The magic of Coldplay

Have you ever picked up a self-help book from the display table in a big-box bookstore and opened it to find a phrase that exactly applied to your life? The most pedestrian insight sometimes can hit surprisingly hard.

Banality might not elevate the intellect, but it helps in a tired, over-wired culture. We're all so distracted that we need to be reminded of the obvious, again and again. This helps explain the popularity of Coldplay.

Artsy aspirations intensify the "aha" moments offered by Coldplay's chief deep thinker, Chris Martin, and his band - never more so than on its fourth studio album and official leap toward greatness.

I want to believe that Viva is Brian Eno's little trick on Coldplay. The well-meaning rockers wanted to improve their game, so they brought in the producer who has given growth hormones to everyone from David Byrne to U2 to Microsoft. (Did you know that Eno designed the start-up sound for Windows 95?)

The magic of Eno

Eno let the lovely Londoners believe they were making classic art-rock, when in fact his intention was to make a shiny new product.

The sleekly nonspecific quality of Viva - it's full of evocations without settling on any one reference point - lends power to Martin's lyrics, making them seem more like common wisdom than cliches.

Coldplay made its fortune on Martin's hypnotic roundelays, songs that bore simple titles like Clocks and Fix You, and invoked comforting styles like the hymn and the lullaby.

Eno pushes the band toward other forms based in circularity - the ambient music of the marketplace, the video game and the movie trailer - to make those warm little tunes even more marketable. Are they more memorable too? That depends on whether you like your chicken soup mild or spicy.