Doomotron

My CD of We Pray finally came, but the card was bent and the CD had fingerprint marks on it. Not happy. I don't know if it's my problem or the CD being too new, but neither Windows Media Player nor Exact Audio Copy were able to figure out what the CD was. WMP assumed it was something by the 'Blessid Union of Souls'. Granted it did also believe that The Unforgettable Fire by U2 was actually War by the same artist. Fre:ac did figure it out, but I couldn't figure out how to embed the metadata to the ripped files. In the end I had to manually input the information into EAC to get something consistent with the rest of my rips. Edit: Apparently EAC can't add metadata to WAV files, even though Windows Media Player. Ripping this CD is a nightmare.

Agreed. While there hasn't been much going on with Radiohead since A Moon Shaped Pool and Spectre, their lack of new material has helped them achieve a status and cult following that isn't shared by many bands. In many ways, I think that Coldplay would have been seen in a similar light if they'd stayed with their pre-MX style. I've seen plenty of memes about the quality of Coldplay's music but none about Radiohead's. That said I do compare The Smile and Radiohead because they are in effect the continuation of the latter, the three Smile albums are probably the closest we'll get for a long time to new Radiohead material. While I don't engage that much with the Radiohead community, I expect that there is a lot of overlap between the Radiohead and Smile fanbases - undoubtedly more than the Radiohead/Smile and Coldplay fanbases today.

Exactly, I think there isn't much overlap between the Radiohead and Coldplay fanbases... Although I am part of that overlap.

I live in the UK though - perhaps they're delivering them based on how early we ordered them. I ordered mine one or two days before release, so that could be the reason.

I still haven't received my We Pray CD. No shipping updates on Amazon. Has anyone else got it yet?

Depends on your shipping option. I opted for the cheaper one so I'm expecting it to be delivered in a day or two. I think my MOTS pre-order came the day after release, but that was the more expensive shipping option. I doubt any shipping option will beat Amazon's, which delivered my copy of Gran Turismo 7 the day before the game came out, meaning I was a day -1 player.

Well, unless Coloratura is counted as an MOTS single.

I was listening to the different parts of I am a Mountain, and the bits from the Moon Lounge and the start of the Singapore soundcheck (not part of the video on YouTube) sound like I've heard them before, like they're reminiscent of other Coldplay songs. I can hear bits of Life is Beautiful and Weirdo in it, I think. It's really weird.

I'll do that when it gets delivered, assuming the files will fit (I always rip to WAV files). I've listened to the single on Spotify, and I don't think it's as bad as the live version. The semi-rap section in the middle (Little Simz I believe) is what kills it though for the same reason I don't listen to Lost+. If there was a version without that bit it could probably make it onto my 2700 song playlist on Spotify which at the moment has almost every Coldplay song on it. I may try to edit the song when I get the CD to make a better version, but no guarantees.

Despite my feelings on the song I decided to pre-order the CD since the remixes won't be available for a few more weeks elsewhere, and I'm hoping one of the three remixes is more enjoyable than the regular version. If they aren't, that's £9 down the drain. 😀

I haven't kept up, is Angel's Song one of the ones in Alien Hits?

I think it means versions of the songs recorded via Voice Memos. Read: rough early recordings. Quite cool to have I think.

Pretty meh lyrics if real.

We know what the instrumental will be like, but it all comes down to the lyrics. The lyrics of Death and All His Friends are great but I think I'd still like the song if they were different. The lyric 'I am a mountain' sounds a bit cheesy but in context it will probably (hopefully) make sense. Many Coldplay songs have individual cheesy lyrics so I'm not too worried about that though.

It's worth noting that out of all the Coldplay songs the one I've seen I Am a Mountain compared to the most is Death and All His Friends. If IAAM is even half as good as DAAHF Coldplay will have a great song on their hands.

If they swapped Aeterna and the Orchestra of Rainbows it would probably be closer to what Benjod says. We're so close yet so far.

Well yes, but the same can be said about Music of the Spheres, Alien Choir, Human Heart, Music of the Spheres ii, and Infinity Sign. Coldplay seem desperate to use emojis. If only they found out you can use them in texts rather than album tracklists.

I would have loved to have the acoustic versions of Higher Power and My Universe on CD.

If you provided me a list of the top ten rap albums of all time, agreed upon by 1000 people and based on some empirical method of measuring song quality, I still wouldn't like any of them because I don't like rap. I don't know what genre of music We Pray is, but god do I hate it. It could grow on me over time, but at the moment it is perhaps the least Coldplay-like song they've ever made, probably as far or further away from the core Coldplay style as Los Unidades. That said, I did think Timbuktu and Voodoo were alright songs, but I probably wouldn't say that if they were Coldplay singles destined for a future album. That said I still have relatively high hopes for Moon Music. I doubt it'll unseat Mylo Xyloto as my first choice Coldplay album, but it's in a better place than Music of the Spheres. That album had two songs I loved, two songs that I liked, and the rest were okay were a bit mid. I'd rather have an album of nine songs I like and one I hate rather than one where I can't form an opinion on the majority of the tracklist. 😀 If they want to go with space-ey covers, they could have gone for something like a nebula on a black background. Darker, but it would still fit in with the Moon Music look. It would be a bit like the dark variants of the Higher Power cover. That said, I do like how the cover looks, but it would have worked better as a non-album single. The last time Coldplay released a single with a cover that had nothing in common with the album it was from was Let Somebody Go, and I'm not aware of any instances of it before that. We Pray's cover is certainly simple but it has grown on me a bit since I first saw it. I think the vinyl version would look look quite good along with the other records I have.

The cover for We Pray is definitely in the 'we didn't even try' category. I have a PowerPoint presentation with dozens of more interesting cover artworks that I've made myself. I am shocked though that Feels Like I'm Falling In Love didn't get a physical release. The artwork is nice, which would be a bonus. It seems like they are brushing it under the carpet a bit. If We Pray was a completely different style of song I'd probably buy the single, but since I don't plan to listen to the song again I have no interest in getting it. Hopefully the release is good though. The MOTS singles were a bit lazy.

I pre-ordered the record solely because of the cover. I got the Notebook CD as well, but I don't like the cover art of it.

I'm not comparing them objectively. Both songs are ones I'd skip as soon as they come on. I exported my own version of Army of One to use on Spotify that doesn't have X Marks The Spot so I don't need to listen to it.

It's just a type of song that I don't like. It's the sort of song that you'd get in the background of a limp BBC drama - if it was playing on the radio I'd change station. It fits into the same category as X Marks The Spot: immediate skip material.

I've seen it to. I am a Mountain has some cheesy lyrics (not helped by the people there who looked like they were each paid a tenner to enjoy themselves) but I'm pretty sure I'll really like the song when it does come out.

Yep, still don't like it.