The Daily Spin II
Coldplay | Ghost Stories
Welcome back to the Daily Spin. For the uninitiated, this is the series in which I review an album every day of 2025.
As was the case two years ago, my favorite song from each album can be found at the playlist linked here.
Album: Ghost Stories (2014)
Artist: Coldplay
Link:
Six albums in is a pretty appropriate time to get weird, or so I hear.
That’s how I felt about Coldplay’s Ghost Stories when I first heard it. As a longtime disciple of the band that brought us ‘Viva La Vida’, ‘The Scientist’, ‘Clocks’, and ‘Speed of Sound’ among others, it was hard not to be excited for an upcoming project that promised more what I’d come to think of as my favorite sort of music. Then, when the project came out, it was anything but. It was surprising, but not exactly negative in a moment that passed quickly enough to carry along most of that lingering feeling.
Eleven long years later, here I am, coming back to an album that I haven’t really thought about outside of brief momentary glimpses in passing, ready to finally give it a more critical eye. I’d long heard that this was their worst effort - given a paltry 4.4 on Pitchfork, pretty critically panned across the board - and it made me hesitant to come back to it, because my memories, at least, were fond.
I’m pleased to announce the haters were wrong. Sort of.
Ghost Stories is where Coldplay begins to get experimental. 2015’s A Head Full of Dreams would continue down this path of neo-electronic rock that’s veered more and more into pop as the years have gone - consider 2024’s Moon Music as compared to 2000’s Parachutes.
The first bones of that change are visible here - consider lead single-that-wasn’t-a-single ‘Midnights’, a pared-back electronic expression in the vein of Bon Iver, or the ever-iridescent ‘A Sky Full of Stars’, drilling Avicii-toned electronic dance pop into your brain to the tune of hokey lyrics.
The album excels in the quiet - ‘Midnights’ and ‘Magic’ are Coldplay playing to strength, relying not on bombastic production but on lyrics that, in the right light, strike emotional, but in most others glimmer with the promise of easily listenable, easily forgettable.
Too frequently, Ghost Stories demands to be Icarus turning cartwheels before the sun. Set during the months following the demise of Chris Martin and Gwenyth Paltrow’s relationship - a ‘conscious uncoupling’, in their words, a lot of that heartbreak bleeds through to every lyric waxed over, every single beat that feels a little dreary. As much as this is mall music, it’s also a bit of a heartbreak album, and in the moment when it doesn’t work, it is very noticeable.
Undeniably titanic, it’s only natural that Coldplay would want to begin spreading their wings - it’s just a shame that they’ve fallen prey to the heights of the sun as so many have before them.
Rating: 7/10
Best Tracks: Magic, O, Midnight
Worst Tracks: Ink