On 12/4/2024 at 12:55 PM, edupoint said:

Could you name any examples?

Taylor Swift dropped a full album and then an entire second album set of b-sides while being on tour, Charli XCX dropped a full album and then a full remix album that drastically changed the existing songs, Post Malone's album had an extended version that was nearly twice as long, Metro Boomin put out two related albums back to back, The Smile dropped two albums. 

I'm not necessarily saying I expect Coldplay to drop another 10 brand new songs, I'm very happy with the three we got. However, I think it's the fact that Moon Music teased so many other songs (Opus 5, 2 Aliens, another version of FLIFL, more of the Rainbow Suite). Those took up space and time in Moon Music, and I think it contributes to some critique of the record that they're trying to pack so many ideas into a short run time. If they just released all of those songs seperately, then we'd be able to enjoy them on their own merits.

We'll see if that happens! 

 

 

21 hours ago, lennyrott1 said:

Taylor Swift dropped a full album and then an entire second album set of b-sides while being on tour, Charli XCX dropped a full album and then a full remix album that drastically changed the existing songs, Post Malone's album had an extended version that was nearly twice as long, Metro Boomin put out two related albums back to back, The Smile dropped two albums. 

I'm not necessarily saying I expect Coldplay to drop another 10 brand new songs, I'm very happy with the three we got. However, I think it's the fact that Moon Music teased so many other songs (Opus 5, 2 Aliens, another version of FLIFL, more of the Rainbow Suite). Those took up space and time in Moon Music, and I think it contributes to some critique of the record that they're trying to pack so many ideas into a short run time. If they just released all of those songs seperately, then we'd be able to enjoy them on their own merits.

We'll see if that happens!  

It seems like there are two extremes. Some artists releasing more music than ever and many other releasing less than ever. Plenty of artists I like are releasing albums in the 25-35 minute range. I'm guessing that's to get out compact releases to catch attention in the era of tiktok scrolling and short windows for peoples' attention in the modern era. 

In that regard, then, I'm ecstatic that Coldplay still aims for 42-45 minutes albums today. And as much as I'd love to hear the full versions of many of the songs that were presented in pieces on the album, without that restriction we probably wouldn't have gotten Alien Hits/Alien Radio, which is nothing short of a masterpiece. 🙂

Have you watched the Christmas concert? It was really surprising for me how good Chris ´ voice sounds, I guess having a shorter setlist lets him give it all without any trouble. 

What do we make of this one lads?

11 hours ago, Famous Old Painter said:

What do we make of this one lads?

That is super exciting! I am happy we will be getting more even after lp 12!

18 hours ago, Famous Old Painter said:

What do we make of this one lads?

I guess they'll have to write that Quantum of Solace theme I joked about a while ago...

On 12/20/2024 at 7:30 AM, Famous Old Painter said:

What do we make of this one lads?

That´ll be great! I guess it will not arrive before 2028 or around…

Guy told recently that the final album could be in 5 parts...

57 minutes ago, jcfromparis said:

Guy told recently that the final album could be in 5 parts...

Where did you hear/read/watched that?

Chris has now said that LP12 will be a homecoming with the safety EP cover redone 

12 hours ago, edupoint said:

Where did you hear/read/watched that?

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/coldplay-guy-berryman-interview-tour-future-1235214361/

Chris has said that Coldplay will only put out two more albums. I’m glad to hear that that’s one of the ideas that’s percolating for the retirement period.
Yeah, I know. I mean, Chris is such an unstoppable force of nature creatively, so let’s see what happens. There’s so many things that have crossed my mind, like, “Well, maybe the last album can come in five parts or something like that.”

Translation: Guy knows as much as we do 

https://benmor.net/portfolio/coldplay-feelslikeimfallinginlove-directors-cut

18 minutes ago, clark595 said:

https://benmor.net/portfolio/coldplay-feelslikeimfallinginlove-directors-cut

Really annoying that 4K Video Downloader can't download this. If anyone figures out a way to download it in 4K please tell me.

Edit: Figured it out. Used the inspect panel to find the video link, then copied that. The link that you get from the share button on the video does not work.

Edited December 23, 20241 yr by Doomotron

19 hours ago, Doomotron said:

Really annoying that 4K Video Downloader can't download this. If anyone figures out a way to download it in 4K please tell me.

