Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends...

Come on now, let's not get our knickers into a twist and anoint Coldplay the World's Biggest Band and Chris Martin as a falsetto-singing, British world-savior. All the pop music magazines did that for X&Y, and we all know how well that turned out.

Thankfully, the press seems to have taken a vicodin or three and just chilled out, man. While the fourth full-length from our (current) favorite fab four finally hit shelves today, there has been much less buzz surrounding this one. I don't know if it's because we've realized that pumping something up too much only leads to abject disappointment (no, that was not a penis joke... entirely) or that anyone who names their kid "Apple" can't also be the second-coming of Ghandi. Instead of magazine spread after magazine spread of blah-blah-blah, we've had one single released online and another made into one of those wicked-cool iTunes ads. That's good enough for me.

Maybe the record label execs relaxed this time around, realizing that they're going to be swimming in royalties either way after yet another chart-topper. Or maybe the band just got fed up with answering the same questions at every interview. Who knows? But it just seems quieter this year. That's okay with me. Not every band has to pull a U2 when they drop another record.

Thanks to something I'll call "industry connections," I received a copy of the album (possibly illegally, so I won't say how to thus not incriminate any co-conspirators) last week. For anyone who likes Coldplay - either secretly or openly - you'll be happy to hear that this album is solid, track 1-13.

Throughout the wordily titled Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, Chris Martin's vocals take a backseat to the music. His voice, at times, falls to a whisper-level croon as the guitars rise and swell (this time, definitely not a penis joke) around him, making it hard to figure out exactly what he's saying. For me, the lyrics were always the best thing about Coldplay tracks, so it was surprising the band moved in that direction. I didn't like it at first, but after a couple listens, the effect grew on me.

It did so mostly because the music on this album is far catchier than on any of the band's others. The guys took a page from Radiohead's playbook and centered each track around a single riff, building and layering the guitars, drums, organs and piano throughout (with the occasional string section, steel guitar or middle-eastern lute thrown in for good measure). The result is a whole lot of theatrical buildup that gets you toe-tapping and head-bopping; the music keeps you listening for long enough to start to pick out Martin's words. And when you do, you find some gems:

Those who are dead, are not dead.
They're just living in my head.
And since I fell for that spell, I am living it, as well.
Time is so short and unsure, there must be something wrong...
You thought you might be a ghost
You didn't get to heaven, but you made it close.

If you're a fan of the band, definitely pick up the album. I won't say it's the year's best, but it's probably in my top-10 so far - and I don't see it dropping from there anytime soon. I give it a solid B+

Now if only I had scored tickets to one of the free shows in New York or London....

"Fetch for whatever..."

For those of you who have been under a rock the last couple days, you might have missed the fact that one of the world's biggest bands just decided to give their music away for free.

Radiohead's 7th full-length album, "In Rainbows" is available on their website for whatever the consumer is willing to pay. The band is accepting donations/payments, but will allow the listener to not pay a single cent. Free choice, right?

So far, according to this Chicago Tribune article, 1.2 million people have downloaded "In Rainbows" in two days, making it one of the fastest (non?)selling albums of all time.

Incredible.

The band, which is already quite well-off, is not looking to make a statement or anything... It is planning to release an actual album, either late this year or early the next, with bonus materials, a nice box and higher-quality sound. (It's also a kind of giant middle-finger to its old label, EMI, which the band just a month or so ago after contract disputes.)

But, whether Radiohead likes it or not, the band is making a statement. It's a bunch of guys putting themselves and their art out there and subjecting the album to the most intense form of criticism possible - the almighty dollar. They put four years of work into this project and now it's out there for everyone with internet access to appreciate, sample, borrow, steal, etc...

I think, for fans of music of all kinds (whether you like Radiohead or not), it's up to us to respond well to this generous offer. Sure, you can pay nothing (or next-to-nothing) to get this record, but why not shell out a few bucks as a way of saying thank-you? I'm not suggesting paying $18.99 for the disc. After all, for every record sold in a store, the band only gets a buck or two of those profits. But why not shell out $5, less than the price of lunch or the same price as a medium latte, for four years of blood sweat and tears?

Thank the guys for saving you money and making beautiful music. If enough people do this, than maybe more bands will follow Radiohead's lead. Wouldn't that be terrific?

