Grace Crilly
Professor Hamel
Final Essay
19 April 2022
Experimenting in areas of music today is a struggle in order to make them original, where artists can be claimed they've stolen music from another artist, which an accusation such as this can lead to being sued and losing money from the success of their song in order to give back rights. In this essay I'll be discussing how the song "Talk" by Coldplay connects to the classical music genre.
Coldplay is a British rock band that formed in London in 1996. The members of Coldplay consist of Chris Martin as vocals, piano, and guitar. Johnny Buckland as the guitarist, Guy Berryman on bass, and drummer Will Champion. They were all born into musical households. Martin, the lead singer, began playing the piano at the age of five and later looked up to Tom Waits's work. Buckland had grown up with Eric Clapton's and Jimi Hendrix's music on heavy guitar. Berryman found a preference of funk to indie rock. Champion was the last in the lineup to be their drummer. Their genre is considered alternative rock. In their style of music they've received comparisons to Radiohead and Oasis. Coldplay's song that I am discussing, "Talk" is off their X&Y album, released back in 2005. Their X&Y album, their lyrics in this album overall focuses on questions and philosophical views of the world further to reflect on doubts, fears, hopes and loves. Questioning the views of the world as well as looking through the world with a philosophical perspective is one of the ways their music made comparatively from classical music as a characteristic in a universality point and effect on how classical music influences' coldplay's style within creating their words to their songs.
The musical aspect of creating this song they sampled from a German band, Kraftwerk, to use the main riff from its song "Computer Love," from the album Computer World (1981). Where they replace Kraftwerk's synthesizers with guitars. They used this sample with permission of the band. Even though they used the sample with permission, the songwriter of the band Chris Martin has admitted to plagiarizing overall in their music in an Interview with Rolling Stone, "We're definitely good, but I don't think you can say we're that original." He doesn't show any shame in plagiarizing, "I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists." I was both surprised and not surprised to learn this as a part of my research, where I first thought it was unheard of coming from an artist I occasionally like, as well as knowing there are many artists who have a petty disrespectful attitude towards other artists with no shame in taking another person's work. Where sometimes this can come from two artists feuding against each other that we do see in the media. What catches my attention when I listen to songs as well as listening to this song "Talk," are the lyrics. The lyrics, the text, are one of the elements of the structure of a song.
The structure of a song from verses, choruses, and bridges and/or occasionally intros, pre-choruses and outros is how each part bounces off each other transitioning lyrically and musically, as the second element. Musically we hear an electric guitar where this part is the riff taken from Kraftwerk's "Computer Love," drums and the electronic beat. Lyrically this song (the text of the song) I believe has to do with uncertainty and confusion about an individual's life looking into his or her future, and that he or she doesn't know where to place themself. Into the idea of the lyric where Chris Martin sings, "I want to talk to you," I interpreted talking to a sibling he or she's uncertainties about themself and where he or she is going in their future. The uncertainty aspect comes from the characteristics of the philosophical standpoint of universality, where the lyrics as the text connect as a classical characteristic. I Interpreted this song as a part of Coldplay's genre of alternative music, where this song as well as other songs they've made, can have more meanings within layers. The layers in the text have a lasting value in more serious themes, such as how the individual in this song could mean he or she wants to talk about the uncertainties which may be about feeling suicidal as a possible interpretation. The serious theme in its lasting value represents a characteristic in classical music, which is shown in the context of the song alternatively.
A thought I had as a part of researching Coldplay is the intentions of what they had in mind when it comes to their sound. I found an article on a site on BBC NEWS on Coldplay, calling Chris Martin the star of the band. Chris Martin considers his age as a factor in who he is in music when it comes to being a rock star versus what he would want in the future. Martin happened to consider himself as a classical student when he would be forty years old, "Coldplay star Chris Martin has said he is considering becoming a classical music student when he is "too old" to be in a band. 'When I'm 40, too old to be a rockstar, I plan to go back to college to study classical music," the 29-year-old told the New York Post.'" This struck me to think getting interested in classical music has to do with age and even intelligence. Even without knowledge that a person would learn in class about classical music on how Coldplay has gray areas of how classical music does influence their sound. Lyrically and musically was my first interpretation on how classical music has influenced Coldplay. My interpretation on how musical instrumentation has influenced the classical genre in their song, "Talk," has differed from the instruments they used. Using electric guitar that replaces synthesizers from Kraftwerk into using instruments as guitar, drums and electric guitar. The arrangements in the song have a synthetic sound rather than a synthesizer, whereas the song musically does have classical influence in the instrumentation. The different uses in the instruments and the vocals is what makes their music sound and lyrics clear. I would comparatively say this is another characteristic of classical music they've used in their sound, as where classical music has divisions within the parts of formality and emphasis. Where the formality is the lyrics and emphasis is the musical aspect based on how Coldplay creates their sound comes from the influence of classical music. Even though one of the sources I used, the BBC News, only told me a little bit about how Chris Martin has an interest in classical music, even though he considers himself in the alternative rock genre. A theory I came up with from this research is as to how Chris Martin may not realize how his interest in classical music further created their sound by influence over the years, even though this is an area he'd rather focus on in the future as he stated. However, Chris Martin happens to be forty-five years old and still in Coldplay today. As I did my research for this essay, I learned how Coldplay is one of the bands in the music industry that creates their sound from both borrowing by sampling and plagiarizing by stealing.
In conclusion, In this essay I discussed how the song "Talk" by Coldplay and Coldplay as a band in the music industry has been influenced by the process of making music lyrically and musically in the classical genre from sampling, but outside of its influence on how Coldplay plagiarized music.
Works Cited
Bailey, Jonathan. Coldplay Admits Plagiarism. 2005. https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2005/07/04/coldplay-admits-plagiarism/.
Monsieur, Denis. Songs Written by Chris Martin. https://secondhandsongs.com/artist/11470/works.
Rosenbaum, Marty. How Coldplay Convinced Kraftwerk To Allow "Computer Love" Sample. 2019. https://www.audacy.com/wxrt/blogs/marty-rosenbaum/how-coldplay-convinced-kraftwerk-sample-computer-love.
Young, Neil. All Music. 2022. https://www.allmusic.com/artist/coldplay-mn0000775877/biography.
Unknown. Coldplay's Star 'Classical Plans.' 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4962608.stm.
Unknown. Wikipedia. Unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldplay.
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