and the pursuit of happiness are universal- we all get depressed and we all want to be happy no matter how old we are, or whatever situations we may face. His story eschews the ubiquitous faddishness associated with the genre (Twilight, anyone?), instead giving us a text that can be embraced by teens and their parents. The New York Times Book Review, in its review, called It's Kind of a Funny Story "an important book", and indeed, it is.

Questions for discussion:
1. Vizzini has his protagonist, Craig, smoke a lot of marijuana (pot) at the beginning of the novel. What possible statement could he be trying to make as it concerns the emotional instability of real-life teenagers who engage in this activity?
2. There are several instances where hospital staff admit that Craig's purpose in being admitted is not to fix him, per se, and indeed, he goes through a lot of psychologists and psychiatrists in a very short time. What is the author possibly trying to say about psychology and psychiatry?
3. Can Noelle be seen as a deux ex machina? How so?
4. Compare how much of the novel is unbelievable to how much is. How does this subtract from the effectiveness of the text?

Bay, the Killer of Dreams

When the first Transformers film was released in 2007, it seemed that critics were split down the middle- on metacritic.com, the film amassed a grade of 61 based on 35 critical reviews. It seemed that critics praised the film as much it was panned. US$700 million later, the same film-makers and studio give us its sequel- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and here's the first problem- the same website has a grade for the film of 35 based on the same amount of reviews. Seems the scales have fallen from the eyes of the very same reviewers who were duped into believing that the first film was anything near good...
Building on the little-boy fantasy of cars coming to life and turning into giant talking robots from outer space, director Michael Bay proves once again why he might possibly be the worst director operating today.
The story resumes by sending Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf yelling every line of dialogue he speaks) off to college, leaving behind his mechanic girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox). He also leaves behind his first love, Bumblebee, the yellow Camaro who morphs into Sam's robot guardian angel when needed. He's letting his friends the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), work out their differences with the feds. Suffice it to say, the mess of a plot devolves into a chase story in Egypt and the destruction of the pyramids (a spit in the face of sacred world history). Time won't be wasted here in trying to explain what happens in between, this reviewer still does not have a clue. Although the movie goes all over the world to tell a rudimentary tale of good humans and good robots, or Autobots, uniting against the bad robots, or Decepticons, its frenetic and often pointless action induces a weird claustrophobia.
One mind-boggling aspect of the film is that it never actually starts. Beginning with a scene in China, it is said that "the Fallen" is coming. After that, it is one big explosion after another, each trying to out-do the one preceeding it.
Anyway, the Autobots and the Army are looking for rogue Decepticons, and keeping the world safe. But not for long: The ancient origins of the Autobots and evil Decepticons -- including a literally satanic mastermind (the Fallen) will come to the fore, with Earth, the sun, the pyramids and Sam's fledgling academic career at what as well might be called Nymphomaniac Supermodel University all on the line. As with so many sequels, anything that worked in the first film is ratcheted up to overkill. To say the film is too loud or relentlessly violent misses the point: We watch movies like this for noise and violence. But what's wrong here is that there's so much swirling, relentless action, indistinct robot characterizations and over-caffeinated techies loose on the special-effects machines that the movie, in mere seconds, achieves incoherence. As with the last Transformers, we can't see any of the action that happens; it seems no one was interested in holding the camera steady while filming.
LaBeouf and Fox are back, of course reprising their roles, although Sam is off to college, while Fox's Mikaela stays home to rehabilitate her ex-con father. Sam's inability to tell Mikaela that he loves her provides the romantic tension. But let's talk about Fox's character for a moment. We first see her on the back of a parked motorcycle, ass clad in shorts, pointed sky-ward, an indication of how she will be used through-out this movie. And used is exactly what she is. Lips, boobs, legs, ass, you name it, each sexual body part of hers is in full-glory here. One can almost hear Bay like a porn director, shouting from behind his camera "Push that butt out, Megan!"
Then there are the sophomoric sex jokes, mostly spewed by the mother character. At one point, she was even eating weed cakes. Weed. In a PG-13 movie. There's even another mega-hottie brought in for this film, the ever-glossed Isabel Lucas, always looking as if she's on the verge of orgasm. Her character's purpose is to kill Witwicky, I suppose, but like so many characters in the film, she's shoved in the plot then shoved out.
You know the stakes are life or death for the planet because the characters tell you so, and because the stakes always are mortal and global in this kind of movie. But the filmmakers don't keep their eye on the ball. They stuff the film with shtick -- in fact, the whole movie is built with tons of shtick and gallons of sap. In this film's attempt at symmetry. There is never any real tension, never any balance, everything is one long monotonous three hours (yes, THREE hours) of things blowing up.
