Jedi Leo

I was unimpressed at first listen online, but it has grown so much since as my ears have caught on to the groovy melody. It cud be a a hit if released as a single I think. The melodic line is lovely.

I love this track exactly for the same reasons I love Chinese Sleep Chant: it´s hypnotic, dance-y and mantra like. It works for me, kinda wishing it wud be longer and a track in its own right, but it would have never worked in the album. It was destined to be a secret track from the get go, so short it is, but good nonetheless :)

These are not very first impressions, but third/fourth notes I wrote as I listened to it now with a clear head hehe . The very first impression was pure ecstatic joy and I was so moved. Coldplay has this effect on me every time! A head full of dreams : Coldplay have always been good at openers! So infectious and what a bass line :) And can Jonny ever run out of amazing licks? Love when its just him and the choir. Bit too U2 perhaps, but a helluva introduction to the album. Also loving the lyrics "Into life I've just been woken/spoken for" Birds: Jonny again right from the start, telling u this is gonna be an amazing track and it is. And another funky bass line! "someone had put a flare up, got me in the rays", just again loving the lyrics! The "rage with me" part with Jonny chiming in is just a sublime Coldplay moment...And then it grows and grows into epic territory before stopping on the cheeky "cool" :) Hymn for the weekend: Coldplay doing R&B. I dont even like R&B and I love this. The glass sound totally reminded me of Low *lol* If you dont like Beyonce you will probably not like this one. I appreciate some of her songs, so I am digging this musically and she has a fantastic voice no denying that! The lyrics are totally resonating with me, makes it automatically one of my favourites. Jonny exploding out of nowhere at 3:33 is just....ahhhhh! Heavenly ending too. Everglow: The intimacy of this nicely contrasting with Hymn. Its mostly Chris and his piano magic here, the others just sparsely intervening here and there. Melody gives me such a serene feeling, really a serene everglow, most fitting :) It has a "Scientist" part two vibe to me, just here he´s not trying to go back to the beginning to get what was lost, he has accepted the loss and lives for the everglow. Grows nicely and Jonny as always gives us his magic towards the end. Adventure of a Lifetime: Everglow nested between this and Hymn. Haha lovely contrast :) Jonny lick commands the song completely. My favourite Coldplay single ever actually! They are just so all together and all four so present in this song, so cohesive. The background choir is infectious as hell! Some of my favourite lyrics here "under this pressure, under this weight we are diamonds taking shape" : fantastic stuff. It just all works and ends wonderfully with the most joyous yuuuhuuu to date with the beautiful acoustic guitar chiming in. Fun: I am tired of saying it...but again Jonny magic straight from the beginning (he is so good he is annoying hehe). A wonderful melody here, which just flows along like smooth velvet you cant help but nodding along happily. The duet works too, though I dont find her voice memorable. Kaleidoscope: This is almost at the mid center of the album and its no coincidence I think. The theme of the whole album is built around the sentiment of this poem so its fitting it should be placed here at the core of it. A sweet interlude :) Strange jazzy ending though haha Army of One: A bit of a sparse song in the vein of GS production imo. I like the "wu bi doo" background throughout (more Stargate here I think and it works without being overwhelming :) Again I love the lyrics. "My heart is my gun" = "'Cause you use your heart as a weapon and it hurts like heaven". I like how they tie together lyrically :) Another memorable track. X marks the spot: OK here we go...I am ready to be lynched by you guys but I love this. It´s hypnotising and very experimental, reminds me a bit of Chinese Sleep Chant, carrying on the tradition of small bits of experimental music nestled between tracks. "wherever you are I find a treasure so I race for it" I like the lyrics again. I love hypnotising mantra-like music like this so I am digging it :) Amazing Day: Great bass once again :) This reminds me of some classic snoozer from the 50s/60s hehe But the Coldplay magic kicks in in the chorus and makes it magical once again. The lyrics are poignant, but then again I am totally biased here. It still moving to me as when I heard it live at Global Citizen. It teeters on cheesy every 3 seconds, but its always saved by either Jonny or a great melodic turn, so ultimately it works and it actually becomes epic towards the end :) Colour Spectrum: Appropriately gathering all the "colours" in the album, hints of the various songs hovering here and there, the ending of the poem repeats here. Maybe a forgettable interlude but still a nice little collage. Up&Up: Coldplay´s champagne supernova, this has my favourite Coldplay lyrics ever. I was shocked in the beginning, having heard this only live up until now. Totally different production here, not sure I like it as much as the live version. I would have preferred fewer synths here, but lets give this a chance...the choir is very prominent which is nice. Jonny appears with his solos and does his magic, but I still think this track is much more powerful live and works better in that version. I remember thinking the exact same thing about Another´s Arms. Surprising how subdued this track was, compared to how we heard it live, especially the ending, but I like it this way too. Verdict: Best early Christmas gift ever. Nuff said. Note on the packaging: I bought this on vinyl and it´s just gorgeous! The handwritten colourful lyrics, the poster, the two super bright shiny pink and blue discs, the cut-out cover. I must say my favourite packaging of a Coldplay album to date, even better than MX, which was pretty lush :) *clicks on the title track and starts listening all over again*

