Coldplay and Rihanna's studio hookup "Princess of China" has been made available for listening pleasure thanks to an early stream of the song via iTunes. If you can't get iTunes then there are various streams available via YouTube and Soundcloud already. Princess of China is already trending on Twitter just hours after its first listen. What did you think of the song? Let us know in the Princess Of China - sub-forum now - don't forget to vote in the 1-10 sliding poll when you've heard the song! (the best comments will be published here on the main site).
During the song, Chris Martin and Rihanna take turns in narrating a tale of two broken hearts while the Jonny, Will and Guy band provide the backsound in a form of synth beat. Chris sings: "Once upon a time we fell apart/ You were holding in your hands the two halves of my heart." Rihanna then sings: "Once upon a time we were burning bright/ Now all we ever seem to do is fight. You could have been the princess, I'd be a king/ Could have had a castle and wore a ring/ But, no-oooh, you let me go-oooh."
Chris explained that Rihanna had lent her vocals to Princess Of China for the band's forthcoming record, which comes out on October 24th. "She has such an amazing voice and it's so different to mine," Martin told The Sun recently. "When the vocal happened I thought 'Wow, you sound different' but I think that's also because she was singing a different song to what we are used to hearing from her and it is written by a bloke from Devon."
Chris also recalled the moment when he asked the Bajan singer whether she would be up for the collaboration, admitting that he was initially nervous about approaching the star. "The album is designed as a whole piece. It has boy and girl lead characters and top of our list for the girl part was Rihanna... but it took a while to pluck up the courage to ask her," he said. "We did a show in Las Vegas and I met her and said, 'Do you think there's any chance?' I was very Hugh Grant-like and spluttering about it."
Lyrics to Princess of China:
Ooooooohh...
Once upon a time somebody ran
Somebody ran away singing as fast as they can:
"I've got to go...I've got to go"
Once upon a time we fell apart
You're holding in your hands the two halves of my heart
Oh whoa-oh, oh whoa-oh
Once upon a time, we're burning bright
Then all we ever seem to do is fight
On and on...
And on and on and on...
Once upon a time on the same side
Once upon a time on the same side, in the same game
And why’d you have to go have to go and throw out all of my flame
I could’ve been a Princess, You'd be a King
Could’ve had a castle, and worn a ring
But noooooo, you let me gooooooo
I could’ve been a Princess, You'd be a king
Could’ve had a castle, and worn a ring
But noooooo, you let me gooooooo
And stole my star
la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
You stole my star la, lalala la laaaaaaaaaaa
[instrumental]
Oooooooh-oh oh oooooooh oh oh oh ohhhhhhhhh
Oooooooh-oh oh oooooooh oh oh oh ohhhhhhhhh
Cause you really hurt me
you really hurt me
Cause you really hurt me
you really hurt me
Cause you really hurt me
Ooooooooh you really hurt me
Cause you really hurt me
Ooooooooh you really hurt me
The recent The Sun article which confirmed Rihanna as a collaborator on Mylo Xyloto:
Chris Martin is the frontman for one of the biggest bands on the planet and is married to Hollywood A-lister Gwyneth Paltrow, so you'd have thought he could play it cool in front of anyone. But in an exclusive interview, the Coldplay legend explained how global pop queen Rihanna reduced him to a bumbling, Hugh Grant-style rom-com mess. After revealing to The Sun that the band had pulled off the coup of persuading the sexy Bajan to appear as a guest vocalist on track Princess Of China, on new album Mylo Xyloto, Chris, 34, said: "The album is designed as a whole piece. It has boy and girl lead characters and top of our list for the girl part was Rihanna... but it took a while to pluck up the courage to ask her.
"We did a show in Las Vegas and I met her and said, 'Do you think there's any chance?' I was very Hugh Grant-like and spluttering about it. She has such an amazing voice and it's so different to mine. When the vocal happened I thought 'Wow, you sound different' but I think that's also because she was singing a different song to what we are used to hearing from her and it is written by a bloke from Devon."
Chris and bandmate Jonny Buckland, 33, were talking ahead of the launch of their eagerly anticipated fifth album — and it soon became apparent it is not only Rihanna the lads are huge fans of. After racking up worldwide record sales of 50million, you would think they had earned the right to call themselves Britain's biggest band. But in a startlingly honest admission, modest Chris reckons the lads will never be able to rival the success of Take That. Chris said: "We're never going to be as good as Take That but that's OK. We're too old to worry about that now."