Edit: Figured it out. Used the inspect panel to find the video link, then copied that. The link that you get from the share button on the video does not work.

Try Wondershare Uniconverter. It will allow you to download it

What?

5 hours ago, WaddleBurr said:

What?

They can't help themselves. They have to release a new version of We Pray every other month.

In fact, a source in EMI has told me about the upcoming versions of We Pray, set to be released this year:

• 1st March: We Pray (Reversed)
• 4th April: We Pray (ft. Benedict Cumberbatch)
• 26th April: We Pray (Jeremy Clarkson's Version)
• 1st June: We Pray (Reversed) (Reprise)
• 2nd June: We Pray (Coldplay x Brazzers)
• 15th July: We Pray (Chris Martin, Johnny Buckland, Guy Berryman + Will Champion Version)
• 20th September: We Pray (Los Unidades Groovy Mix ft. Dr Phil)
• 18th November: Yarp Ew
• 32nd December: We Pray (Coldplay vs Radiohead vs Muse vs Travis vs UNKLE vs Foals vs Duck Sauce vs Victorious Cast vs Brian Eno vs Panama vs London Philharmonic Orchestra vs Tangerine Dream vs Random Factor vs Mogwai vs David Guetta vs King Charles III vs Editors vs Arcade Fire vs Sam Fender vs LCD Soundsystem vs David Bowie vs Cut Copy vs Wang Chung vs Benjamin Symons vs M83 vs Starfish vs Beth Orton vs Peter Gabriel vs Bloc Party) (Instrumental)

Edited February 14, 20251 yr by Doomotron

Alphabetica will be We Pray featuring an artist starting with every letter of the alphabet 

Hello again my old friends! I waited this long to write my review of the album because I wanted to give it a fair chance. We all know how their music takes time to grow on the listener, and I didn’t want to judge it too quickly. I’ve listened to it multiple times now, in different moods and settings, hoping something would click. But after all that, my opinion hasn’t really changed from the first few listens.

I originally wanted to do a track-by-track review but I don’t think anyone has the time or patience to waste on such a thing. But overall, I think I should highlight two important factors. The first is the parallel that me as an avid listener of both bands would draw between Moon Music and U2’s All That You Can't Leave Behind. Compounded by the fact that the band tried so hard early on in their career to establish a foundation that would emulate the success of U2, both sonically and socio-politically, and the fact that both serve as the bands’ 10^th studio albums. The two albums however couldn’t be farther apart. One is a multi-Grammy winning masterpiece and the other one is, well, it’s Moon Music. Without wishing to sound too harsh, the bands themselves couldn’t be farther apart either. Apple Martin even had a fucking debutante ball, straight out of King George’s 18^th century upper-class circles!

And moving on to the second factor, highlighting why we reached this point, is best described by the great Steven Wilson when asked to give his opinion on Coldplay and in particular Chris Martin. He noted that while Coldplay had a promising start, their later music became increasingly predictable, leaning more into mass appeal than creative risk-taking. He also highlighted Chris’s obsession with celebrity culture and pointed out how their early work had an earnest, everyman quality, but over time, they’ve become more focused on being global superstars than boundary-pushing artists. That sentiment rings painfully true with Moon Music. The Coldplay of the 2000s was a band that pushed themselves, writing poetic lyrics and crafting unique sonic textures. Now, their songwriting feels like it’s been distilled down to the safest, broadest strokes possible; music designed to be background noise rather than something you can truly get lost in, or even worse, something you would hear at a huge Christian gathering venue.

Also, the band have always leaned into universal, uplifting themes, but on Moon Music, the lyrics often feel uninspired, almost AI like. A lot of the songs rely on vague affirmations of love and unity, but without the poetic depth that made Parachutes or A Rush of Blood to the Head so engaging. Most songs feel like Coldplay on autopilot; repeating the same anthemic formulas without bringing anything fresh to the table.

Another major issue is the lack of instrumentation. What we had in VLV and even Everyday Life was a band that balanced electronic elements with organic, instrument-driven arrangements. But here, everything feels overly polished, synthetic, and stripped of the rich textures. The live piano, guitar, and the drums all take a backseat to programmed beats and atmospheric synths. Again, it sounds like a combination of AI and me with 20 hours on BandLab. This is especially disappointing because Everyday Life proved the band could still create something dynamic and instrumentally rich. That album had raw energy, diverse influences, and a willingness to experiment.