I am sure they´ve done all that except for the punch-ups perhaps haha The key word being they were not public about it and I believe that was quite a conscious decision. Oasis belong to the old school who thought being "bad boys" was glamorous when you're in a rock band hehe Fame can go to your head after all....

Ah you were kidding, sorry LOL One of my not so strong suits: I tend to take things too literally hehe :) PoC is pure synths yeah pretty much, so I can see how some might feel it lacks "heart" (if you associate synths with cold feelings and organic sound with heartfelt ones). The lyrics tell a pretty poignant story though. Did you incidentally like the acoustic version of this? It brings out the core of the song beyond the lush production. ASFOS I remember they said they worked very hard at trying to balance Avicii with Coldplay. If you remember the full Avicii edit thats Avicii having his way hehe while you can tell how the album version is still very Coldplay, though the live version of this scintillates more than the album version imo, so I agree with your impressions there. I´d say you can pretty much see how they entered new territory with PoC, then delved deeper into it with ASFOS and now they have found a comfortable place in this genre with Hymn. Kinda makes sense they got more experience as they went along with something that for them is new :)

This song is truly so U2 even I can see it (and Im not a U2 fan or U2 connoisseur hehe). It must clearly be an homage. And btw Magnificent is one of the few U2 songs I truly like!

The bird are ahem not random. We left them flying away on "O Fly on" , remember? They´ve come back now haha :)

Interesting comment. As I cant possibly view these 3 songs even remotely objective (they mean so much to me for personal reasons), I´d be interested to hear why you think Hymn has more heart and soul? They all 3 seem pretty much on the same vein to me, musically and lyrically speaking. People seem to be mentioning this, though I dont see why its seen as mind boggling? Its clearly a metaphor and nothing more. And when you are totally in love, there is hardly a better way to describe it than "drunk and high" LOL Its not really an intellectual intricate experience , its just overwhelming and it feels damn good haha :)

As much as I loved Viva when it came out , I seem not to be so enthusiastic about it when they play it live anymore...I think its simply because it has become so ubiquitous my ears probably dont register the melody anymore LOL

Well if you dont like the songs then clearly the show won't appeal to you hehe I mean I hear U2 shows are amazing, but I dont like most of their songs so I´d probably be bored despite the great choreography setting and all hehe I was strictly speaking of the quality of their live shows. There is no denying they are better now than they were, if you like colourful shows with plenty of surprises (like yellow balloons and paper butterflies hehe)

They are subjective but cant be compared unless you´ve been to the aforementioned different eras shows :) Truly you have to be there to get the full experience and then of course you can draw a conclusion :) To be perfectly honest I cud see myself enjoying the early shows ore than the latest ones when watched on my tv screen (I have all the live shows), but no way I wud rather go now to a X&Y show than an MX one hehe

Coldplay have a true childlike vibe to them, all four of them actually. I always thought so and one of the reason I love them. And yes they have embraced their inner hippy-ness hehe (Chris keeps apologising for it in the interviews LOL) and I for one dont mind, being somewhat hippy myself I guess :P

Arguably Coldplay was at their biggest during X&Y in the sense that the hype up to that album was huge! They always have B and even C stages during the stadium shows so it has those intimate moments too. But whats great about their big shows is that you dont feel like a small speck in the sea of people, you really feel involved in the show, so its both a celebration of the music but also of all the people together. :)

I went to the Twisted Logic tour. It was definitely not their peak live-wise imo. The Viva concert at Wembley was spectacular I remember, but it was MX in Paris which truly is the best Coldplay concert ever for me so far. Dual xylobands during Charlie Brown in a full stadium: need I say more :)