Sam's brain is imprinted with a series of runic symbols that he obsessively paints on his dorm room walls. There's something that he's meant to do, something that involves helping the goody-goody robot Optimus Prime put down a rebellion led by his ancient rival, the Fallen (voiced by Tony Todd). The deep mythology of their enmity is amply revisited in multiple expository flashbacks, but the simplest thing Bay could have done to clarify the stakes of the robot wars WOULD BE TO VISUALLY DISTINGUISH THE ROBOTS FROM ONE ANOTHER IN SOME WAY. An arm-band, a t-shirt, a COLOUR, anything! As such, you don't know who is good or who is bad, adding even more to your frustration. Let's not even talk about the shard. It turns regular household appliances into robots, causes Witwicky to see rune-like symbols in his brain and to solve great mathematical formulae. But what is its point, really?
The first Transformers movie was also assaultive to the senses, but at least it had a place in pop culture- in Hollywood's insatiable need for bringing everything to life, it brought together the world's kids (now adults) who grew up on these toys. It was still an awful film, but at least the fans seemed to have been satisfied. Now, with his new film, Bay takes his infantile fantasies of smashing things up, ultimately leaching the film of any creativity or imagination. This reviewer refuses to believe that action films have to be dumb. One need not look further than The Matrix, The Terminator, Alien or Star Wars for proof of this. In creating believable premises, these films presented us with images that challenged everything we came to expect from movies- they provided great action, an engaging plot, iconic heroes and villains and have stood the test of time. Why is it that Michael Bay, an unabashed action film-maker, can only give us big explosions? His films are noisy and T:ROTF is his loudest, stupidest and most callous yet. In a time of economic recession, seeing a film of this nature, one that unapologetically wastes money and resources, is a huge affront to the intelligence of discerning film-goers. It's understandable that in times like these, people will flock to the multi-plexes in search of reality-relief, wanting to escape their own lives, even momentarily. But the world that Bay creates here isn't even believabe. So what purpose does the film serve? Why do we need this film? If the viewer has no sense of what or where anything is, then he or she has no physical investment in the chaos that Bay and exec producer Steven Spielberg are trying to impose. Hence, no thrills. It's a paradoxical movie, ultimately: there's too much of everything, and too little of anything. Nothing can build in a Bay film, because he dials up everything to the same intensity.
The film opens with some line or other that some thousands of years ago, the Transformers came to Earth for the first-time. Now, how can a sequel start with a line of that nature? Think about it- there was an entire first movie whose whole point was to have built up a story that would continue here. It's understandable that they tried to make a stand-alone film, but there has to be some connection to the two films for the series to be effective. By destroying that connection, the film seems to have lost all effectiveness as a sequel, and seems to be even more confused as to what its purpose is.
Here's another good question- what is the purpose of Tyrese in the film? It's understood that he is a part of the US army, however, he speaks less than ten lines through-out the film, and whenever he does, it's supposed to be some witty one-liner. How stereotypical.
Disguised as a human director, Bay is more like a destroyer of dreams. When Hasbro invented those Transformers toys, the intention was really for kids to use their imagination about what those bots would morph into, kinda like Power Rangers. Bay, however, crushes that imagination with his own crude interpretations that seem untouched by human hands and spirit. Maybe he really isn't human...
The series is remarkably popular- already, this one has grossed over US$600 million in the North America alone. Still, junk food is also popular, and we all know the health benefits from eating that. T:ROTF proves that popularity does not always mean greatness. Long, racist (there are two jive-talkin' robots, who act like they were born in the hood), incoherent, leering, and rife with product tie-in's (in one scene, Bay's camera clearly shows a poster of Bad Boys 2, another one of his repugnant creations) the film's biggest aim is to bludgeon audiences into submission. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen begs our attention, but never awards it, not even for one scene.

You Give Me Fever!

Who is Fever Ray? What is his/her claim to fame? And why should we, discerning listeners, care? To answer the first question- Karin Dreijer Andersson. To answer the second- she's one half of Swedish group, The Knife. To answer the latter: please read below.
