TheLostColdplayer

As many of you pointed out, it's quite difficult to clearly state what does "masterpiece" mean. In my opinion, ARoBttH is their most critically acclaimed album and will probably remain the most popular among non-fans. And for good reasons. It has great songwriting, dark lyrics and an overall uplifting tone, even in its darkest songs. It is also quite experimental and diverse, despite being "classic Coldplay" and part of their debut trilogy. I love ARoBttH, it's really a great album. But I believe that VlVoDaAHF is their best work so far. I can't explain why, but that record resonates with my soul in a way nothing else does. They really produced something unique and still essentially Coldplay. The instrumentation is incredibly diverse (think of the santoor in LiT or the strings in "Yes" or even those ethereal vocals in "Chinese Sleep Chant") and the band with Brian Eno experimented more than they had ever done before. They also included influences from all over the world in their music and Chris wrote some of his best lyrics, someone mentioned VlV, I can add VH, Y and LiJ. Viva is the album that made me love Coldplay and it still is my favourite album. However if someone asked me which album is their best I would answer "the one they never released!", meaning the acoustic Wedding Album they had planned right after Viva. It was meant as an even more experimental counterpart to its predecessor and from several interviews it appeared as if they were confident it would be even better than that one. They had also planned to make an animated movie in the style of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine to accompany the music. I don't know what happened at some point, when they decided to scrap everything and merge the project with MX. Don't get me wrong, Mylo is a wonderful record, but I still wonder what would have been if they had kept the two projects separate. After Mylo they gave up on trying to make a "revolutionary" album and preferred to focus more on "thematic" albums, alternating one more somber with one more upbeat, but without the intent of making "the album they would be remembered for" as they once kept saying. Anyway, I hope with all of myself that their masterpiece is yet to come and I believe they are still capable of making something really great. So let's keep our fingers crossed...

Paradise (live 2012) vs Paradise (studio)

Hi guys! Is there anyone among you who still has a scan of this interview to share? Many thanks in advance to anyone answering!!

Hi! Thank you so much for your answer! I'll search it immediately... 😉

Hi guys, This evening SkyArts will broadcast a Coldplay concert from 2006. Only in the UK. Is there anyone, who can record it and upload it here? (If it's ok with our rules, obviously! ;^) ) Thanks in advance...

Well, Chris always said that he saw the perspective of him doing a solo album as dreadful, so I hope he would never change his mind on this. He also insisted a lot on the fact that the songs he brings to the band are basic structures (sometimes completely formed, other times incomplete) and that the proper song is then built by the whole band, with the other members adding all the "colours". When The Police broke up, Sting had lost interest in the band and was already pursuing a solo career and the three members were heading towards different musical directions. I hope Coldplay could be able to always work out their differences and stay together as a band, which has been part of their strength since their beginnings. Honestly, I think they will stop making records for some time, but maybe not forever. Who knows...

YouTube always has a good video to suggest...

Well, if music comes from the heart I can't understand how they could be so determined to carry on such a plan. It sounds as if they wish to bring the whole thing to an end quite quickly. I'm a bit saddened by this approach, to be honest.

Hi! Maybe I'm not the best person to answer your question, as I discovered Coldplay a bit later (around GS), but I'll try anyway. All I know, all I know... is that during the Viva la Vida sessions Coldplay developed a huge amount of songs (as usual) and some of the titles were revealed through the band's official website, as the album writing progressed. "Famous Old Painters" and "Glass of Water" were among these, if I well remember. However both pieces were ultimately left out of the album. Later in 2008 Coldplay published the Prospekt's March EP which included some of the scrapped songs. "Famous Old Painters" was not released with it, though, and they considered it again for the following album on which they started working soon afterwards. "The Man Who Swears", another VlV demo, was also considered for the album. Time passed and the original idea for an acoustic album was scrapped and the band produced Mylo Xyloto, which did not include much from the previous era demos. By that time some of those unreleased songs had leaked, and between 2011 and 2013 most of them found their way to YouTube, where they became fan favourites. By the way, the post-VlV and MX sessions also produced a lot of material but not much from back then has leaked. This is pretty much all I've managed to discover.