And using a footballing analogy, Chris lavished praise on the manband's Gary Barlow. He said: "Gary's like the captain of music — the John Terry of English music. It's different for us. We're like one of those players that signs for a club in Italy — we're not necessarily as popular at home as we are elsewhere. But Gary's definitely the number one."
Despite Coldplay's array of awards, including seven Grammies and six Brits, they are not ashamed to admit they are huge supporters of the manband. Take That crop up several times in our chat, whether it's praising Robbie Williams doing Let Me Entertain You at Wembley as one of the greatest ever live performances, or talking about touring and admitting: "Unless you're Take That, you can't be assured anyone will want to come."
Chris is even looking forward to Saturday nights settled down in front of his telly watching Gary on The X Factor — but not until the painful audition stages are over. He said: "We love The X Factor like everybody else. I can't watch this phase when they're telling people they're bad, but once it gets to the live bits I enjoy it. For all the slagging off it gets, every week they're singing really great songs and introducing old music, so it's great. I didn't think it would work without Simon Cowell but it really does. That's because Gary's the man."
But don't expect Chris, Jonny and bandmates Guy Berryman and Will Champion to appear on the ITV1 show anytime soon, even though Paul McCartney has performed as a guest. He explained: "Paul was in The Beatles — he's different. I think we love watching it, but anything after that, I don't know."
Coldplay's intriguingly named album Mylo Xyloto is released on October 24. It is pronounced My-low Zy-letoe... and even the lads admit the title doesn't mean anything. Chris says: "At the moment it seems a bit ridiculous and I accept that.
"Something about it feels quite fresh. The title doesn't have any other meaning. I think we're a band with a lot of history now so it's nice to come up with something that doesn't have any history at all. We've had that title for about two years on a board and any other potential titles had to be written next to it. Other ones made more sense but we just liked this one, that's all we can defend it with."
Guitarist Jonny jokes that the process of finding a title was "like naming a child". And Chris — dad to daughter Apple, seven, and son Moses, five — admits he has received a fair bit of banter about his name choices. He says: "I've had trouble with that too. I don't regret that either. It's just a feeling of a fresh start."
If Chris Martin went to school with The Inbetweeners, the chances are he would have been kicking around with Will, Simon, Neil and Jay. And he definitely felt like a bit of a bumder when the band were knocked back by James Buckley, who plays Jay, when they asked him to be in a video. Chris said: "I love it. The Inbetweeners is amazing. When we did the single Christmas Lights we asked the guy who plays Jay if he could be in it. He couldn't so we changed the idea. We were very much turned down and, having seen the movie, they were right to stick to that. I'm glad it's doing great."
Despite their enormous global success, the Coldplay boys clearly feel there is a lot resting on this album. Speaking of the passion invested in Mylo Xyloto, Jonny said: "We want to do everything to the absolute maximum, whether it's playing live or recording. This could be our final chance. There's no such thing as 'established', you're still fragile. One s*** record and you're finished."
Chris added: "We're getting to the age where you've got to deliver or quit. Just because we were popular then, doesn't mean we are now. It would be great to not have it in the bargain bins by the Thursday of the week of release. Anyone who buys the album will really like it, except if they really don't want to like it. Then they'll have to wait a year and then admit they like it. The thing you have to accept in return for having very loyal fans is you have a lot of other fans that want to kill you. And that's OK. It's hard to accept at first but after a while you have to be comfortable with it."
One woman who had her fair share of criticism, though more for her personal life than her art, was Amy Winehouse. Chris says her tragic death earlier this year is a huge loss to music. He said: "With a voice as special as Amy's, you could sing about baked beans and I'd still want to listen. That just cements her greatness but it's sad that it has to be that way. She was always going to be a legend because voices like that don't come around that often. But it's just sad because we all miss out — and where might she have gone? It was the same with Jeff Buckley. We're all just going to miss her in a musical way."
For all of their pre-album jitters, Coldplay will definitely be around for a long time yet. Jonny says he can't see a time they would ever want to split. And for all his love of Take That, Chris insists none of them plan to "do a Robbie" and go solo. He said: "We're all on the same side and we're lucky because not every band has that. But our main focus is making our band as good as it can be. "We love what we do and we're grateful we're allowed to do it. If we didn't have each other we wouldn't be able to do it. We've seen so many bands where they have changed a person or someone's thought they wanted to do something different and it just f***s the whole thing up. We really don't want that."
With the lads going from strength to strength, that is definitely good to hear.
October 2011: Your One-Stop-Shop for Coldplay Info! [thanks ApproximatelyInfinite]
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