Overall, I would say only three songs from the entire project are still worth the listen, IAAM, Jupiter, and Man in the Moon, with all three very obviously being left-overs from the Viva/MX sessions.

Hopefully this will culminate in their third and final attempt at recreating another MX, (which I’ve already said on this forum a million times was itself an attempt to recreate VLV). For me, and I think I speak for a lot of the Oldplayer crowd, the dream would be for them to work with Danton Supple and Ken Nelson again for their final album, but contrary to what a famous footballer once said, dreams can be bought! And therein lies the problem with Coldplay, and what will ultimately be their legacy. Why change the formula when your world tour makes you $1.2 billion?!

Good to hear from you on this, nvdmm. I do think your last point rings espescially true for me, even though I generally like Moon Music as an album and think most of the songs are solid enough. Thre's really no incentive for them to change their formula very much and at this point it feels like they are either just doing general modern pop music or rehashing sounds from earlier in their career to less success. What I find perplexing about MM is in the inconsistency of sound and I think this continues to be the biggest issue they've had since 2015. Chris just wants to be the best at everything and so the albums feel sonically inconsistent. Moon Music definitely fairs better than MOTS though, but that's a pretty low bar to jump. These feel more like Coldplay playlists than albums, in my opinion and Everyday Life was borderline there too. 

If you take Moon Music, Alien Hits/Alien Radio, One World and A Wave, you have a Coldplay album that is chanelling Sigur Ros, balancing sadness hope and beauty with orchestral transitions and distorted guitars. I wish the album was just 42 minutes of those sounds. But then Good Feelings, Aeterna, Man in the Moon and FLIFIL, you have a straight pop and dance album . AML, Karate Kid and iAAM are classic Coldplay, which is great to hear but I'd rather listen to the old stuff.  We Pray is collab Coldplay and Jupiter is acoustic/indie Coldplay. The production value song to song varies wildly. It is clear they recorded it across the world and there isn't that live recording, organic sound for most of the album.  But I genuinely do think the album has a great self-help vibe for pop music and it tells a sort of arc about overcoming challenges and embracing love, in the vaguest sense. I've listened to it a lot and I think it's a 7-8/10 for me as a fan. 

Overall, I'm kind of hoping the MOTS Era Wraps up soon and they get back to more focused records that feel more down to earth. I have tickets to a show in June I may not be able to actually attend, and I find myself a bit "meh" anyways because the setlist was so similar to the last tour and I'm not dying to see POTP or Higher Power, honestly. If they end up inserting songs like Man in the Moon, Humankind, One World, Aeterna or iAAM I'd be way more motivated to go, I just don't see that happening. 

 

On 2/25/2025 at 12:59 AM, lennyrott1 said:

Good to hear from you on this, nvdmm. I do think your last point rings espescially true for me, even though I generally like Moon Music as an album and think most of the songs are solid enough. Thre's really no incentive for them to change their formula very much and at this point it feels like they are either just doing general modern pop music or rehashing sounds from earlier in their career to less success. What I find perplexing about MM is in the inconsistency of sound and I think this continues to be the biggest issue they've had since 2015. Chris just wants to be the best at everything and so the albums feel sonically inconsistent. Moon Music definitely fairs better than MOTS though, but that's a pretty low bar to jump. These feel more like Coldplay playlists than albums, in my opinion and Everyday Life was borderline there too. 

If you take Moon Music, Alien Hits/Alien Radio, One World and A Wave, you have a Coldplay album that is chanelling Sigur Ros, balancing sadness hope and beauty with orchestral transitions and distorted guitars. I wish the album was just 42 minutes of those sounds. But then Good Feelings, Aeterna, Man in the Moon and FLIFIL, you have a straight pop and dance album . AML, Karate Kid and iAAM are classic Coldplay, which is great to hear but I'd rather listen to the old stuff.  We Pray is collab Coldplay and Jupiter is acoustic/indie Coldplay. The production value song to song varies wildly. It is clear they recorded it across the world and there isn't that live recording, organic sound for most of the album.  But I genuinely do think the album has a great self-help vibe for pop music and it tells a sort of arc about overcoming challenges and embracing love, in the vaguest sense. I've listened to it a lot and I think it's a 7-8/10 for me as a fan. 