Little premise: I'm not one that listens to album leaks and I love buying CDs, which is one of my passions. But... to those who say that leaking unreleased songs is a huge crime I ask: Have you ever listened to the (wonderful) Viva la Vida demos? "Bloodless Revolution", "Famous Old Painters", "The Man Who Swears", etc... Do you feel guilty for listening to those? Do you wish no one ever released those demos? Because, in my opinion, the situation here is rather similar. Then the leaks happened around three years later, this time six years have gone by since A Head Full of Dreams came out, so these demos are actually quite old, compared to those. And they are scrapped or already released songs, which otherwise would remain locked in some dusty archive with no one listening to them. And even if they would be released someday, it would be in a completely different form ("Arabesque", "People of the Pride"). Many artists, like The Beatles or The Beach Boys ended up releasing or taking part in the release of scrapped songs and alternate versions. Because for fans that is a way of discovering a bit more about the creative process behind an album by their favourite artists, non-fans usually completely ignore such material. Long story short, I'm not asking for the leaks or anything similar. But before insulting someone, I believe we should think carefully what we would do if we were in their shoes. Would I delete the files without listening to them?

They have been swiftly removed and the account that published them has been closed. Did anyone among you save the material? I still have to listen to them...

Same. Pure magic. I really love the artistic aproach to music they had during the Eno eras. The compositions were great and the lyrics so inspiring...

I knew of the video, but I'm pretty sure that this introduction refers to three videos for the three singles, all directed by Dave Meyers and set in the same universe. Ahahaha, nothing is impossible. But this summer Victoria Canal said she worked with them for the following record.

Just a silly question. Everyone seems very certain that Coldplay will release other two volumes from the MotS project. But how do we know? Why not just a second volume?

As you all said in previous comments this discussion is becoming really exciting! It would be interesting to compare this album with the other space-influenced Coldplay album, X&Y. The multi-layered synths there sound really spacey and there are several references to outer space: 1) the album begins with that 2001: A Space Odissey motif in "Square One". The song also features the lines "the space in which we're travelling" and "is there anybody out there, who's lost and hurt and lonely too?" 2) "White Shadows" is a masterpiece of a song and there is a line which perfectly fits with Coldplay's current vision of humanity: "You're part of the human race, all of the stars and the outer space. Part of a system, a plan". Not to mention the synths. 3) Kraftwerk's influence on "Talk" is in its spacey guitars and atmosphere. The song refers to a "ladder up to the sun" one could climb. Also the video ties perfectly with the space concept. Again, the concept of loneliness and lack of comunication seems to reinforce the outer space idea. 3) X&Y continues with that sound and features "You and me are drifting into outer space". 4) Then we have: "Look up, I look up at night / Planets are moving at the speed of light" in "Speed of Sound". 5) Brian Eno contributes synths to "Low" and he probably bought them at some alien fair, as they really lift the song up to the stars. 6) Twisted Logic also refers to a time "Hundreds of years in the future" when "There could be computers / Looking for life on earth". X&Y might not be my favourite Coldplay album, but it's a really good one and certainly a wonderful space journey.

Hi, thank you so much for replying!! You're right, though I hope for more storytelling within songs or albums. VlVoDaAHF had general themes (love, war, death and revolution) and stories within songs (like "Viva la Vida" or "Violet Hill"). ARoBttH lacked a general theme, but had good stories hidden within song lyrics ("The Scientist", "A Rush of Blood to the Head"). MX had narrative songs (like "Paradise" or "Major Minus") and followed the story of Mylo. GS was a spiritual journey through a break-up and towards unconditional love, learning how to alchemise all the things that happen to us, with each song representing a step forward in this journey. In comparison MotS-1 started with a great concept (the planetary system, with different planets representing different issues) but appeared to leave it quite underdeveloped and, except for "Coloratura", the space theme seems to have ended up only in the visual representation of the album and in the marketing campaign. For instance, I imagined Floris to be linked to a kind of environmentalist song, Ultra to an anti-violence/anti-war anthem, Kaotica to a song that addressed inequalities and the marginalisation of people and so on. But in the end there's not much of EL-style criticism of contemporary issues. This disappointed me a bit. Though some songs, like "Human Heart" or "Let Somebody Go", have a good theme behind, actually. Anyway, let's hope that with the second volume things might make much more sense. ?

