“Everyday Life” is Coldplay’s eight album a double album with a first and second half which are called “sunrise” & “sunset”. They are like rock contemporaries U2 where they do not make bad albums just not every album is as good as most of their work. They usually have a handful of good songs that salvages an album if it’s not their best work and this is exactly like that with this album as it is one of their worst albums. I understand the goal in trying to be political and wanting people to embrace all cultures or opinions and bring everyone together, but they took way too many liberties in making this album. They say their themes were “love, equality, pain, struggles, legacy, humanity, hope, and everyday life that’s how everyone is different but we’re all part of the same big family.” I also do not understand why it has eight blank tracks mixed in as well.
The song “Trouble in town” is a beautiful song but has dialogue from a police officer berating a black man, and “Bnai Adam” is a beautiful instrumental song but gets ruined by random people speaking during it without any singing, just talking. They start off the album with a nice instrumental in “Sunrise” and the song “Church” is just ok but that’s where it starts to tail off. I don’t get “Broken” or “When I need a friend”, they use an annoying choir to repeat everything he says, uses another language and the song “Arabesque” has him singing in different languages which is odd. Another bad song is “Cry Cry Cry” because it has some annoying kid/auto tune or woman sounding like a baby which takes away from Chris Martin’s vocals. While “Guns” is supposed to speak out against gun violence, but it just sounds like a bad song. The song “Eko” is one of their just ok songs but is supposed to have a hidden message like most of the songs on the album.
The song “Orphans” is one of the average to above average songs that is catchy even if the chorus sounds odd and you again here a choir but at least it’s in the chorus not the whole song. While the song “Wonder of the World / Power of the People is a nice song but it’s an incomplete song, and sounds like a demo and felt like they could have left it off the album.
There are only four really good songs that stick out on the album like in “Daddy” it’s a father’s struggle of not seeing his son as much he wants and has a beautiful piano part in it. “Old friends” is a touching tribute to his friend Tony who saved his life when they were young so that is worth listening to. The two most beautiful songs on the album are “Champion of the world” which is about Scott Hutchison, the lead singer of Frightened Rabbit who took his life in May 2018 after struggling with depression. In “Everyday life” the track title is a great beautiful way to end the album with a positive message that is used to wrap up their messages throughout.
They decided talking about racism, gun control, Islamic fear, using other languages, Syrian civil war, Nigeria, poems being recited and choirs was the way to make a rock album. They were trying to make a point/difference in being political and it backfired because the album is horrible outside of four really good songs.