1 single really swing for the fences with these sort of gestures, channeling Arcade Fire’s arena-rock aspirations to the mainstream and actually getting there - especially given the trajectory of popular rock after Viva.Īfter 2005’s secretly great X&Y landed with a thud in most critic’s circles, including a devastating pan from the New York Times, Martin had a chip on his shoulder and came to a crossroads: Do you go on making the same kind of records with diminishing returns, or do you ask Brian Eno for a change of pace? He chose the latter, and the initial prognosis was scathing. We haven’t seen another super-popular, multi-platinum rock record with a No.
This is true to a degree, but it undersells what the album turned out to be, which is one of the last meaningful collisions of big indie and mainstream rock. Pepper’s - at least that’s how Viva La Vida was written about upon release, somewhat disparagingly. Viva La Vida fit snugly into that old narrative of the world’s biggest band almost really going for it, working with a producer and instruments outside of their comfort zone for some approximation of Achtung Baby or Kid A or Sgt.
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