TheBigBadBono

Everyone's talking about POTP and Coloratura from the Apollo Gig, and while those were both amazing the Coleman Barks instrumental stole the show. Absolutely stunning.

Just once I'd love to see them try post-rock, even if it's just one song. Coloratura at parts kinda reminded me of post rock. Maybe something similar to Time by the Alan Parsons Project?

I'll probably end the era broke. Bought a hoodie, the infinity station vinyl, a cassette tape, and a recycled vinyl. It's my first time buying their merch though, so I'm quite happy about it.

Sound - really, very similar? You have the guitar-driven fuzzy electropop/rock of Mylo Xyloto characterized by witty lyrics, ambient soundscapes, and huge anthemic choruses and orchestration. Contrast that to the much more downbeat Ghost Stories, with stripped-back instrumentation (for the most part), acoustic numbers, and delicate piano. Granted, AHFOD is a sort-of retread of Mylo but with worse lyrics, worse production and less ambition, but then Everyday Life which doesn't even have a signature sound. Jazz rock? Folk? Gospel? Post Britpop? Classic Coldplay? Christian Hymns? Even MOTS has a prog rock song in Coloratura, an upbeat pop number in MU, an almost completely acapella song in Human Heart, angry "metal" in POTP and the 80's inspired dance-pop Higher Power? Structure - Granted, they've never experimented with their structures in ANY album except for Viva - but cmon, Coloratura? You don't call that experimental in structure? Here's a few of their songs which have no choruses, weird choruses where the length and structure vary, or instrumental choruses, since you said "all" songs: Church, Champion of the World, Midnight, Up With the Birds, Kaleidoscope, Bani Adam, Arabesque, A Sky Full of Stars, UFO, People of the Pride, BrokEn, When I Need a Friend, Always in My Head, Oceans, Fly On, All Your Friends. Pretty sure Chris is kidding, because EL is also a conventional album? Also EL had collaborations, albeit the more organic kind, but are Jacob Collier and We Are KING collaborating for pop streaming numbers? We haven't even heard the entire LSG song so calm down there. We don't know if it's full of radio-pop singles, because why? Oh, that's right, the album isn't out yet. I agree with the other stuff as it's your opinion, though. Can't argue with how you feel about the band's creative direction, although I might feel different.

Question for the entire forum: if it leaks, would you listen? Personally I'll hold out until the urge becomes unbearable.

Agreed - Chris always said they'd like to keep their sound fresh and never retread - although they may go back and rerecord X&Y sometime in the future.

it's brilliant but so are Amsterdam, Death and All His Friends, and Coloratura. But that doesn't take away any of the quality - this is still a brilliant song, it just so happens that (almost) every Coldplay ending song is amazing. This is probably the song on MX that sounded the most similar to Viva - weird production techniques, Leonard Cohen lyrics, great ambience, and a weirder drum pattern.

The thing is, if they didn't release Coloratura the entire Internet's Anti-Coldplay agenda would be in full swing. "They haven't made anything good since Viva!" "BTS and Selena? No thanks!" "I want to see classic Coldplay, not stupid pop dance Coldplay" "Max Martin only does stupid pop songs!"

It sounds like Fun or Princess of China but with better production. Fun just sounds so muddled and because of that doesn't hit the highs that it should, while Princess of China is great live, but the synths in the song just make me want to cut my ears off. As for the actual song being better, we'll have to wait and see...

Imagine calling Viva La Vida pathetic nowadays

was scrolling through the older pages of this thread and it's weird how this was actually true, but different? We didn't get a Coldplay x BTS prog rock masterpiece, but we did get Coldplay x BTS AND a Prog Rock Masterpiece.

Oh ok, thanks for the clarification.

Someone sent a link to the Reddit that claimed to be a leak - it looked sketchy, but I downloaded it anyway. I opened it using an online unarchiver and its a zip file of the 12 songs from MOTS that MAY or MAY NOT be fake, but I need to access it with a password. Is there anyone here who has advanced password-breaking software they can use to open the zip?? I have it, but it needs cracking as it may or may not be a leak.

