In case you missed it, the full Q Magazine article on Coldplay entitled "Laughing Boys" is after the jump (both scans and transcript). The article was written a week before Coldplay headlined Glastonbury at the end of June and how accurate the article is with the current tracklist thoughts within ColdplayHQ remains to be seen.
However in response to a question on the article, The Oracle did add: Within the first paragraph is the quote that the tracklisting "isn't quite there". That pretty much says it all really. The album is in the final stages and those confirmed songs have been recorded. It's worth remembering that magazines usually work around 2-3 months in advance. That interview took place in mid-June which was as late as Q could leave it before going to print for the September issue. At the time of print those songs may have been "confirmed" but it will be, as Will says, done at the last minute.
Armed with the article, The Oracle's comments, your thought's across the forums (mostly centred around whether Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall will be on LP5) go something like this...
I think the striped-down approach is awesome. Coldplay should stick to it because the live version of Major Minus completely kicked the studio version's butt. And, I'm a huge fan of Coldplay and I like EVERY one of their songs... except for ETIAW. I'm not just saying that because it just came out and it hasn't grown on me, I genuinely think it's their most over-produced recording to date. It doesn't have any lyrical value compared to their other songs. The video is awesome, and the performances are spectacular, but the song in general... isn't as satisfying as their previous huge singles. I mean, can you really compare ETIAW to Viva? Or Violet Hill? Speed of Sound? Talk? Fix You? Clocks? In My Place or Yellow? I don't think the song should be on the album because I think it'll take away from other super amazing songs like Hurts Like Heaven and Charlie Brown (which will probably be my new favorite Coldplay song). And god... I hope the studio versions of those songs aren't over-produced... I think Coldplay tortures themselves with being self-conscious to the point when they can't release an album till it's up to their standards. I hope these new songs aren't 'tweaked' and altered to the point of no return... Sorry I'm being a bit conservative with this comment. I bet you ETIAW won't be on it. I'm honest. I know they made a video and everything, but the fact they haven't said directly that it WILL be on the album is good enough evidence! It's not even a confirmed single for the fifth album, it's like a single for the fifth album era. [thanks InATelescopeLens]
I have no doubt that the album will be a vibrant record. After all, Coldplay is one of the best bands of the world. However, it is HIGHLY disappointing that "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall" will be included, since must of us already have bought that track at least two times. I am looking forward to listen to the studio versions of tracks like Hurts Like Heaven and Charlie Brown, but most of all I am eager to hear brand new tracks. Can't wait on the official announcement of the album name, release date and artwork. I bet it will be an album to remember ... Never thought the boys were going to make us buy the same song 3 times [ETIAW]. Especially considering that the Oracle has said that they don't like the idea of releasing their old material again because don't want to make people buy the same piece of music twice. I still have hope though (considering that the album is not done and like Debs said two days ago, the tracklist has not determined). thanks the_escapist]
I don't know why everyone is so against Ever Teardrop Is A Waterfall. It's a great song, one of the best I've heard in a long time. It would make a great closer too, seeing as alot of the songs seem to be about struggle and it's about liberation. Honestly, you can all have your opinion but it's just souding whiney to me. If you don't like what Coldplay's doing form your own band. Seriously. [thanks Cheese Nip 2]
If you honestly didn't think 'Every Teardrop is a Waterfall' wasn't gonna be on LP5, you were living in fantasy land. if you didnt want to buy a song 3 times, you shouldn't have bought it 2 other times. i'm gonna buy it one time because planning logically, i was gonna hold out until the album was released and see if it was on there instead (which i figure most likely it will be). worse case scenario: i wait till the album is out, ETIAW is not on the album and then i buy the EP to get Moving to Mars and Major Minus and save myself a few bucks. [thanks jc90]
Some people on this thread need to acknowledge the fact they chose to ruin the new album by listening to the festivals. People act like coldplay have done something wrong. You can want more songs, as I do, but those who are annoyed with the band about it need to relax. As for etiaw being on the album...did you all see the video and pics they put out. New album stuff everywhere. [thanks footyfan10]
The way I see it we are basically paying for the "free" bonuses we got with VLV (remember the two songs for the price of one concept?). EMI finally found a way to make up for it by making us pay for ETIAW three times and Major Minus two times.... That said, I am really happy if these songs are on the album because they are just fantastic, but it is still a downer that they were released as a silly EP, out of context, just to make a quick quid... The leak of new songs in live gigs, coupled with the fact that we will end up purchasing the same songs several times sure leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and I hope they will not repeat this kind of "promotion" in the future. thanks valypan]