Listing such disparate elements as David Lynch, Doom, and Donnie Darko as inspiration, The Knife was formed silently in 1999. Releasing their self-titled debut in 2001, they didn't attract much attention till 2003 and the release of their sophomore project, Deep Cuts, and namely single, "Heartbeats". Garnering note-worthy reviews from Pitchforkmedia and other such uber-cool indie publications, the duo was praised for its vocal experimentation, and Bjork-esque attention to synths. But it wasn't until 2006 that the band really broke out. With the release of Silent Shout, Pitchfork again showered the duo with great praises, awarding it "Best New Music" status in February, before naming it Album of the Year in December of that year. Against such a rich background of accomplishments and acclaim, Karin releases her highly anticipated debut album, named Best New Music by Pitchfork for the month of March. When news broke of the record in October, one would have been forgiven for wondering if the duo hadn't secretly made good on their threats to call it quits. After listening to the album, it still isn't sure, as Andersson gives no clues here, and that's exactly the point.
Album-opener and lead single, "If I Had a Heart", seems like a straight-forward pop song about romantic longing. "If I had a heart I could love you / If I had a voice I would sing / After the night when I wake up / I'll see what tomorrow brings", Dreijer Andersson sings, but what gives the songs its depth and complexity is the way her vocal is pushed into a grim baritone range that works with the equally distorted, bottomed-out melodic line that turns the song's refrain into a fascinating bit of self-reflection. From its opening notes, the album proves that Andersson and her producers (Christopher Berg, who has mixed much of the Knife's output, and the duo Van Rivers & the Subliminal Kid) understand how to use these choices to define a distinct, purposeful aesthetic, rather than simply use them as gimmicks.
Sounding like a lost track from Silent Shout, current single, "When I Grow Up" is simply gorgeous. The song’s oddly sensual interplay between its guitar-and-keyboard melody and the compellingly off-kilter beat are matched to lyrics that not only reimagine youthful ambitions but also take us somewhere rather disturbing: “I put my soul in what I do / Last night I drew a funny man with dark eyes and a hanging tongue / It goes way back.”
One of Fever Ray's most remarkable aspects comes from how Dreijer Andersson funnels little moments of humor, banality, remembrance, mania, and anxiety through her deadpan affect to create a central character worthy of any psychological horror. You might even reasonably suggest this record is about psychosis. In "Seven", she tells the story of "a friend who I've known since I was seven/ We used to talk on the phone/ If we have time/ If it's the right time." Backdropped by pattering drums and faintly tropical synths, the album maintains an air of childlike unreality, vaguely monstrous desire and hidden knowledge, all themes and templates pitched to perfection by The Knife.
The foreboding tropicalia continues with next track, "Triangle Walks", and five songs in Dreijer Andersson has not mis-stepped once, a rare feat in these iPod-shuffle times. "Concrete Walls" shifts things up a bit with a dark and moody, back beat that sounds almost melted, and vocals that are so distorted, not one word being sung is heard. This being Dreijer Andersson, that's beside the point- it isn't so much what is being sung, but how everything feels. The record provides enough lyrical insight, but definitive meanings are always left blurry, vague and amorphous enough to keep you guessing. "Now's The Only Time I Know" makes for a great song title, and to be honest, it's the album's first dull track. Please note, this is a dullness that would sound rather ground-breaking if artistes half Dreijer Andersson's talent approached. Still, the song sounds too same-y in comparison to what has gone before it, not necessarily adding anything to the album's aesthetics.
The title of next track, "I'm Not Done" is a bit ironic, considering the track before it, as maybe we start to question if she has run out of ideas, while "Keep the Streets Empty For Me" answers with a resounding 'no'.
Almost introducing each sound indivdually as the song progresses, the track is a duet with Swedish pop singer Cecilia Nordlund of Cilihili, and explores an even deeper escape route from the adult world by entering the refuge of zoomorphism, a surreal state of wanting to return to an idealised natural world by becoming an animal. “I learned not to eat the snow/My fur is hot, my tongue is cold/On a bed of spider web/I think about to change myself”, the pair sing. It’s some kind of sweet-and-innocent version of lycanthropy; the narrator turning into a cuddly soft toy rather than say, a blood-crazed werewolf. What makes the track awesome isn't exactly evident, maybe it's the bamboo flute that flutters through-out, maybe it's the track's minimalistic edge, but that in itself is indicative of the rest of the album; in addition to many of the same plasticky percussions and goofy synth sounds that the Knife made their stock-in-trade, Fever Ray also brims with fragile, more finely articulated sounds. Spread over 10 tracks and near 50 minutes, the way Karin draws out each word in a catlike manner could have begun to grate. But that potential pitfall is nicely sidestepped though liberal use of the vocoder, stretching her vocals to eerie and equally playful depths.
But, the album doesn't end there, dear reader, oh no. It ends with quite possibly the album's best track, "Coconut". At 7 minutes long, the song rumbles on a pattern of synths and staccato drums before a ceremonious wall of voices arrive at the midpoint to march it to a close. Except, "close" implies it was written; the more time you spend with Fever Ray, the more you become convinced that these songs aren't written so much as they're temporarily let out.
