BEST ALBUMS OF 2008: #6: COLDPLAY “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends”
COLDPLAY
Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends
(Capitol)
Available on CD, LP with bonus CD copy, iTunes and AmazonMP3.
A special edition with the Prospekts March EP added is also available.
This one was a Vee recommendation. I never owned a Coldplay album until she encouraged me to check it out, and it wasn’t until I was in New York City this past August with Tara and we visited the Virgin Megastore in Times Square that I said the heck with it and bought it. There’s a snarky review on Rate Your Music that treats this like it’s a u2 album, as if that’s a bad thing, and while Brian Eno sat in the producer’s chair for this album as he did for several U2 albums and there are a few moments that do sound like parts of Bono & Co.’s back catalog (the opening synths on “Live in Technicolor” recalling “Where The Streets Have No Name”), the album still sounds like Coldplay from start to finish. If you never owned a Coldplay album before, this album will make you a fan.
As for why I waited a few weeks to grab the album? I wasn’t sure whether to buy the CD or the LP and didn’t know that Capitol, in a rare moment of clarity (I’m sure some of their former superstar artists [*cough*Paul McCartney, Radiohead, Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones*cough*] have a few nasty things to say about Capitol’s current owners), threw a bonus CD copy of the album into every LP copy.
BEST ALBUMS OF 2008: #7: KODA KUMI “Kingdom”
With our period of mourning for punk guitar legend Ron Asheton concluded, we now resume where we left off with our end-of-year album list…
KODA KUMI
Kingdom
(Rhythm Zone/Avex Trax)
Available on CD, two different CD/DVD sets, and iTunes Japan
While her mouth might have gotten her in a bit of trouble not long after this album came out (it’s apparnently not nice to joke about the nature of mothers in Japan), what usually comes out of her mouth – great urban contemporary-influenced pop – still served her well even while she was forced out of action for a few months. Kingdom still topped the album charts in Japan and stayed there while Kuu-chin was incognito – no doubt thanks to the fact that the album is a solid package of modern R&B/pop that has everything post-TLC American urban music lacks – solid songs and vocals, with no monotonous sound structures, gimmicky lyrics or half-assed hooks to be found. Kuu-chin’s vocals are getting better with every succeeding album – and the next one is coming out in a week or two, so feel free to play catchup with Kingdom if you haven’t already.
(SIDE NOTE: Speaking of Rhythm Zone artists, when the fuck is Maki Goto’s first post-H!P record coming out?)
