Music of the Spheres - Track by track

[TheLostColdplayer]

Hi guys,

So, I recently discovered these brief stories Coldplay uploaded on Spotify as part of the song description for all of the tracks on Music of the Spheres and I decided to upload everything here so that people that don't have or don't use Spotify can easily find and read them. Here they are, enjoy!

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Music of the Spheres   ~Track by track

 

 

“Music of the Spheres”

 

Planet: Neon Moon I

Language: E.L. 1

Description: Holiday resort planet

 

We worked on this album during the pandemic, when being able to tour felt a long way off.

But we thought a lot about when we would be able to go on tour again.

This opening track will probably also be the opening piece of music at the shows.

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“Higher Power”

 

Planet: Kaotica

Language: Kaotican

Description: The trash planet

 

This song came to Chris one day when he was playing a drumbeat on a bathroom sink.

He recorded it on his phone and took that to a piano and then the song just came out.

We immediately reacted positively to the vibe of the song and it came together quite quickly.

It’s always a good sign when something just falls together in the studio.

We’ve been very pleased with the response to this one.

It feels like a song the world maybe needed as we all emerged from being locked away for so long.

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“Humankind”

 

Planet: Echo

Language: Mirror Text

Description: The planet of duality

 

The story of the making of this album is our partnership with its producer, Max Martin.

Max came into one of our Paris sessions for Everyday Life and contributed to the song “Orphans”.

We got on so well during that brief moment in Paris that we knew we wanted to do more with him.

Max is an extremely nice person to be around – very funny, extremely talented and very detailed.

He’s a songwriter and a producer and he really leans towards helping with the creation of a song.

Max plays instruments too – he almost became like a guest member of the band for this album.

"Humankind" is quite a big song. We’re excited to play it live.

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“Alien Choir”

 

Planet: Kubik

Language: Q Block

Description: The surreal planet

 

We’ve been getting into doing musical segues like these between songs.

It stops you having dead space in the record.

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“Let Somebody Go”

 

Planet: Calypso

Language: Aquamarine

Description: The water planet

 

This is a really nice ballad, which Chris brought to the band pretty much fully formed.

Of course, the song is a duet with Selena Gomez.

We’ve been collaborating more and more with other artists over the last few albums.

I think the songs lead us to the right people to work with on them.

Selena just brings a different vibe and energy to the song, she sounds incredible.

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“Human Heart”

 

Planet: Supersolis

Language: Supersolar

Description: The fire planet

 

This is a very unusual and interesting song, which Chris worked on with We Are KING and Jacob Collier.

Jacob is very good at vocal arrangements and it just sounded so great and different.

We didn’t really want to add any other instrumentation to it, we wanted to keep it this way.

It was originally shorter than it is now, but Will pushed the idea of turning it into a full song.

We Are KING’s voices work so well on this track.

We’ve already done some shows with them and they’re amazing.

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“People of the Pride”

 

Planet: Ultra

Language: Voltik

Description: The storm planet

 

This was taken from a song that was never finished, originally from the Viva sessions.

We’ve had the verse for a long, long time.

We took it off the shelf and found a way to finish it.

We’ve always recorded a lot of music and there will be songs that don’t make it onto albums.

And then they might be picked up later and we’ll try to finish them off.

It definitely has a glam rock sound with the riff, but then it pivots into an orchestral arrangement.

We’ve been playing it in rehearsals and it already sounds great live.

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“Biutyful”

 

Planet: Floris

Language: Bloom

Description: The plant planet

 

This song was actually considered for Everyday Life.

But it felt like it would be better for Music of the Spheres.

The vocal on this one is quite processed and unusual.

It’s supposed to sound like it’s an alien singing the song.

"Biutyful" went through quite a few iterations before the final version.

Max was really helpful in pushing this one over the line.

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“Music of the Spheres II”

 

Planet: Neon Moon II

Language: E.L. 2

Description: Holiday resort planet

 

The idea behind this album is trying to make the universal personal.

When you look from the perspective of space, all of Earth’s borders and divisions seem crazy.

Earth is just a tiny rock floating in the infinite.

We decided to set this album in a distant solar system called The Spheres.

There are 12 Spheres, each with its own language, character and alien population.

Music is banned in the Spheres.

But a character called DJ Lafrique defies the ban with Alien Radio.

She has two key messages for her listeners: “Everyone is an alien somewhere”.

And "We are AllOne in the universe".

These two messages sum up the album’s philosophy.

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“My Universe”

 

Planet: Epiphane

Language: Spheric

Description: The effervescent planet

 

Obviously the big story of this one is that it’s a collaboration with BTS.

An interviewer asked them if there was anyone they’d like to collaborate with and they said us.

And then they reached out. So when this song came along Chris asked if they’d like to sing on it.

Some people were maybe surprised we worked with BTS but I don’t think we have any limitations now.

A lot of people talk about how they’d rather hear us doing the kind of music we did 20 years ago.

But we’ve done that and those albums exist for people to listen to.

We love exploring different genres, working with other people and not being afraid to try things.

We don’t feel like we have any constraints upon what we can and can’t do.

And working with BTS has just been an incredible experience.

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“Infinity Sign”

 

Planet: Infinity Station

Language: Infinitum

Description: The robot planet

 

We still really believe in making albums, it’s what we’ve grown up with.

It’s kind of embedded in our DNA to think of a project as a body of work lasting 40 to 50 minutes.

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“Coloratura”

 

Planet: Coloratura

Language: Coloraturan

Description: The afterlife

 

This is a very different song for us. It’s also the longest song we’ve ever made.

It was originally a lot shorter and I think Chris felt he could push it and embellish it further.

It’s ended up being almost like a classical arranged piece, with different musical sections.

It was a puzzle that was pieced together quite carefully.

It feels like a coherent journey from beginning to end.

It’s complete prog and we love the performance nature of it.

We’ve always been a bit wary of longer songs, but we’re really proud of this one.

Once we had that longer version, it really felt like the right song to end the album on.