Thematically, and for the quality of songwriting, Fever Ray fully deserves to be considered a follow-up to Silent Shout; nonetheless, it’s also a line-in-the-sand for The Knife-as-pop-entity, a Kid A-like demand to be respected on the artist’s own terms, or left alone. You can’t dance to any of it, whatever the remixers may do, but you can certainly inhabit it. Instead, the focus here is on Andersson's oblique narratives and the startling, stark electronic distortions she uses on her vocal tracks. These dramatic, often inhuman-sounding shifts in range only heighten the palpable sense of dread on the Knife's macabre songs, but here the same production trick serves a different but no less effective purpose: to draw attention to the minimalism and surprising pop bent of the songs. Sure, there's nothing on here as immediate as "We Share Our Mother's Health" or "Marble House", instead, she's recorded something far denser and more challenging; an unshakeable and unforgettable album.

Purple Hibiscus

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's first novel, Purple Hibiscus, brings to mind the writings of that other Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe. But while Achebe's themes may be more explicitly political (think of him as the African Ernest Hemingway), the writers both share an affinity for evoking the oppression and turmoil of their novels' characters experienced at the time of political turmoil.
As in many post-colonial societies, the personal and political are inseparable, although here the disintegration of the Nigerian state (a military coup takes place early on in the story) is as nothing compared to the fracturing family at the centre of the novel. The events take place in Igboland in Eastern Nigeria, and the narrator, fourteen-year-old Kambili, is the obedient only daughter of a harsh Roman Catholic patriarch, Eugene, a big man and wealthy local manufacturer in the city of Enugu. Eugene is the proprietor of a newspaper in which, at considerable personal cost, he bravely champions freedom of speech against military tyranny at the same time as he rules his home with the most tyrannical of iron grips. It is difficult to describe the oppression that haunts every page of this brilliant novel. Sure, it could be the oppressive heat described so well by our young author brought about by the harsh African harmattan winds. Or it could be the force of an unquestioned faith in religion. But in Purple Hibiscus, the worst kind of oppression is the stifling power of abuse — verbal, mental, and physical abuse wrought by Kambili’s father. Eugene is an interesting character study — a person so completely sold on the superiority of the Western mode of thought and action, especially through religion, that he will stop at nothing to see it enforced in his own house. He is at once consumed by raw extremes of passion—extreme love and, worse, extreme anger. His family, including the protagonist, Kambili and her brother Jaja, live every minute in sheer terror, looking upon Papa, as he affectionately called, for constant approval. Adichie’s descriptions of Papa’s stifling presence are extremely well done—one’s heart bleeds for the family. During one particularly telling episode, Kambili Achike has stood second in her class at school and the sheer terror in her voice is scary — one waits with bated breath for the nasty consequences that are sure to follow:

“The Reverend Sisters gave us our cards unsealed. I came second in my class. It was written in figures: “2/25.” My form mistress, Sister Clara, had written, “Kambili is intelligent beyond her years, quiet and responsible.” The principal, Mother Lucy, wrote, “A brilliant, obedient student and a daughter to be proud of.” But I knew Papa would not be proud. He had often told Jaja and me that he did not spend so much money on Daughters of the Immaculate Heart and St. Nicholas to have us let other children come first…I wanted to make Papa proud, to do as well as he had done. I needed him to touch the back of my neck and tell me I was fulfilling God’s purpose. I needed him to hug me close and say that to whom much is given, much is also expected. I needed him to smile at me, in that way that lit up his face, that warmed something inside me. But I had come second. I was stained by failure.”

It should be hard to sympathize with a man who beats his pregnant wife, and who, after deploring the soldiers' torture of his editor with lighted cigarettes, pours boiling water over the bare feet of his adored daughter as a punishment. And yet Eugene, self-made and ultimately self-hating, is the book's loneliest character; his misunderstanding of Christianity has led him to reject the animist beliefs of his own ageing father and to repudiate the old man himself, perversely hating the "sinner" more than the "sin". Kambili writes of her father at one point: "It was... as if something weighed him down, something he could not throw off".
