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Sleep is one of the richest topics in science today: why we need it, why it can be hard to get, and how that affects everything from our athletic performance to our income. Daniel Kripke, co-director of research at the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in La Jolla, Calif., has looked at the most important question of all. In 2002, he compared death rates among more than 1 million American adults who, as part of a study on cancer prevention, reported their average nightly amount of sleep. To many, his results were surprising, but they've since been corroborated...
...fourth album, Viva la Vida, out June 17, Martin has volunteered that his band isn't as good as Radiohead or U2 and that cultural dominance arrived before it was earned. The goal on Viva la Vida, he's said, was to "get better rather than bigger"--which explains the choice of Brian Eno as co-producer. Eno, 60, was a founding member of Roxy Music but gained his greatest fame as the composer of such endearingly odd ambient albums as Music for Airports and as the producer behind U2's sonic leap on its fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire...
Musically, Eno nudges Coldplay a few steps closer to transcendence not by opening the band up--though he did have the group record in Spanish churches and play with tablas--but by tying it down. Viva la Vida starts with the light pulse of a keyboard and a beep that could be a passing satellite. Everything seems to exist in its own silo until a rising whoosh comes along and the instruments merge into a huge harmonious collision. The track is called Life in Technicolor, and what differentiates it from previous Coldplay attempts to lasso the cosmos (Speed of Sound...
Where Martin shines--and when Viva la Vida peaks--is when the subject turns to desire. He's got a soul singer's ability to communicate the totality of love with a few oohs and aahs, and he saves Lovers in Japan from his own clichés ("Lovers keep on the road you're on/ Runners until the race is run") just by opening up his throat and letting loose. On Strawberry Swing, Martin not only turns in a nice lyric ("People moving all the time/ Inside a perfectly straight line/ Don't you wanna just curve away?") but coos...
Coldplay has already proved itself critic-proof, and whether it wants to be any bigger or not, the odds are that Viva la Vida will be one of the top sellers of 2008. Ubiquity will remain theirs. But having risked a bit, Coldplay has also gained. It's pretty tough to call the band insufferable. Imperfect, maybe...