Capitol 16886
Producers: Markus Dravs, Brian Eno and Rik Simpson
Track listing: Life in Technicolor / Cemeteries of London / Lost! / 42 / Lovers in Japan/ Reign of Love / Yes / Viva la Vida / Violet Hill / Strawberry Swing / Death and All His Friends
July 5, 2008
2 weeks
Coldplay had debuted on top of the album chart before. In 2005, X&Y opened at the summit. Yet when the British quartet did it for the second time with Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, it had to be sweeter. For one thing, when looking back at X&Y, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin was less than satisfied. Despite the album’s chart success, Coldplay was blasted by some critics, including The New York Times‘ Jon Pareles, who called them the “most insufferable band of the decade.”
Such harsh criticism didn’t go without notice. “On our last album, we took a real beating from some people, and by the end we felt like no producer would really want to work with us, basically,” Martin told Rolling Stone‘s Brian Hiatt. “We were bigger than we were good — we were very hungry to improve on a basic level.”
That desire to improve artistically led Martin to seek out a producer that would challenge Coldplay to become a better band. He asked Brian Eno — co-producer of such U2 chart-toppers as The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb — if he knew anyone that might be up for the job. Rather than refer a colleague, Eno volunteered for the job. From the get-go, Eno challenged Coldplay by telling the band, “Your songs are too long. And you’re too repetitive, and you use the same tricks too much, and big things aren’t necessarily good things, and you use the same sounds too much, and your lyrics are not good enough,” Martin told Rolling Stone.
Such criticism hit the band hard. “Within 20 minutes, we’d forgotten about any previous record sales,” Martin told Hiatt. But it also freed the band up creatively and allowed it to musically reinvent itself, incorporating hymn-like string orchestrations, church organs, and even flamenco and African influences into the mix.
Aside from the musical reinvention, Coldplay and its handlers also cut loose with some savvy marketing techniques, borrowing bits from such contemporaries as Radiohead and U2. While Coldplay didn’t offer Viva la Vida as a name-your-price download, it did make the album’s lead single, “Violet Hill,” available to fans as a free download via its own website, stoking interest in the forthcoming album. Weeks later, Coldplay turned up the anticipation to a fever pitch by lending the album’s title track to Apple for an iPod ad, much like U2 did with “Vertigo,” from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Some keen observers even pointed out that Martin’s silhouetted figure in the ad was strikingly Bono-like.
Whatever the case, the campaign worked. Even before Viva la Vida‘s official release, Coldplay was setting sales records. The album racked up the then largest pre-orders in the history of the iTunes store, and the album’s title track knocked Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop” from the top spot of the singles chart. A week later, Viva la Vida hit the summit with sales of 721,000 copies in its first week of release — fewer than the 737,000 copies of X&Y sold in its debut week — but Martin and company would likely happily trade the sales drop for the artistic growth.
In perhaps a nod to the album’s strength, when Coldplay appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart the day after the album’s release, instead of playing the current single, “Viva la Vida,” the band performed “42” and “Lost!” That performance likely contributed to the album’s ability to hold the top spot for a second week with sales of 249,000 copies, fending off the latest offerings from Lil Wayne, the Jonas Brothers, and Motely Crue. Lil Wayne, however, had the last laugh when Tha Carter III returned to the top spot, ending Coldplay’s two-week run at Number One.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of July 5, 2008
1. Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay
2. Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne
3. Camp Rock, Soundtrack
4. NOW 28, Various artists
5. Plies, Definition of Real