The novel's tone is quite unique, as it mirrors the mood of the present location of our protagonist. When Kambili is at her father's house, the tone is tense, eliciting anger and extreme sympathy. When she is at her aunt Ifeoma's, it is flippant, eliciting curiosity and growth. Purple hibiscus is a metaphor of sorts. Metaphorically, “the missal flung at the étagère, the shattered figurines and brittle air” in time, becoming reality. representing a dissembling and shattered family; things falling apart. It is an allegory for Jaja’s defiance, “rare, undertones of freedom, freedom to be, to do” for which, in the long run, he does end up in prison for voluntarily taking ownership of a crime he did not commit. It is also a metaphor for an atrophied and suffocating society, in which bad and evil men overwhelm the good in the society. The hibiscus flower, which is usually red, by its transmutation to purple, represents both abnormality and unending hope. Eugene Achike was an eager-to-please man who believed in conventions and prayed incessantly for Nigeria in distress. A rebel with a cause against animism and traditional rituals, his personality and disposition was a testimony that despots, like criminals, follow a predictable pattern. Here is a prayerful churchgoer who believes in confessions and penance, but is fanatically unforgiving in his belief, that it is “sinful for a woman to wear trousers”. He also has no qualms about physically abusing his children, and his wife to the point of inducing a miscarriage, and forsaking his father for being a heathen – all in the name of God.
The novel is admittedly plot-less, but what enfolds in its pages is none-the-less engaging and enthralling, with much of its memorable action occuring when their aunt Ifeoma takes both Kambili and her brother away for a vacation to her country home. The two get a taste of freedom, but still live in perpetual fear of their father, with Kambili quaking in fear every time the phone rings. Adichie does immense honor to the Igbo language by deftly and unapologetically interweaving translated and untranslated idioms (no glossary). Her direct Igbo words and translations where used, are well laid out for emphasis, in a way that probably only a multi-lingual person would fully appreciate. But above and beyond this, Adichie writes with the prodigious ease of a veteran, that belies her twenty-five years of age at the time of the novel's publication. Her flowing prose style is smooth, elegant, endlessly seamless, and like her characters, solidly crafted.
All around them, Nigeria is slowly disintegrating just as the family slowly does. A violent coup causes Aunt Ifeoma to leave the country for America. Adichie makes some political statements here, “these are the people who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times that we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once.” Purple Hibiscus reduces and personifies the fate of a disenfranchised nation to the microcosm that is its dysfunctional academic institutions as well as individuals. It subtly lampoons a nation that wallows in its own self-doubt and pity, where “the educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist.” It is equally an insightful commentary and inquiry into Igbo lifestyles, like “why many Igbo people built huge houses in their hometowns, where they spent only a week or two in December, yet were content to live in cramped quarters in the city.” There is also a clash of civilizations, about the conflict between traditional and imported gods, as personified by the relationship between Eugene and his father. Whereas both parted ways on matters of native customs and religion, they ironically both prayto the same God, in their different ways, with each using different symbols as means for intercession.
Amidst these dichotomies, there are pockets of hope and redeeming characters. Aunty Ifeoma, the gregarious single parent and lecturer, stands up to Eugene and to her university’s malleable authorities. Ade Coker, the incorruptible and fearless editor of The Standard, causes the military government great discomfiture with his scathing editorials, and Father Amadi, who goes beyond the call of his pastoral duties to offer succor and friendship to those around him, chief of these being Kambili. There are also, Kimbili’s teenage cousins, Amaka, Obiora, and Chima, unspoiled, grounded, precocious, but always unassuming and loving.
Kambili and Jaja along with their long-suffering mother eventually liberate themselves from the tyranny of their father. It is a questionable freedom, though. Like any survivor of abuse, Kambili finds that release without closure is small success. “Silence hangs over us [now],” she says toward the end of Purple Hibiscus, “but it is a different kind of silence. One that lets me breathe. I have nightmares about the other kind, the silence of when Papa was alive. In my nightmares, it mixes with shame and grief and so many other things that I cannot name, and forms blue tongues of fire that rest above my head, like Pentecost, until I wake up screaming and sweating.”
Adichie’s choice of "purple hibiscus" as the title of this emotive book remains a curious one. Perhaps, given the tension in its pages, the title is meant to seduce, encrust and serve as embrocation for the difficult subjects, tough love, turmoil, alienation, miasma and death that engulfs the well-to-do Igbo family. Set in contemporary Nigeria, Purple Hibiscus mirrors the enchanting beauty and richness of the country without shying away from also capturing its trauma, tragedy, desperation, resignation, and political tribulations. To read the novel is to relive life in Nigeria for those who know it and a shock therapy education in the vagaries of everyday life for those who perchance, might have just been insinuated into Nigeria by Adichie. It is also a bildungsroman; a story of one child's progress from shyness to love, with all the nuances, growing pains and heartbreak in between. Like the flower of the same name it is named after, it is a work of peculiar beauty, a poetic rarity and a glimmer of hope for our times.

