★★★★★ Beyoncé worked with so many people on ‘Lemonade’, her sixth album which she dropped in late April with an accompanying short fi lm, that its credits run to 3,105 words. It’s a testament to her star power that none of her collaborators blabbed before the surprise album release – Bey’s second in a row after her 2013 self-titled LP. But it’s also a testament to her star quality that despite the many, many cooks in this kitchen, ‘Lemonade’ feels like an album only Beyoncé could make. ‘Lemonade’ is officially billed as ‘a conceptual project based on every woman’s journey of self knowledge and healing’, but the narrative is really one of marital infi delity. ‘How did it come down to this? Going through your call list,’ she sings on the deceptively breezy reggae bounce of ‘Hold Up’, before issuing what sounds like an ultimatum on the brilliant, Jack White-assisted rock stomper ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’: ‘If you try this shit again / You gon’ lose your wife.’ The electro blips of ‘Sorry’ feature another killer couplet: ‘He only want me when I’m not there / He better call Becky with the good hair.’ Beyoncé stops short of singing ‘My sister Solange appeared to attack you in a lift after the Met Gala in 2014’, but this is still startling stuff which must be tough for Jay Z (who appears in the short film) to listen to. As the story progresses from rage to reconciliation, ‘Lemonade’ continues to thrill musically. Bey teams with The Weeknd for ‘6 Inch’, a kind of strip club update of
It may have been said back in 2000, but Coldplay never quite shook off the sharp critique Creation Records boss Alan McGee made at the start of their career - that they wrote 'bedwetter's music'. After Chris Martin's divorce (sorry, 'conscious uncoupling') from wife Gwyneth Paltrow, however, that figurative bed is now soaked in an altogether more emotional human discharge: tears.
Sad though any divorce is, it's reasonable for music fans to hope that heartbreak might inspire greatness. Dylan, Lennon, Gaye and Fleetwood Mac, to name just a few, all turned splits into hits. Yet, on an awkward, unremarkable missed opportunity of a record, Chris Martin has soundtracked heartbreak the way he would a car advert.
Weighing in at a scant 40 minutes, the tone of 'Ghost Stories' is electronic and plodding, not guitary and surging. Forget the idea of Coldplay writing for stadiums - this is the sound of a band restraining themselves and desperately holding it in. Take the heavy use of vocoder on single 'Midnight' - a stark barrier between his brain and ours. Then there's Martin's piano playing, once robust and anthemic (as on 2002's 'Clocks'), and now just faint and ambient, as the chill-out tinkles on 'Another's Arms' show.
A deeper problem, though, is context. Coldplay's global success to date has hinged on stirring emotions with sonic rushes to the head, but set to lyrics so bland that listeners could legitimately own their songs for themselves, and impart their unique emotions onto them.
Yet given the scale of his celebrity and the column inches devoted to the death of his marriage, it's impossible to hear lines like 'All I know, is that I love you so' and not wonder if he's specifically talking about the star of 'Iron Man 3' or not. It shouldn't matter, but it damages Coldplay's standing as an everyman band and makes listening to their sixth album an uncomfortable exercise in celebrity rubbernecking.
It's not all terrible. 'Magic' has undeniable soul, while closing tune 'O' is impressively weepy. However, the only person who'll be haunted by 'Ghost Stories' is Martin himself - for failing to let heartbreak inspire him to, well, just say something at last.