I'll rather wait for any official news. Magazines have been wrong before and Coldplay must have changed the tracklist at least once since Q came to interview Will. I'm also curious as to why everyone sees Charlie Brown as an 'instant classic' -- it's a good song but imo not a going to produce a singalong in a way even ETIAW is! [thanks Miha]
Some people want Parachutes2, AROBTTH Reborn, X&Y's Twin or VLV Duplicate...but as another fan said...they're the best band in the world for a reason! Whatever they release will be awesome...because it will be a new direction from what they've done. ETIAW is different...whether you love it or hate it....it is and from the other songs played at festivals...they are too! While ETIAW took awhile to grow on me...I love CB, HLH etc. I for one think they won't disappoint. They never have and never will! [thanks Coldpl@y]
The majority of those songs listed are probably very unfinished and never got worked on much after they were first started. The band probably had hundreds of song concepts with tentative names. They did the same thing for previous album cycles. Oh yeah, ETIAW is putrid, but I've only said that every hour of every day for the past 2 months. [thanks Corkus]
I for one am really glad that ETIAW is on LP5. Why is everybody else so against it? It's by far the most uplifting, euphoric and vital songs they've ever written. I find it bizarre that fans can dislike a song which is so in line with a bands creative curve and is so musically adventurous. Am so glad LP5 is close, and by what we've heard so far, it'll be in incredible. Let's face it, we were worried about x&y, we were worried about VLV, and both turned out to be incredible. Let's just trust the boys we love so much to deliver something we'll love for years. [thanks Adam84]
I have a special affection for ETIAW, I mean: a) it's, to me, an incredible song -and yes, if that debate is still on, I do have a brain and I also like the band's old stuff!- b) it's the first song they released for this new era. It carries a lot of new, fresh air with it. I really wouldn't bother seeing it as LP5's closer. But, indeed, like many people here, I also hope we'll hear A LOT of new songs, and really new, not the songs they played during festivals... except Charlie Brown... They have been working so long, with so many new titles, they just can't re-release Major Minus for example! But if it makes artistically sense to them, the best thing to do is to shut up and just see what kind of new musical journey they prepared for us. [thanks Lu'kaa]
I completely agree that releasing ETIAW (and MM) again is total overkill, but at the same time...I always figured it would be an album track, so I'm not surprised and didn't have a hope for things to be otherwise, where it was just a one-off, fun summer release. I think Coldplay are pretty precious with what they officially release and aren't the sort to leave off a song they're obviously proud of simply because they've already put it out as a single and EP track. Annoying, sure, because I'd MUCH rather exchange a song that we've already heard out for something brand-new, but I just don't see them being the sort to do that these days. [thanks ApproximatelyInfinite]
ETiAW was always going to be on the record the way it was promoted by the band. If Major Minus is on the record, I'll be surprised given that it was for all intents and purposes, released as a B-side on an Extra Play for Every teardrop. Same for Moving to Mars. I can imagine HLH and CB being on the album, and people have a right to be pissed about it, but in all fairness, recordings can be so different from live performances so it's not going to ruin that aspect when you first listen to LP5. [thanks Bonus_mosher]
Not everything they release is automatically good because it's Coldplay (e.g. ETIAW). Of course they make mistakes, and so do we, nobody's perfect and everyone will like different songs than others anyway. So, I wonder, am I the only one who thinks synthpop/ electro-pop being associated to Coldplay sounds like cussing or even blasphemy? ... I'm guessing everyone knew, especially EMI, that a single like that at the beginning of summer would mean straight cash. Although I used to think that they wanted to know how people would react to it, I now think that's rather a naive assumption, dunno. [thanks Tryptophan]
What so aaaall of the songs that weve heard already at the festivals are gonna be on the album? Dont get me wrong I love the songs, but I was hoping they would be b-sides, making room for more new songs that we havnt heard! This albums not gonna be very much of a surprise then is it when I'm singing along to half the songs on my first listen through! [thanks Jonesey16909]
I'm a fan of ETIAW. The problem is not the song itself, but the fact that they have already released it twice before the album. And buying a song three times, no matter how awesome it is, is annoying. As you said, ETIAW is great, but it definitely shouldn't be on LP5...(at least that's my opinion) ... Nothing is clear enough to have any certainty concerning the songs. Even the Oracle sort of implied it mightn't be true. Obviously the best thing to do is wait for the band themselves to announce this stuff. I don't trust magazines anymore. [thanks Bluejay]
TRANSCRIPT [thanks mimixxx]
They're skating close to deadlne, but Coldplay are confident that album number 5 will tickle you...
