More on: Coldplay

Label: Parlophone
Release Date: 05/09/05
Rating:

There should be more organ around today. That Coldplay devote quite so much time at the start of 'Fix You' to this veritable instrument should be enough to buy the single on its own.

Of course, you might be of the opinion that all the organ just gets in the way. Having to wait for over two and a half minutes before a drum is struck in anger (or perhaps angst) would usually be the sign of a weak song. Still, 'Fix You' doesn't drag. Chris Martin has taken flak in the American press for his voice, and you can see how it's not to everyone's taste. Having said that, maybe we've just been brainwashed into accepting it over the years, but that voice is so inextricably glued to Coldplay's music that we'll happily let him getting away with using it to carry much of this song.

Where the American critics really are wrong is in basing their lukewarm reception to Coldplay on a perception of artificiality ("fake love", to quote alternative rock magazine Spin). Any Coldplay fans will know the amount of work that went into 'X&Y', not least revising the entire album in the belief that Morning Runner's last release was better than everything they'd amassed to date. Coldplay put the hard graft into their music, no matter how polished and glitzy the end result seems to be during a faultless Pyramid Stage set or US tour. Both the sentiment and the talent are there in spades throughout 'X&Y'.

That shows in the simplicity of 'Fix You'. It feels like it's been put together effortlessly when you listen to it, an effect so difficult to pull off that it'll have been years in the making (Babyshambles et al try it and just sound like a badly produced demo each time). Don't be put off by bitter cynics into believing that every successful band is, by default, pulling some kind of trick on their gullible public. This song is nothing less than gorgeous.

Ollie Williams

Coldplay Official Site