Album review: Ghost Stories.

The much awaited 6th studio album by Coldplay called "Ghost stories" finally released and I just had to review it. Simply because I was proud of myself to make it through the whole album without dying of shock or disappointment. Yes you can take a guess, it isn't what we all expected from Coldplay.

After the very public breakup between coldplay frontman Chris Martin and Gywneth Paltrow, it was very clear that this was gonna be a post breakup traumatic heart wrenching album. Now you would think that sadness, loss, failure in love, in their case-failure of a 12 year long relationship would inspire an amazing album full of depth and soulful music but that's not the case.
Ghost stories is clearly a breakup album gone wrong.

What I expected: when I first heard the album name long before the release I was pretty confused regarding what it meant and what to expect from it. After they released two songs "midnight" and "magic" the picture became slightly clear. Let's just say I always try to understand what the album/song name or lyrics mean,  I think we all do. I tend to make up descriptions in my head and scenarios that would best suit the situation being conveyed in the song.
So imagine a cold chilly night, with a soft breeze gracefully moving, soothing your skin and doing Ballet  with your hair. Imagine being tucked in a nice fluffy blanket in your loved ones arms, with a warm campfire heating up some marshmallows. You're enjoying a couple of laughs with your close friends under a sky full of stars, with fireflies chilling around, its a magical night. At midnight your friends decide to tell ghost stories. Now in such a fun and amazing scenario a thrilling ghost story would just complete the whole deal. I've never been to a forest with no polluted air for camping with friends or otherwise,so I can only imagine it to be an incredible experience, that's exactly what I expected from album ghost stories. The chill of a night, smell of marshmallows, feel of a warm blanket by a warm fire, beauty of stargazing with loved ones, thrill of a good ghost story etc etc.

What I actually got: now imagine sleeping on a rough surface in a uncomfortable sleeping bag with no leg or hand space, with weird ugly insects crawling on your skin. No one in your camping group knows how to light a fire, its bloody freezing, the skies are cloudy, mosquitoes are sucking what seems like all the blood in your body, there's a huge chance that a serial killer shows up with a scarred face and a horrific mask to hide it, kills you and all of your friends with possibly a sharp/heavy tool and dumps your body by the smelly lake where no one will find you. This is how the album actually was.

The first track is "Always in my head". I don't understand why this was placed first, it pretty much sets you in a dull bored mood for the rest of the album. "In my head" by Jason Derulo was a better track than this. I do think the music for this track had a little potential, could have been better, but its just repetitive and so are the lyrics which are terrible.

Second comes "magic" one of the two originally released songs. Honestly I did like this song the first few times I heard it, but after a point the "I donts" get annoying. Hardly 6 lines of lyrics. The only song in which you can clearly hear Chris Martins voice and not just some background mumbling.

Third track is "ink", yes its about a tattoo. This song is proof that you should never tattoo someone else's name on your body. The "ooh ooh's" don't compensate for bad songwriting. At this point there is only sorrow in this album, pitiful sorrow man.

4th track is True love, the first two paragraphs sounded like he is talking about bad sex,
"For a second I was in control...
and I wish you could have let me know what's really going on below"

The next track is called midnight, I don't even wanna talk about this one. The video is vague and so is the song.

Another's arms has absolutely no lyrics, the words 'another's arms' are repeated 16 times! Like wtf, and yes I actually counted because counting words was more interesting than the song.

The music for the 7th track oceans is just painful, I mean it actually hurt my ears pinching through my ear drums.

Oh finally the 8th track "a sky full of stars" brings some joy just because its a dancey song thanks to avicii , its the only song in the album whose tune is still stuck in my head. i think its kind of the only song that isn't full of misery. 

Last but the least O, has some better standards of lyrics. You can actually feel the sad monotone in the music, the emptiness in the song and actually the whole album.

Overall the entire album is disappointing with hardly any tracks worth listening to. The songwriting is just terrible, like a teenager trying to be Taylor Swift. I think "we are never ever getting back together" by Taylor Swift had better lyrics than the whole album combined. It has no catchy tunes, no variation in music, repetitive sounds and lines, unnecessary guitar sequences, most sound like the guitarist was having a seizure while playing it.

Its basically a cry of pain by a desperate heartbroken man trying to reach out.

It isn't even the worst album I've heard, it isn't like terrible that makes you wanna rip off your cushion covers, its not. It just doesn't match Coldplay standards. Tracks like The Scientist are still one of my favourites and if it shows up on my shuffle list I'd listen to it at least three times before switching to another song. And that for me would be a good album, which comprises of songs that stay on your favorite list for a long time, that you don't get tired of listening. But Ghost stories just doesn't make it to the cut.
I'd give it a 4/10 or like 1.5 stars. One thing good is that the songs are really short, so it ends almost as soon as it starts.

If you made it till the end of this long review then I'm sorry if you are a die hard Coldplay fan and were offended. These are just my opinions and no one has to agree.

If you're Gwyneth Paltrow and you're reading this then just get back with that poor man and give us our Coldplay back. Tell him its true love under a sky full of stars, tell him he's always in your head and your love is as vast as oceans, tell him what you two have is magic and is as permanent as ink. O please just get back together so we can hear some good music. Just please.