I Am... Annoying

As an artiste, Beyoncé is infuriating. After popping out hit after hit with her former mega-successful pop-group, Destiny’s Child, at a rate that felt as though she never had more than two weeks off at a time, and producing two quick solo efforts, that have won her a whopping ten Grammy's in the process and brought her just as many No. 1 hits as her previous group did, she decided to concentrate on other things. After landing roles in various films sparingly, she catapulted herself into movie stardom with such music-related pictures as the Oscar-winning Dreamgirls and her latest, the little-seen Cadillac Records. So, really, her break from music wasn’t entirely peaceful. She kept busy. But think about this- for someone who seems to have never been out of the public eye since she emerged in the early 1990's, what do we really know about Beyoncé Knowles? We know she's married to rapper Jay-Z, but she's never publicly spoken about it. We know she's Christian- she's made mention of God on and off her records. "I feel that, especially now with the Internet and paparazzi and camera phones, it's so difficult to maintain mystery," she said earlier this year. "It's almost impossible to have superstars now, because people will never get enough." Admittedly, in our TMZ-addled world, that stance is refreshing... and stubborn as hell. She's a megawatt diva equipped in Christian Laboutin heels and a frozen smile. Without much outside interference, Beyoncé's fan-artist connection relies almost wholly on her music-- the only place to find the "real" Beyoncé is on her albums. With that direct relationship in mind comes I Am... Sasha Fierce, a supposed window into the soul of Beyoncé as well as her hair-flipping sexpot alter ego. The split personality gimmick is now tired, but apparently Miss Knowles never got that memo. The double album is also tired, but apparently she didn't get that memo either. On the first half of the disc, the singer comes off helpless and as emotionally closed as ever. Lead by the pop-smart story of “If I Were a Boy”, the disc’s ballads become stale too soon, making one wonder why she felt it imperative to make an entire disc featuring this side of her, considering this was never a side that she had as much success with exploring (save for "Irreplaceable"). When one thinks of the best Beyoncé songs, "Crazy in Love", "Ring the Alarm" and "Upgrade U" come to mind. With Destiny's Child, it's “Say My Name” or “Survivor” not the watered-down “Cater to U” or or the just-ok “Emotion”. The disc shows what a better idea it would have been to take three of her best slower efforts here and slap them with the rest of the tracks on her second, more bootylicious disc, possibly having herself a great single album. Sparking a mild controversy back in October, the afore-mentioned "... Boy", co-produced by Knowles, features a steady, emotive, controlled vocal performance atop guitar licks and finger-snaps. Sounding almost acoustic, the track is a great start to a seemingly promising record, only improved by the next track, the breath-taking "Halo". Written by front-man for One Republic, Ryan Tedder, the track was originally offered to recent Grammy-nominee Leona Lewis, who didn't have time to record it. Absolutely glorious and perfectly produced, the song sports Beyoncé's best vocal work to date- "Hit me like a ray of sun/burning through my darkest nights/you're the only one that I want/and i'm addicted to your light". If only the rest of the album followed suit. Admittedly, "Disappear" isn't bad, it just isn't great either. "I try to reach for you/Can almost feel you/You're nearly here and then you disappear" Beyoncé coos over more guitar licks, but what is problematic of the track is also problematic of the entire first half of the album- while Beyoncé's vocal work is generally pristine, even expressive here and there, the lyrics are brainless and vapid. Most of the time we don't even know what she is singing about! Case in point- "Smash Into You". Written and produced by C. "Tricky" Stewart and The-Dream, the song starts out all twinkly and delicate, but as soon as she starts singing, one starts scratching their head- "Head down/As I watch my feet take turns hitting the ground/I should, I find myself in love racing the earth". Not only is the song in need of serious grammatical correction, but it is way too over-wrought for its use. The song is as wretched and contrived as anything in Celine Dion's oeuvre. Next up is the equally awful "Satellites" another boring, head-scratching number replete with the lyrics "If we don't communicate/We'll exist in our own space/We have all the love we need/When we're apart I cannot breathe". Yuck!! The disc ends with the laughable, meandering "That's Why You're Beautiful"- "Diamonds used to be coal/Look young cuz they got soul/That's why they're beautiful" Knowles sings atop faux-rock guitar. Disc 2 then comes as welcome respite, and by mere comparison, it is fascinating.