It's one week before Coldplay perform their headline spot at Glastonbury and in their North London studio hideaway all is not calm. They should by now have done and dusted their imminent fifth album, due this autumn. Except they haven't. The title is among an undecided "shortlist of three", the tracklisting "isn't quite there" and they're still mixing and overdubbing extra bits as they think of them. It is, in fact, exactly the same nail biting scenario Q encountered in 2008 when visiting during the 11th hour stages of what became Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends.
"Yes, typical Coldplay fashion," laughs drummer Will Champion. "We're leaving it to the last minute. We'll keep going until it literally has to leave to get mastered and pressed. They'll have to wrestle it out of our hands."
Album five didn't start "in earnest", says Champion, until last March only to be scrapped and started afresh three months later. Early pledges by Martin that this record would be "acoustic" and 'subdued" fell by the wayside. "We're prone to saying things before we write an album that prove to be totally wrong," the drummer explains. "There came a point last summer when we realised we had different types of songs in various styles, so rather than make an album that's all stripped down we decided to throw everything into the one basket. It's true we scrapped stuff, but a lot of those songs became antecedents of what you'll hear on the finished album. It's all part of our musical evolutionary process."
While still based in The Bakery, their "secret" studio down a back alley in Hampstead, for this record they expanded their operations to a new rehearsal space over the road nicknamed The Beehive. "It's like an old village hall," describes Champion, "a big space where we can play together. Often when you're making an album you can become alienated from each other in a studio environment. The Beehive was a deliberate move to get us playing together so we could get a feel of how the songs would sound as a live band as we were recording, instead of waiting until the record was done and then going out on the road. Thursday nights were our Beehive nights. We'd be in there playing, almost like a gig. It was, literally, a hive of activity. We were all worker bees."
Recording between The Beehive and The Bakery, the album preserves the winning formula of Viva La Vida's production team including Markus Dravs, the group's regular soundmen Dan Green and Rik Simpson, and studio Midas Brian Eno. "For this album Brian's more of a collaborative writer than producer. He was with us more in the early stages when the songs were being created, though his influence is everywhere. He's omnipresent, even when he's not in the building he leaves his aura around for inspiration. Brian is great sewer of seeds whereas Markus is the farmer. He has amazing powers of concentration, way beyond ours."
June's preview single, Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall, offered the first taste of what Champion promises to be a "vibrant" album, swinging its hips to salsa rhythm cribbed from Peter Allen's 1976 hit I Go To Rio via a dance remix first heard by Martin in the Mexican film Biutiful. Other confirmed songs include the U2-alike Major Minus, the acoustic ballad Us Against The World, Hurts Like Heaven (a likely single thumping to the echoes of Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark), the dubby Princess of China and instant classic Charlie Brown. "That was singled out very early on as a dead cert," agrees Champion. "At one point there was a lyric that alluded to Charlie Brown, the Peanuts character, but it's just a name, really."
Martin's previous comments about finding inspiration in the anti-Nazi resistance movement White Rose have indeed left an imprint. "There are a handful of songs on the album about trying to express yourself in a bleak world," confirms Champion. "A lot of Chris's lyrics refer to people standing up for themselves, even though they're being oppressed."
It should also please Adam Ant to learn that Coldplay have ditched Viva La Vida's "French revolution look" he insisted they'd stolen from him in favour of an '80s New York graffiti gang image, albeit one which this time round might raise a few eyebrows among the surviving members of The Clash. "Erm it does look a bit Clash, doesn't it?" blushes Champion. "When I saw the press shots the first thing I noticed was how much Chris looked like Joe Strummer."
Album Title: TBC
Recorded at: The Bakery and The Beehive, London
Producers: Coldplay, Rik Simpson, Markus Dravs, Brian Eno, Dan Green
Release Date: Autumn 2011
Featuring: Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall, Charlie Brown
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