Okay, people, pay up!

And for those of you not convinced... "In Rainbows" frigging rocks. It's a delicate, ephemeral journey, highlighting the band's best skills - subtle hooks and inquisitive songwriting. I'll give it an A, if only for the price...

To sell or not to sell?

My goodness, that's an awful and uninventive title... I apologize for making you read such tripe.

But, screw it, there are more important things to talk about.

I heart music. I really do. I spend way too much money going to concerts; for example, I'm seeing Tool for the second time this tour with my lady friend next week and I dropped $150 for tickets to see them in the exact same place, supporting the exact same album in almost the exact same seats that I did last September. I subscribe to eMusic.com and actually have a monthly allotment in my budget for "music" (this became necessary one month after spending all of my "food" money on CDs).

I bought a 60-gig iPod the day it came out, which was, at the time, the MOST POWERFUL PORTABLE MUSIC PLAYER IN THE WORLD. And, even now, is pretty sweet. I also have an external hard-drive for the sole purpose of storing all of my ripped music files, because they won't actually all fit on my laptop.

To go along with all of this, I have an extensive CD collection, too. It's one I've been working on for over a decade... starting with buying my first CD player and CD (Newsboys, "Take Me to Your Leader" when I was 12.

I'm not entirely sure how many albums I own, but it's somewhere between 500-600. And that's after periodic culling of artists I don't listen to and re-selling them to my local Newbury Comics.

All told, these stacks of shiny discs in jewel cases has taken me years to amass and cost roughly the same as a halfway-decent car.

I baby that collection, too. The CDs are stored in those portable, zippered, faux-leather cases which are all alphabetized by artist, and then arranged chronologically. Heck, I even bought racks just to display the cases in my room, in case anyone wanted to be impressed by my eclectic taste while perusing my room.

I clean the discs before and after each use, ensure there are no scratches, make sure each is placed back into the space it came out of (right side up, as well). I hate loaning them out and I only do it to people who I know well and where they live. So I can kill them if they scratch one of them.

But now, I'm thinking of getting rid of my collection.

(Ouch. It pains me to think of such things.)

It all started with my brother, actually... he got me hooked on eMusic - but it wasn't hard to get suckered in. For $10 a month, the site will give you 40 downloads a month (actually, they just cut back new subscribers to 30, but it's still a good deal) and it has a ton of indie rock stuff that I like to listen to.

Also - and I hope no spies from eMusic are reading this - but all you need to download another user's purchased tracks are their login and password. Brian and I have traded this, and so we've doubled our monthly downloads to 80 apiece.

That's a ton of music... basically two albums a week. It's a lot to digest and, in fact, I've been downloading stuff and then forgetting to listen to it for months on end.

It's also put a damper on my weekly trips to Newbury Comics and the other record stores I used to frequent - why buy a CD when you could just download it for free? And, even when I had to buy it, most of the time iTunes or eMusic was a cheaper option. I really want to support my guys in the record shops and I do get a little thrill every time I crack open some fresh liner notes, but I don't make a ton of money, am trying to save up to pay of school loans and buy a place... every little bit helps.

Brian's in the same boat. He actually just sold his collection (almost as extensive as mine, ha) for $550 to Second Spin - enough to give him and his wife a nice, little first anniversary celebration and a terrific B&B in New Hampshire and buy some other new gadgets and such.

It got me thinking... albeit ruefully... about selling mine. I mean, c'mon, think of the things I could be buying with that money! And what would I really be losing? I don't own a CD player for my apartment (the closest thing I have to a system is my sister's desktop, which is hooked up to some of my speakers and a sub), can use my iPod in the car and haven't even really looked at any of the cases or pulled the CDs out of their sleeves in forever.

But selling my collection means letting go - giving away my anal obsession of alphabetizing and organizing, losing the ability to show off hundreds of jewel cases and breaking the delightful habit of browsing record store bins on the weekends or my lunch break.

Let's face it... the best-selling CD of last year was a blank one. Maybe, like the 8-track and the LP, the CD's heyday is in the past. Perhaps it's time to cut my losses and run.

Besides, if I do get an iPhone, I'd have a new obsession to replace the old one, right?

To be continued...