Beginning with the ubiquitous "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)", Tricky and The-Dream's second product on the album, Sasha Fierce stamps her, uh, fierce and brash style all over the disc. Easily the best song off this side of the album, the song's agitated claps and ticks, purring keyboard hums and squiggles is absolutely delicious! Maybe the song wouldn't be as memorable without the video choreography aped by every drag queen from here to New York, but one thing is certain, the song stands as one of Beyoncé's most effortless works. The drum and bass/crunk/techno/house feel of next track "Radio" is refreshing and even suggests a more expansive, experimental side that we haven't seen from Mrs. Carter- "You're the only one that papa allowed to hang out in my room/With the door closed we'd be alone/And mama never freaked out when she heard it go boom/Cuz she knew we were in the zone" she playfully sings. The song is coy and knowing, and utterly joyful, especially when it break downs into a Rihanna-style bridge- "When I get into my car, turn it uh-up, uh-up/Then I hear vibrations all up in my truh-unk, uh-unk/And the bassline be rattlin' through my see-eat, ee-eats/Then that crazy feeling starts happeni-ing- i-ing oh".
Produced by Bangladesh, the clunky, Lil Wayne-inspired beat of current single "Diva" is hit-or-miss. Admittedly, it adds spunk to the effort, showing an impeccable street side that we were introduced to via "Upgrade U". Oh, and she cusses, ladies and gentlemen. We knew it would come sooner or later. "Na na na diva is a female version of a hustla/of a hustla/of a of a hustla", Beyonce chants before bragging about her 50 million records sold around the world, her ubiquity on radio stations, and her fixed presence in the music industry since the tender age of 15. Hey, if the rappers can do it, why not her? "Sweet Dreams" is nice enough and has some of "Single Ladies'" dark undertone and squiggley synths, while the bass-heavy "Video Phone" has some of "Diva"'s sass. "Hello" and "Scared of Lonely" really don't fit in with the Sasha Fierce image, but they do offer vulnerable, human sides to the alter-ego.
So, let's see- at the end of this record, her self-professed most personal to date, what have we learned? She thinks she's a diva, she likes radios, she has an alter-ego called Sasha Fierce, she reps for the single ladies in the house even though she's married, she probably has a video phone, she doesn't wanna be a broken-hearted girl, and she often wonders what it must be like for a boy. Not very profound, yes, but this is Beyoncé we're referring to, not Tori Amos. She's never professed to be particularly profound and she's really never given us insightful music. One thing we can expect from her, though, is a good time. So as a personal record, I Am... Sasha Fierce fails miserably, as a pop record, it is lop-sided, intermittently exciting, and misguided. Still, what makes Beyoncé larger-than-life, even in her failures is her realization of a nearly universal desire- to project ourselves onto a huge screen, even if that screen is a person (or persona). For Beyoncé, she's called Sasha Fierce. For us, it's always been Beyoncé.

Life in Technicolour

In a time of plummeting album sales, bona fide hits are few and far between. After selling 40 million albums, one can clearly see what side of the fence Coldplay fall. After breaking out on the scene with the sleeper hit "Yellow", the band quickly drew comparisons to another British alternative band, its biggest influence- Radiohead. But while the latter group has sought to constantly evolve its sound and challenge its listeners, Coldplay, over 3 albums have become the musical equivalent of comfort food for millions. With first album Parachutes, the band emerged at a time when Radiohead started to shed its signature alternative rock sound, invariably alienating some of its listeners. In fact, it has been suggested that Parachutes' commercial success was due to Radiohead's experimental shift. With sophomore album A Rush of Blood to the Head came greater sonic pushes, even more commercial success, an inclusion on music Bible Rollingstone's list of 500 Best Albums of All Time and two more Grammy awards. However, the backlash came with their third album X&Y. Sure, it sold another gazillion copies, but as most critics were quick to point out, the album felt flat and reheated in most parts. It had in abundance what Coldplay does well- soaring ballads, moving instrumentation, affecting vocals- but the band still hadn't grasped how to smooth out its creases. So the feckless lyrics were still intact, and Chris Martin sounded more earnest than ever. Suffice it to say, the band was in a precarious position with fourth album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.
The frenzy started when it became known that Brian Eno, the "father of ambient music", legendary producer for U2 and the Talking Heads, was producing the album, and only further increased with the announcement of the the somewhat portentous-sounding album title (which takes its name from a painting by Frida Kahlo), and revelation of the album cover.
Starting with the instrumental track (Yes, instrumental!) "Life in Technicolor", the album bursts into, well, colour, with a Persian santur, akin to the traditional music of Iran and Iraq. It's as avant-garde as Coldplay get here, but it's still pretty damn good. Building up slowly, the track sets the mood for the next 45 minutes.
