Last year, Chris Martin bared listeners his broken heart with Coldplay’s album “Ghost Stories,” a sad eulogy to his split from longtime wife Gwyneth Paltrow. This year, with “A Head Full of Dreams,” he is attempting to convince his audience he’s ready to move on.
However, while “A Head Full of Dreams” completes the almost-but-not-quite-cathartic circle begun by “Ghost Stories,” it offers nothing earth-shattering or euphoria-inducing. The album, which has been touted as the band’s last, features the influence of the recent popularity of electronic dance music and R&B, but instead of coming across as experimental or exciting, it plays as a disguise to draw in a broader audience.
The rousing titular track begins with jangly wind chimes and a flurry of cymbals, setting a buoyant tone for the rest of the album. Martin’s sweeping vocals find their groove right off the bat, expressing joy and optimism with such lyrics as “Oh, I think I’ve landed/ Where there are miracles at work.” A driving backbeat pushes the song forward, and the backing children’s choir at the end cinches the song’s place as a declaration of hope and celebration.
The lead single “Adventure of a Lifetime,” co-produced by the Norwegian pop moguls of Stargate, draws on EDM elements the most. But Coldplay is still Coldplay – despite employing some repetitive guitar riffs and samples, the meat of the track still plays more like soft rock than EDM. It fails to bring true ravers to their feet as it continues the electronic anthem trend set by “A Sky Full of Stars” on “Ghost Stories” in an attempt to maintain the band’s popularity.
R&B influences also make their presence known, particularly in “Everglow,” in which the first minute sounds like the love child of Mariah Carey and Randy Newman. Featuring an echoey, lyric-less sample of Paltrow’s voice, the song seems like Martin is talking directly to her, expressing how she will be with him no matter what happens. Though it’s undeniably filled with a plaintive mixture of hope and regret, “Everglow” still does not quite ascend to a true tear-jerker.
This time around, Coldplay seems to have put less emphasis on creating a sonically cohesive album, as it features an odd combination of disparate genre influences and Coldplay’s traditional soft rock.
Even Beyonce was powerless to save Coldplay from itself. R&B-tinged “Hymn for the Weekend” was clearly meant to be the anthemic slow-jam party song, yet falls flat. Soft rock and Martin’s yearning vocals are not quite suited to the type of reckless partying that the song seems to be espousing.
Each time Coldplay attempts to win the listener over with a famous guest artist or an interesting sample, I still found myself wishing something truly exciting would happen.
“A Head Full of Dreams” nevertheless conveys a sense of faith that every cloud has a silver lining, with far more upbeat songs than “Ghost Stories.” “Birds,” the second track off the album, is almost a musical Hail Mary, as if Martin were throwing up his hands and trusting to some higher power to take the reins: “Close your eyes/ And see/ We’ll be birds/ Flying free.” Martin sounds like he’s been freed from the cage of his broken heart and wants Paltrow to be freed as well.
“Kaleidoscope” is the most overtly “experimental” track on the album, featuring a sample of President Barack Obama singing “Amazing Grace.” The voice-over and sampling illustrate the hopeful message of the album; however, the fact that almost every other song is about Martin moving past Paltrow makes it seem contrived. Its presence in the album seems like a strategic but weak attempt to break out of Coldplay’s vanilla flavor.
“A Head Full of Dreams” finishes the story of two ex-lovers that “Ghost Stories” started. But catharsis cannot be achieved just by writing pointed lyrics; the music itself has to show the revelation to bring the audience on the same journey as the artist. “A Head Full of Dreams,” unfortunately, just doesn’t quite bridge the gap.
– Erin Nyren