Overall, I'm kind of hoping the MOTS Era Wraps up soon and they get back to more focused records that feel more down to earth. I have tickets to a show in June I may not be able to actually attend, and I find myself a bit "meh" anyways because the setlist was so similar to the last tour and I'm not dying to see POTP or Higher Power, honestly. If they end up inserting songs like Man in the Moon, Humankind, One World, Aeterna or iAAM I'd be way more motivated to go, I just don't see that happening. 

 

Thank you for your beautifully put response. I agree with all the points you mentioned. I know we've talked about this a lot, especially in the Oldplaying section, but I think my conviction of what could have been is even more resolute now. I was listening to Swallowed in the Sea today on repeat since the morning and just experienced an overwhelmingly melancholic sense of longing for the band I fell in love with as a teenager. I think we as a generation WATNED them to give us more of Parachutes, more of AROBTTH, more of X&Y. Our obsession with them began 20 years ago exactly BECAUSE of who and what they were. And the same goes for our other favourite bands, be it Travis or Porcupine Tree or Radiohead etc. But I think we're now at a point where we can recognize what those bands did correctly to lament their critical legacy, and also confidently identify Coldplay's reasons for this monumental shift in identity, which wasn't what they and specially Chris claimed for so long; that this was all an elaborate plan to become more "creative"! 

But as I said, it deeply saddens me to think about what we would have been treated to instead. I still hold a thread of hope that for their final album we might get to hear at least some of that "could have been"! And by the way, I think you should definitely go to their concert in June. The last one I went to was in 2008 because for me their performance has to connect emotionally to justify the huge price-tag, so I'm holding out until their last tour for their final album, but if you've already bought tickets then I think Yellow and Clocks alone are definitely worth your precious time😊

Totally! That nostalgia definitely hits me. Viva & X&Y were so important to me during formative years, and I have to wonder if newer albums have the same affect on the younger generation or if the age of streaming has done away with that level of singular fandom. And generally yeah I feel ike there was this burst of creative spirit on MX with a huge leap towards mainstreamism and looking back, it should have been obvious they weren't going to release experimental rock after collaborating with Rihanna. But on the other hand, as a huge fan of Radiohead and some of the side projects (like The Smile)  I can at least acknowledge Coldplay delving into a bunch of random genres is creative in a way, given Thom Yorke has been making virtualy the same exact music for the past 10+ years. 

And for the concert, we'll see! If I don't, I plan on selling them face value so someone else can experience them. The main reason I bought them is (god bless Coldplay) the prices were super reasonable for good seats and there wasn't any price fluctuations. I saw them in 2016 and it was awesome but the setlist is largely the same now minus some of the C-stage oldies they did on that tour. 

Don’t sell the tickets. Just go. 
 

Also Sparks, Fix You, The Scientist and God Put a Smile Upon Your Face are either regular or rotating on the setlists currently for oldplay fans. The songbook section can also mean piano renditions of Don’t Panic, Trouble, Til Kingdom Come are all possibilities (granted it’s mainly been Everglow and Magic though)

Now that I've had a few months to sit on MM I think it's a solid album, Everyday Life has better songs don't get me wrong but lacks the cohesiveness this has. I would give it a 7/10, songs like One World a beautiful one by the way which people hate on far too much. The weakest songs are We Pray, FLIFIL and GF I think these could have been swapped with Shine On, MitM and the OG 2019 GF with the better lyrics. At the moment my album rank is this; 

1) Viva - 4.5/5

2) X and Y - 4.25/5

3) Mylo Xyloto - 4/5

4) Ghost Stories - 4/5

5) Everyday Life - 3.75/5

6) AROBTTH - 3.7/5

7) Parachutes - 3.6/5

8 - Moon Music - 3.5/5

9) AHFOD - 3.25/5

10) MOTS - 2/5 

 

People are going to moan at me but in my opinion Coldplays peak is 2004-2014 honestly a fantastic 4 album run X&Y-GS