Album – 3 of 10 – Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head
ColdPlay – A Rush of Blood to the Head. It’s just a good album.
That Sudden Rush
Although from memory this is an album that didn’t initially ‘grab’ me, but ended up as one of those albums that needs more listening to where it then becomes something that make sense, I remember that moment, well or otherwise. .
A Rush of Blood to the Head was the second studio album by the British rock band Coldplay. It was released on 26 August 2002.
My son was 6 months old, Bob. Bob is a winner, Bob will not back down and Bob is the strongest person I know. Go Bob. Be more like Bob. I’m proud of my Son and that’s all you need to know. Also I’m proud of my daughter. I’m a good Dad 🙂
This though is obviously not one of the best albums ever, but it’s not even marginal about it being the worst album that they ever made, it’s a very good album. A whole album that has a lot of music, and at the time one that unfolded and kept offering.
Even now I’m wondering why this would be my album of choice for the top-10 but then there are lyrics that just pop from the songs, not in context, or even relevant, and probably not the most popular that remind me of a time.
Recently I had a conversation about ‘big bands‘, the one’s that followed Queen, or U2, or even Oasis, and there’s quite a gap. Coldplay might just squeezing into that maga-band category and I recon that it’s pretty skinny field afterwards, Sure there are big bands but not mega bands that have happened, I just can’t recall one.
2002. I’ve been marred 4 years, we live in a Fletcher home in Glenfield, a rent to buy house, built for us, to our spec and wallet, in the homestead style. We didn’t finish the upstairs inside, electing to finish it ourselves, which was a big ask. We paid a mortgage that was 18% on our first loan and 23% on the second, MrsPhil ran two jobs and was having kids, I made home-brew and it was a thing
This the real estate version of the house, I planted those trees, they don’t appear to have thrived so much, but the retaining wall was mine, my own hands, and the half-finished fence, that’s me too. We placed the house to get the full arc of the sun – Winter to Summer – and that’s why it looks odd from the street, the front door is around the left there, a back garden with a peach tree and some lawn, some more retaining wall and a deck to mingle and be at home on. No carpet, just plain old hardboard floor, not even proper wood, What a time to be alive. .
Our mortgage rate at the time an eye watering 18%, and that was the first mortgage not the top up one.
On selling we did raise a profit having finished the inside with the help of neighbours, and a bit of cheap carpet and a kitchen update. This then a launchpad, a place to move from. A place where we met two of the best people ever, Mike and Angela, who despite many moves and many things states as properly good friends. Angela sadly and tragically died, quite suddenly and abruptly of Breast Cancer, Mike went off the rails a bit but is back on track, we still love Mike, we all miss Angela. Angela loved Led Zeppelin, I’ll play that later.
Back to the Rush of Blood to the Head. This is an album of 54:08 minutes long, 11 songs, and I mentioned that this has some pick out lyrics, as well as outstanding phrasing and I think that there’s not a outrageously bad track on the album, clearly there are better than other tracks but as a whole this is magnificent, I recon.
You can imagine our stereo, a big one, all component parts in the large ’90’s style, It’s probably the Kenwood kit that’s in the garage, loudly playing this on a CD, me and MrsPhil a late summer evening, me wondering about the home-brew in the cupboard and the probably restless child, a couple of glasses of the cheapest wine and cheaper beer with dinner, indeed what a time to be alive.
There are so many untold stories about large hair, bright green trousers, big big spectacles, shoulder pads for the ladies and evenings revelling in your trapping of faux-wealth such as a table with 6 matching chairs (the table is currently at the beach house, the chairs not so much) .
Anyway, lyrically there are some that still make you sit up and listen.
“When the truth is
I miss you
Yeah the truth is
That I miss you so”
It’s difficult to set this album on a pedestal, I couldn’t, for instance justify it to a panel, or even a friend, other than to say that there are chords, phrases and lyrics that really ring a bell that is deep inside, and that when I came to write about 10 albums this one came up, near the top.
Some will laugh and some just sit and cry
But you just sit down there and you wonder why
You see the thing about music is that it’s all about me, they are writing the words a lyrics that I wanted to write, or might hae written had I had some talent .
Said I’m gonna buy a gun and start a war
If you can tell me something worth fighting for
Oh, and I’m gonna buy this place that’s what I said
Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head
Coldplay, there you are then. An album of it’s time, for me, that means a lot. for may reasons, not he best or most complete by any stretch but just a bit of brilliance in under and hour.
There’s quite a lot of music that is good at the tail end of this album, but a lot of good things all over it if you look are listening or want to listen
Nobody said it was easy
It’s such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start
Let me be clear that Coldplay are not the anthem to or of my marriage, they are a thing aside, a thing that happened around and in and of, they are pretty much a throwaway to the 30 years but for the fact that on that day and in that moment (and there are bonus points for that lyric reference) they were the counterpoint to the weird innocence of 20’s wage-earner, married, mortgage, child.
I did end up listening to Muse, and the Second Law The Resistance by Muse this evening, can you just imagine me bopping around the lounge to this, cheap wine or beer or both, and mumbling the lyrics.. How did this not make the top 10 albums? ….
“They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious “
That second part that you don’t want to really read and is ill conceived is about who are big bands, the properly big bands . the stadium fillers, the zitgeist?, after U2, Coldplay, Oasis, Queen, where are the big stadium bands?
I’ve been to see both “The National” and “Elbow” live. they re the best music thing that I’ve ever seen, in different bits of the music pyramid, but they don’t get to the ‘super” status for me, possibly incorrectly. They’re a bit awesome though, but at that level where it’ a a bit between fan and fad. I will arm wrestle anyone that thinks these aee not good musics bands though. .
Oh and I aw Morrisey once, and that’s enough for any sane man. The ‘Salty Grapes’ aside, always a highlight. .
The Beer:
It is Fresh Hop beer season and I found a properly good lilt number in the Eagle Brewing South Island Pale Ale (S.I.P.A). Brewed by Eagle Brewing as an : American Pale Ale and they did that in Christchurch, New Zealand
This is a beautiful 35 IBU things, and of 5.5% ABV, and it’s properly cracking.
Fresh Hop version of our best selling Pale Ale. Fresh Nelson Sauvin, Cascade and Motueka
This looks lovely, and it’s not a sipper, it’s a quaffer, but you have to control yourself otherwise it’s all gone.
I love Fresh Hop season it always throws up some dynamite.
There are a lot more small batches of bottles and canned offering this year too, I think that the bandwagon might be a bit over loaded and the best behind us, livened only by the occasional diamond like this.
Big matly burst to that even balanced bitterness lacking a little bit of middle, this finishes nicely and leaves you with a lovely after taste of a bitter sweetness that draws you back in.
I have to say that I’ve had this a couple of times now and it’s easily this months favourite beer 🙂
This beer for me, If I was having the Pdubyah-o-meter out would be an easy 9, I can’t not helping liking this beer, it makes me smile and it is very enjoyable.
So there you go, possibly the longest post, possibly the most boring, and pointless and I’m 3 albums in, what could possibly go wrong over the next 7.
A life just as ordinary 