New Coldplay: Soundtrack of Life

Life needs a soundtrack. We listen to so much music it is not funny--not only do we almost always have some music playing, we mean that we listen to lots of kinds of music. Johnny Cash, especially in his mid-90s renaissance fueled by Rick Rubin, is so good that his guitar and smoke-cured voice should be part of everyone's soundtrack. Garden State managed to have such a great soundtrack that some days, we can just queue it up and use it as our own. Coldplay, which opens the Garden State soundtrack, has been getting close to essential soundtrack status. Clocks, for example, was awesome at first, but after a few spins, looses its luster.

Enter their new X and Y. Speed of Sound picks up right where Clocks left off. The rest of the album is at least as good. Okay, okay so it isn't legal to have heard the album before June 7th in the USA, but come on. Anyone who keeps an eye out for Coldplay tracks has already heard Talk--someone leaked it to BitTorrent a few months ago, and of course Speed of Sound was at Coldplay's website earlier in the spring. So you've had a preview. And X and Y lives up to all expectations.