Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends is probably not Coldplay's best album, but it doesn't really have to be. As always the band has produced a number of ingenious anthems which have made it into my weekly playlist. Having said that, the song which takes its name from the title and has been played around the iTunes advertisements has some interesting lyrics which, it seems to me, deserve further comment. 

Evidently this album finds its inspiration in Spanish churches and artwork such as the cover art of Frida Khalo's painting with the banner Viva la Vida or Long Live Life screaming across it. "Viva la Vida's" lyrics have this revolutionary tone which, I am going to suggest, go beyond the Spanish revolutionary backdrop the album claims for itself. Rather, there is a kind of post-colonial anomie which looks back to an empire "when I ruled the world," when "revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver plate," and "for some reason I can't explain I know St. Peter won't call my name."  Given the backdrop of emancipatory revolution against oppressive powers, I'd like to suggest that the song isn't glorifying colonial power so much as challenging the manner in which colonial power is still fetishized in popular memory. In this regard there are other current artistic events in England which may add further light to this new post-colonial feeling.

There is a gallery exhibition called Unpopular Culture at the De La Warr Pavillion at Bexhill on Sea in London at the moment which was put together by the British artist Grayson Perry. Perry trawled through the catalogue of 8,500 pieces in the British Arts Council Collection where he was "drawn to three distinct categories of art, figurative painting, bronze sculpture and documentary photography." This exhibition struck me insofar as it documents British culture's recent past such as Lowry paintings of urban Manchester and photographs of women wearing head scarfs for fashion rather than as a symbol of religious piety or political insurrection. Perry is as interested in this past for its own place in popular memory, as it is a kind of memorial glance back at the time just past the fall of the British empire.

 

Grayson Perry (b.1960)
Head of a Fallen Giant 2007-08
Bronze
Copyright the artist, 2008
Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London

Unpopular Culture is topped off by Perry's own bronze "Head of a Fallen Giant." In an interview on the BBC's Newsnight Review he talked about how he had seen Damien Hirst's diamond encrusted skull "For the Love of God"  last year and wanted to offer his own take on this kind of artifact of death and remembrance. Whereas Hirst's work conjures up images of the transcendent, Perry's sculpture is more historical and in many respects directs the viewer's attention towards the fallen post-colonial nature of the British nation. The bronze is giant, and shaped into its bronze bone structure is a conglomeration of Hieronymus Bosch-esque images of fallen power - the union jack crosses the forehead and gothic looking railroad nails spike out in a number of places.

 

It seems to me there is a connection between Coldplay's song and Perry's skull. Both attempt to represent the past glories of empire, British and otherwise, with a kind of critical lament that does not degenerate into remorse. Rather, the feeling seems to take more confidence in the current status and position of Great Britain today, and as such looks back at the gone glory days with a willingness to move on with some sense of relief that empire is over. In other words (and I wonder here) the coming generation of English people may be beginning to genuinely move on from the sense of loss that past generations felt after the sun set on their empire. Now, the quest for empire itself is seen as a burden too great or maybe just pointless to try and bear.

It could be the popular post-colonialism I am correlating between Coldplay and Perry's work finds as much inspiration from the shadow of American empire as it does their own historical and social consciousness, but both in their own way announce a post-colonialism which subtly attempts to go beyond a fetishized nostalgia for the glory days.