LOOOOL I am not seeing that ever happening :) Though John Mayer did one. Nice little interview btw, though aren't we guys always unripe bananas compared to the fairer and often wiser sex? I believe so , but then again its also a bit part of our charm...I hope LOL

You might one day :D (relate I mean) And yes our boys and their craft for creating memorable tunes :D Though to be fair Abbey Road was not the Beatles catchiest album haha (though one of my faves by them)

I read an article on this just today, where they wrote how also previous Coldplay albums were kept from Spotify for weeks/months? So its not really a new move. I guess Taylor made it come to the surface , but she´s hardly the first to do this. I kinda get it though...I mean Spotify is totally free (in some of its forms), so I can see why it would make sense to prioritise mediums which actually guarantee a sale for every listener.

I like how nerdy this is haha And I like your division. I´ll have a go at how I see them: Parachutes, AROBTTH, X&Y - Coldplay starting tentatively and quiet towards more and "louder more confident" self expression, kinda hitting a dead end with X&Y, unsure where to go next... VLVODAAHF Here they find out they dont really have to subscribe to the same formula or be forever casted in the same genre, so they rebel and start breaking the rules here and there. The revolution has started ! :) MX, GS, AHFOD Coldplay on fire ! Now they dont care what people think, they will be unabashedly happy and hippy come what may! hehe I see the 3 as a curve with MX as exuberant but in descent (it has many conflicting themes, the album ending pretty much with a break-up) GS reaching bottom for then rising again in Ahfod.

Wow...tough question. Now if only they had written 7 albums in the same genre, kinda like..I dont know...Bryan Adams? LOL Kinda hard to evaluate them against one another when they are all so different! So I´ll say this: *Parachutes is a masterpiece of intimate music. I still remember my very first Coldplay song I ever heard, Spies and how it gave me shivers and still does. *They never sounded so rock-y and powerful as they did on Rush. Politik in itself is a masterpiece. *X&Y was bloated we all agree on that, but hard to think of better crafted classic pop/rock at the time. *Viva was the first experimental album for Coldplay imo. And they pulled off a masterpiece like Viva mostly based on strings and large bells....I mean what a feat! haha Also this is where their live shows began being truly "something else". *MX has both the exquisite intimacy of Uatw and the R&B beat-heavy PoC. This then must be their masterpiece of experimentation :) Also an album featuring tied-in comics automatically qualifies as a masterpiece for me (I am a huge comic book fan LOL) *GS was a parenthesis for Coldplay but it yielded such haunting tracks like Another Arms and Always in My head. Also isn't O piano melody just sublime? *Ahfod: featuring "Jonny on fire blowing your head away with multiple solos at lightning speed". Need I say more...

Oh? Interesting. Gotta keep an eye out for that, thanks!

Back on this thread after ages...a huge fan of "the chief". I still remember his face when I met him walking down a street in northern London as a young 18-year-old lad, all star-struck going "Ohhhhh are you Noel??" and he just looked at me with a blank expression totally unfazed not saying a word, probably thinking "yeah ,duh". LOL He kindly gave me an autograph and was very nice in his Noel-y way :) When I first began playing electric guitar I even bought the Supernova Epiphone Noel edition. He was and still is one of my favourite songwriters and guitar player (despite his not considering himself one hehe). Saw Oasis live a few times as well as Noel solo. Top gigs. Was totally surprised and happy he´s featured on Up&Up , though I still cant tell which solo is his. Both sound so Noel-y haha :)

I remember Coldplay saying they´ve had all the typical band phases, including drugs and whatnot. They just never wanted to talk about it and glamorise it, unlike Oasis loved doing hehe

I dislike "Swallowed in the Sea", it´s probably one of my least favourite Coldplay songs. It was incidentally my old ex favourite Coldplay song...I guess it makes sense we split up *lol*

*LOL* I so chuckled at this! You see thats the flock of birds (love) from GS, the ones who passed on and Chris hoped they´d come back one day. And so they have on ahfod, hence all the chirping *lol* Silver lining for you: no chirping where chirping could have been expected, on "Birds" hehe ;)

I kinda like how you refer to them as a trilogy. Thats how I see it as well :) Though the revolution began with Viva, which kinda opened up to all the rest, I also see MX/GS/AHFOD as one big work all connected to one another :)