A Head With Some Thoughts - Stripped Back Edits

[tyler21]

I have been a massive Coldplay fan for as long as I have been alive. That said, their 2015 release is my least favorite, in fact, I kind of hate the album. I don't dislike the songwriting, I really hate the wall of sound production seen throughout the entire thing. So, for the last year, I've been using all available resources, being the instrumentals, stems, and 5.1 mixes to strip back the mix as much as possible, and I think I've gotten it.

 

So I present my stipped back remix of AHFOD, called A Head With Some Thoughts. All songs (except one that can't be saved ever) stripped back to their core parts, and with a production mentality that matches the Oldplay albums, we all talk about all the time. All vocal features have been removed, and any "wall-of-sound" is saved until the end of a track, a-la Fix You/Death & All His Friends (the song needs to earn that wall.)

 

Track List:

 

1. A Head With Some Thoughts

2. Bugs

3. Hymn for a Tuesday

4. Some Glow

5. Adventure of an Afternoon

6. Decent

7. Group of One

8. Life is Okay (replacing X-Marks the Spot, it's a decent clean-up of the life phone recording floating around)

9. An Okay Day

10. Color Blindness

11. Up

 

MP3s : https://www.mediafire.com/file/45sqfzw2tgpudt5/MP3s.7z/file

[I ran away]

OMG this sounds interesting !!! I'll check this out and report back.

[Thomas.Bos]

fricking awesome

[I ran away]

OK. AHFOD is one of my least favourite Coldplay albums so I listened to it with great expectations and now I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it.

You stripped away a lot of the lead guitar and even bass in some songs, which made them feel rather empty.

Some arrangements just don't work imho (like AOAL or AHFOD). Fun, which was the best song on the album for me, is completely ruined like that imho. I often got the feeling like the things that were removed were not the actual problems of the song (e.g. the strings on Amazing Day or the lead guitar in Birds).

However, in your defense, there is only so much you could have changed with the available stems. Many songs on AHFOD for instance suffer from the electronic drum kit but there's no way of changing that sound without re-recording. I also think this is the most interesting and daring edit of the album I've ever heard, and I've heard quite a few.

My favourite has to be Bugs (Birds). Sounds refreshingly different !

[tyler21]

OK. AHFOD is one of my least favourite Coldplay albums so I listened to it with great expectations and now I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it.

You stripped away a lot of the lead guitar and even bass in some songs, which made them feel rather empty.

Some arrangements just don't work imho (like AOAL or AHFOD). Fun, which was the best song on the album for me, is completely ruined like that imho. I often got the feeling like the things that were removed were not the actual problems of the song (e.g. the strings on Amazing Day or the lead guitar in Birds).

However, in your defense, there is only so much you could have changed with the available stems. Many songs on AHFOD for instance suffer from the electronic drum kit but there's no way of changing that sound without re-recording. I also think this is the most interesting and daring edit of the album I've ever heard, and I've heard quite a few.

My favourite has to be Bugs (Birds). Sounds refreshingly different !

This isn't a final cut, I'm actively looking for any feedback I can get to refine the edits and create the definitive version of the album for the "oldplayers," so if you could be as specific as possible, I can get to work!

[driftaguy]

OK. AHFOD is one of my least favourite Coldplay albums so I listened to it with great expectations and now I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it.

You stripped away a lot of the lead guitar and even bass in some songs, which made them feel rather empty.

Some arrangements just don't work imho (like AOAL or AHFOD). Fun, which was the best song on the album for me, is completely ruined like that imho. I often got the feeling like the things that were removed were not the actual problems of the song (e.g. the strings on Amazing Day or the lead guitar in Birds).

However, in your defense, there is only so much you could have changed with the available stems. Many songs on AHFOD for instance suffer from the electronic drum kit but there's no way of changing that sound without re-recording. I also think this is the most interesting and daring edit of the album I've ever heard, and I've heard quite a few.

My favourite has to be Bugs (Birds). Sounds refreshingly different !

 

Bugs actually gives me X&Y vibes