I also had a similar dream recently!!! Anyway, can you tell me more about this: Does someone among you remember the interview?

I have come across this article and I found it really interesting. So I told myself, "let's just share it"! ?

Yes, this is true. But to me the latter sounds like "a band shouldn't go past its 15th year". Chris always says that he can't control music and that when a song comes he has to listen... so in case they stop making records, what would he do if many songs arrive? I don't want to believe he would just... let them go!

This is for all those saddened by Chris's 12-album statement (like me) with Love ?

I was wondering the same thing...

I'm afraid it might do the opposite. I believe that the growing unjustified criticism towards Coldplay (I mean the fact that reviews sound more and more like personal attacks - towards Chris's lifestyle and family in particular - rather than like constructive criticism) has done nothing good to the band. Instead of guiding them, many critics simply focused on their stereotype and stuck to that. For example, they continue to say that every Coldplay record sounds exactly like Coldplay, while the band has evolved so much actually. I think this eventually led the band towards the "We have nothing to lose, we've going to make whatever we feel like" or "We want to make music for those who like it", abandoning that desire to prove their extraordinary qualities to those who were not into their stuff. We would probably have had something different if only they had received a different reception by music experts. Not more positive, but more constructive and formative. Instead, now we have a kind of huge gap between fans, who adore them, and music experts, who mostly consider their music to be garbage, whatever they do.

I still have to listen to the whole album (Coloratura included!), except for HP and MU (and yes, concerning these two songs, I personally think that Coldplay can do - and have done - much better). However, reading some reviews I have the impression that the critic is not really reviewing the album, but rather reviewing the band. For instance I agree with several points in the Pitchfork review (f.e. when they miss Chris saying "We can't get bigger, we should get better!", instead of "We want to make music for those who like us"), but most of the piece sounds more like a harsh critic of 2021 Coldplay, which uses the album's flaws to corroborate its statements. It's a reviewer's job that of highlighting a band's weakness, but here they should have commented on the album, describing its positive and negative aspects, not simply saying what they think of Coldplay, making fun of them. They did not even mention Human Heart and Coloratura, which together make more than 1/4 of the whole album. Moreover, both Pitchfork and the Guardian criticise EL for having sold little compared to previous records, as if they ignored the fact that EL was not meant to be a chart topping album, and completely forget to recognise its qualities and its experimentation. At the same time they attack MOTS for being more mainstream and bringing nothing new, stating it was envisioned only to top charts and sell copies. Reasoning like this seems to be a bit influenced by prejudice. Once I hear the album I might dislike it even more than those critics. What sounds wrong to me in these reviews is not their content but their reasoning, not their low rating but the reasons behind that rating.

Aurora is a song by Phil. But it was left out of the record... that's why he hyped us about it. He wants it back.

In the video it looks like a sandy planet... but on the album it's definitely a star, it's clear when you look at the Overtura trailer. When I first saw the "My Universe" video it baffled me a bit, even more considering that Jonny studied Astronomy! ? Then I thought: "Let's just imagine that there are two different versions of the Spheres. The album one, where Supersolis is a star and Kaotica is like the planet on the "Higher Power" CD, and so on. And the Dave Meyers version, where Supersolis is a desert planet and the planet on the "Higher Power" CD appears in the skies of what is meant to be Kaotica." This last version is depicted at the beginning of the Higher Power video and looks much different from the album's Spheres. All in all something similar happened with Mylo Xyloto: on the album Mylo and Xyloto are the two protagonists, while in the official comic Mylo Xyloto is the male character. Anyway, what's your opinion?