For the month of November, I’ll be selecting songs in conjunction with the music Twitter challenge: #WelcomeToTheOccupation.
The first two Coldplay albums are easy to forget. They seem like so long ago. Remnants of a band that made unique and fantastic rock music. We all know what happened after that. The songwriting and production became contrived. The band drifted further and further away from originality. And, at times, their songs began sounding like corporate conference hype music. It was a sad turn. But Parachutes and A Rush Of Blood To The Head were phenomenal records, led by the slow tempo track, “The Scientist”.
It all starts and ends with those iconic minor chords on piano. Notes that cut to the heart. “The Scientist” made piano relevant again and did it as well as any song in the 21st century. Soon after, bands like Spoon, Keane and The Fray started experiencing their own success by putting the black and white keys in the foreground of their songs. Lyrically, “The Scientist” is brilliant with its metaphorical approach, complementing Chris Martin’s falsetto vocals perfectly.
“Nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be so hard. I'm going back to the start.”