WASHING HANDS, MOVING ON

The book is done. Sent the final, final versions of the last chapters to the publisher this morning. Off to the printer it goes; onto bookshelves it thuds, early September.

On to the next thing(s), which this week is (are) a piece on serial killers and the women who love them, an interview with the band Manntis (the ones who should have won MTV's Battle For Ozzfest, but didn't), a review of the new Hate Eternal album, and some other easy stuff.

On another subject, why does everyone hate on Coldplay's lyrics? I love the new album, just like I loved the first two albums (even though this one is actually really, really different from them), and I barely even notice that they have lyrics. When Chris Martin sings "I wrote a song," in the beginning of "Yellow," half the time my brain turns it into Mick Jagger singing "I rode a tank" in "Sympathy For The Devil." (Not that Martin sounds anything like Jagger; it's just that each of them seems to hit the same three notes in the beginnings of their respective phrases.)

X & Y is a really good-sounding record, and it doesn't sound much like the first two Coldplay albums at all. Lots more synths, lots of interesting rhythmic stuff, new guitar tones (some almost Goth-y ones, others lifted from U2's Achtung Baby, specifically "Zoo Station," the song that made me think U2 was actually gonna become a band I could give a shit about)...it's a good fucking record. Critics need to stop worrying so much about the fucking lyrics, and listen to the music. That's what people hearing the singles from X & Y (and yeah, I admit that "Speed Of Sound," "Clocks" clone that it is, was a poor choice - it's far, far from the best song on the record, and "Square One" would have been a much better first single) are gonna focus on. Really. I swear. When I saw Coldplay live last time around, there were people singing along, but only on the choruses. This ain't some Morrissey-esque thing where weepy teens memorize every line. It's about the big chords, and the warm feeling in your chest that these songs inculcate.