Yeah, I love Coldplay.  For a whole number of reasons.

First, their music is actually good.  It’s thoughtful, it’s well-composed, it’s interesting.  It’s not just bubblegum pop, cookie-cutter rock, same-old new punk.  It’s intelligent, from a musical and lyrical perspective.

And this is coming from someone with a Master’s Degree in Music.  I ain’t no slouch, people.  I know what I’m talking about.  Whether it’s your personal taste or not, the fact remains that this is “art” music that happens to be in a rock-pop genre.

I’m not a horrid elitist either, when it comes to popular music.  Okay, maybe a bit.  Or a lot.  But I have my weaknesses, my dark secrets, my musical sins.  I actually have been known to enjoy… gulp… Justin Timberlake.   And, um, Fall Out Boy.  Yeah.  I have fallen from the grace of Bach.

But I bear no shame for enjoying Coldplay.  It’s well-crafted stuff that I can be proud to appreciate.  Viva La Vida is a tour de force of an album, the greatest album — talking about the whole album, not just singles — that I’ve heard in years.  Maybe since Disintegration, which will stand forever as the greatest album of all time, yes indeedy.

I mean, the final track “Death and All of His Friends” swings into this funky little syncopated hybrid-meter section that I have yet to truly dissect.  It seems to be in seven, at least.  It’s bloody DIFFICULT to play something like that.  This is not “easy listening,” you have to work at it, and the payoff for your efforts is grand.  The lyrics in this passage just hammer it home:

I don’t want to battle from beginning to end
I don’t want a cycle of recycled revenge
I don’t want to follow Death and all of his friends

An indictment against the ludicrousness of war and violence, in my interpretation.  “A cycle of recycled revenge” pretty much sums up 99% of the planet’s current conflicts.  We still haven’t learned from our history and continue to blindly — even gleefully — follow the path of Death.

But all that musical analysis aside, and regardless of the depth and significance of the poetry which he sings…

Chris Martin is just frikkin’ HOT.

Not in that drop-dead square-jawed gorgeous kind of way.  Not the way that Robert Smith is hot.  Well, was hot, in his younger days anyway.  Now he’s still adorable, but he doesn’t induce palpitations and drool in me anymore.  Okay, some palpitations.  His voice is still hot.  But if I wish to sit and just gaze adoringly at photos of the man, I will choose those searing photos from his mid-20s, where he was a veritable sculpture of fineness.

Ahem… where was I… Oh yeah, Chris Martin.  He’s not hot in that way.  He’s hot in the geeky way.  Only girls who love geeks will understand me with this one, I think.  I’ve always had a fondness for the skinny guys with the thin faces, socially awkward but terribly intelligent.  Have you seen my husband??  Or, for that matter, most of my previous boyfriends… Smart guys are hot.

Then, add in that artistic flair, that vision which is just ever-so-slightly off the beaten path.  Be still my heart!  A geek and an artist??  If he can sing, and sing expressively, that’s even better.  Yeah, I had a few boyfriends who could do that…

Oh, and make him play the piano, too.  That’s icing on an already very sweet cake.  Mmmm… cake.

But he has to be fun, too.  Serious about his art, but in a non-serious kind of way.  I just watched Coldplay’s Grammy performance from a couple nights ago.  Chris Martin leaps down from the stage extension and dashes to the main stage, lightly and lithely hopping up the steps like some singing gazelle.  Like he’s full of joy, the spring in his step coming from the ecstasy of life itself.  I really don’t know what it is about the way he moves.  I just know I really, really like it.

Sweet old Robert is getting on in years, and I can’t idolize photos from the past forever.  He will always be number one, but perhaps it is time to pass on the torch… Torch, heh… Pass it on to someone closer to my age, who I can enjoy drooling over for many years to come.

And when Chris too starts to succumb to the ravages of time?

I guess then I’ll turn cougar, and start lusting after Pete Wentz.  Hot DOG that kid has some major cuteness going on.

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