"Cemeteries of London" begins the journey in Colplay's own back yard, telling a story of God, witches, ghosts, curses and "walking till the day"- "God is in the houses and God is in my head, and all the cemeteries of London/I see God come in my garden, but I don't know what he said, for my heart it wasn't open" laments lead singer Chris Martin over clattering percussion, before segueing into what may be the very best track on the entire album, the pounding "Lost!". As Coldplay songs go, it swings the most left-field and is their most sublime pop moment. Built on a simple church-organ riff, a kick drum, some hand claps and a drum-circle groove, the song obviously is the result of Martin having rubbed shoulders with hip-hop pioneers Kanye West and Jay-Z- "Just because i'm losing doesn't mean i'm lost... Just because i'm hurting doesn't mean i'm hurt... I'm just waiting till the shine wears off" Martin plaintively sings
One shift that is apparent in the band's delivery is Martin's vocals. Now singing in a lower register, he evinces real swagger. On "Yes" he laments a lover's indecisive ways- "I'm just so tired of this loneliness", he moans. Could he be referring to hottie wife, Gwyneth Paltrow? Who cares when the song is this good? Starting as a woozy, doomy ballad replete with sweet-and-sour Bollywood strings, the song effortlessly spirals off into hidden track "Chinese Sleep Chant". The track easily brings to mind My Bloody Valentine (yes, you read right- My Bloody Valentine) and it's the album's genuine "wtf!" moment. Jonny Buckland's fierce guitar tone overwhelms Martin's hollered vocals, the melodic outline of his phrases barely discernible before being cut off entirely by ragged psyhchedelic riffs. Seriously, what has gotten into Coldplay?
Despite these wondrous sonic touches and soundscapes there are moments which stop this being Martin's masterpiece. He's still got that habit of writing lyrics in platitudes and cliches - the otherwise excellent "42" solemnly informs us that "those who are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head". It's a shame, though, as this might be the hardest Coldplay have ever rocked, or pushed- the song has about 3 different melodies in there, switching from piano ballad, to funky guitar wig-out, to a hand-clapping section, before switching back to the piano section, all in the space of four minutes.
Another troubling aspect of the album is Martin's amorphous political messages. On title track, "Viva La Vida", Martin convincingly plays a king (or rock star) used to life's excesses now at the end of his empire- "I used to roll the dice/ Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes...One minute I held the key/ Next the doors were closed on me". However, with the chorus "I hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing/Roman cavalry choirs are singing" Martin sounds like he's rallying the cause for a Christian empire. If only Martin could inject some pathos into his often-embarrassing universal scripture. (The choppy, synthy opening weirdly enough conjures Madonna's “Papa Don’t Preach”.) Similarly, in "Lovers in Japan", possibly the album's dullest track, he states "Soldiers you've got to soldier on/Sometimes even the right is wrong". Um, ok... Whatever that means... Thankfully there's the lilting "Chinese Sleep Chant" afterward, another backended "bonus" track.
Martin's Zen-like ability to get out of the way of his own songs and not inhabit them fully can be grating, and nowhere is this more apparent than on the bouncy, plinky almost Japanese-sounding "Strawberry Swing". But when the melody is this lovely, a slight mis-step can be forgiven.
First single "Violet Hill" is glorious. Bludgeoning delicate Eno soundscapes with big, bluesy, reverberating guitars, the song is restless and agitated- "If you love me, why'd you let me go?" demands Martin, before the entire bottom of the track falls out, giving way to the most delicate piano delivery on the entire disc.
The album ends almost in the same vein as it begins, with a hidden track called "The Escapist" where Martin repeats "And in the end we lie awake/ And we dream we'll make an escape".
With Brian Eno's help as well as producers Markus Dravs and Rik Simpson (responsible for recent work with Arcade Fire and Bjork respectively), Coldplay have changed for the better. The producers colour their trademark twinkly guitar rock with arresting, ambient and even weird Middle Eastern, hip-hop, and African influences. Some purists and detractors might balk at such appropriations, but each element surprisingly finds a natural place within Coldplay's general sound. For all of the album's sonic expansion and exploration, though, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends and its sturdy melodies and themes of war, death, love, peace and loss feels like an album created for mass connection- one can easily imagine the euphoria of "Lost!" or "Violet Hill" thumping through an arena. Sure mis-steps still abound, and Martin still seems a little too inoffensive and twee, but never before has the band sounded this confident.The wimpy Brits behind "Yellow" and "In My Place" seem intent on being the premier band of our generation and with Viva La Vida... and its implications, that dream doesn't seem that far-fetched. Let's hope that with Album Number Five they will be perfectly placed to decree the new rock order.