I'm sure they're going to rework it into something else - Genius says Jon Hopkins is on the track, and I don't know how credible that is, but going off of his Coldplay material (The Escapist, Life in Technicolor, Midnight) and his solo work (Light Through the Veins, Immunity) he knows how to make repetition absolutely beautiful.

That's true, but it could be because its 4 times longer than the other interludes.

My guess for LIB is that it's instrumental - the review never explicitly stated the presence of actual "Olé Olé Olés" but they said it slyly reworks it - so who knows, maybe it'll come as a piano or guitar line or one of Jon Hopkins' electronic flourishes? It's also worth noting that Life in Technicolor is instrumental but also has wordless chants in it, so maybe Infinity Sign will be in the same vein.

Infinity Sign is also Life is Beautiful! Rolling Stone might be questionable with their decisions at times but I trust the reviewer - she gave Everyday Life a high score and is a die-hard Coldplay fan. She even did NME's ranking of Every Coldplay Song Ever!

That's got to be the most expensive music video they've ever done, maybe one of the most expensive ever recorded. Seriously gave me Marvel and Star Wars vibes at times. The song may not be the best, but wow is the video good.

there are copies on YouTube that haven't been taken down yet: https://youtu.be/9pUoBpTy5t8

In terms of objectively ranking them: 1. Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends 2. A Rush of Blood to the Head 3. Parachutes But my top 3 favorite (as of the moment, you never know when your ranking might change) are: 1. Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends 2. Everyday Life 3. Mylo Xyloto The Eno eras rule.

I think that while many of the faults of MX and AHFOD aren't seen at first glimpse you see how flawed the production is in a life setting. Mylo Xyloto, while my second favorite album of their 2010s albums, is flawed on the production side. On the one hand, you have these excellent guitar-rockers like ETIAW or Hurts Like Heaven, then there are good tracks but a bit too loud - Major Minus and DLIBYH. There are odd songs that are quiet and acoustic, almost sounding like they came straight off of Prospekt's March, such as UWTB, UFO, and UATW. And then you have Paradise and Princess of China, which are great live, but the production just wants to make you tear your ears out, especially in POC. I adore the song live but I absolutely despise the studio track. AHFOD lacks the thing that still made MX appealing, and that was the ambition and songwriting introduced by Eno. Even though the MX tracks would seem muddied or too loud the structures were different, lyrics were different, and the melodies were different and more interesting. AHFOD by comparison does have its bright spots, but even those are hard hit by the terrible production of Stargate. Up&Up, AOAL, HFTW, and Amazing Day are all vastly better live. Birds and AHFOD are pretty good in the studio version but are even better live, and the flawed production especially shows when the stripped down Everglow is released as a single later on.

...nothing happens? 1 min long orchestral overture + lullaby-esque piano melodies - striking arpeggios layered over harps and strings + a great slow rock orchestral buildup + emotionally cathartic choruses + beautiful and minimalistic glockenspiel and string melodies + a 5/4 time signature + a David Gilmour-esque guitar solo + woah-oh-ohs (x4) + an ending coda = nothing?

...nothing happens? 1 min long orchestral overture + lullaby-esque piano melodies - striking arpeggios layered over harps and strings + a great slow rock orchestral buildup + emotionally cathartic choruses + beautiful and minimalistic glockenspiel and string melodies + a 5/4 time signature + a David Gilmour-esque guitar solo + woah-oh-ohs (x4) + an ending coda = nothing?

I love the little electronic bits where the chorus is supposed to be, caught me off guard but it's so good.

El is their best produced album without the help of Eno and Hopkins, but MOTS could be a close second if the rest of the songs are good. But that period of Eno, Dravs, and Hopkins was truly the best - the band truly shone in a live setting, let their experimental side show through, had great ambience and atmosphere in their songs, they pursued different song structures, their most anthemic songs were from this era, they had arguably the weirdest influences during Viva and Mylo, made so many songs in a period of such creativity that the songs are still being used today (Arabesque, ALIENS, POTP) and the rest are found on Youtube. The Eno era IS peak Coldplay.