LisaFeehily

They need to keep in my place please! Do we know why they're not playing coloratura? I'm also confused by the puppets 😄

Even some really positive communities can actually be quite toxic, e.g bts's army. I think Chris put it well recently, every time they release new music they lose some of their old fans and gain a bunch of new ones instead. It's similar for their fans, if we don't like what the band does there are many other artists who make great music too, they're replaceable too. Personally, I haven't listened to anything from MOTS in months but am still listening to Joy Crookes' album, which was released on the same day, a lot. I don't think the band are losing sleep over it and so we shouldn't be upset about it either. I guess people complaining about their new style is better for them than if those people were completely indifferent towards them and stopped buying/streaming their music altogether.

LSG could be performed live the same way as MU, with Selena on the screen behind the band. Since they've been using full playback for their MU performances (studio version) they could decide to do the same for LSG and Biutiful. I prefer when it sounds different live personally, it makes it more interesting. Anyway, their shows are really turning more and more into a stadium listening party with them using so many live and/or studio recordings, more than an actual concert by the band.

Maybe it wouldn't be suicide, but they'd probably kill off a good chunk of their fan base if they continued with more of MOTS1.

It would make sense to change the set list up more since they've been talking a lot about how they don't want to keep making the same old music anymore and they want to try new things. But even if they keep the same songs in the same order, I think sometimes it feels a bit robotic because the choreo, visual effects and backing tracks (at least for some of the songs) are always the same. So it looks and sounds the same each time, there's not a lot of room left for improvisation or spontaneity.

I want to like it because it's Coldplay, but watching this I found myself cringing more than anything. It's a visualisation of a midlife crisis...

Is this actually the official video?

True, HP was a bigger hit than Orphans. But was it really that in Europe, ourside of the UK? On the radio, for sure. But on the single charts and streaming it wasn't as huge, but it wasn't a flop either. I think record labels have quite a big impact on which songs become successful and which ones don't. HP for example got the biggest promo campaign of any song ever, was added to all the popular playlists, had so many different versions, big TV and festival appearances and so on. I believe that if they had promoted Orphans and EL in the same way that they would have achieved similar level of success as HP/MOTS. I think the general public loves pop Coldplay, but they also love alternative Coldplay. Yellow is in the Spotify top 200 almost every day of the year for UK and has been for US too after MOTS launched as well. Songs like VLV, The Scientist or Fix You are amongst their most popular songs still (in the top 10 on Coldplay's Spotify page currently). These continue to get played at all of their concerts because people love them. Either way, Coldplay lost some popularity over the last few years, especially in the US. We can speculate as to why that is, for example because they had a break, they're getting older (it's a very ageist industry), reviews for AHFOD were very mixed etc. It's an interesting question how MOTS would have performed had it been released by a new band, with a less famous producer and without collabs. Would everyone here on the forum be as hyped about it?

My impression is that they truly don't care about the reviews they're getting at this point. I read some AHFOD reviews the other day for comparison and they were very mixed too, yet here we are with MOTS! ? With MOTS the focus is on trying to replicate the commercial success that AHFOD undoubtedly achieved. And so far, it seems to be working, MOTS has been selling better than EL did, although not massively so, especially if we take into account the scope of their marketing campaign. It's actually much closer to EL's than AHFOD's sales figures for now (for UK and US at least). So therefore I wonder how many BTS/Selena fans actually ended up buying the album? comparing some of the streaming figures on Youtube/Spotify it looks to me like they didn't really care too much about the album tracks? And despite the chart success of MU I'm not seeing it really taking off in the mainstream yet. I feel like Hymn for the Weekend or SJLT were way more popular with the general public, at least in my country. If Coldplay still want to focus on relevancy and continue to do these collabs then I kind of wish they released those separately from their future albums. That way, on the album itself they could experiment a bit more and maybe it would be better received amongst fans and critics too. I hope that for their next album they'll work with a different producer. I respect Max a lot, but I feel like this wasn't a very fruitful collaboration. In a way it feels like Max and Chris brought out the worst in each other. To be honest, I haven't really warmed to MOTS a lot (except Coloratura), so the prospect of another album/era along the same lines doesn't excite me much.

It sounds like a streaming party...

Everyone is a slice somewhere!

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/worst/2021/ MOTS is at #3 now.

Well, they look at it from a sales perspective. they want to get people to buy it who haven't bought it yet. With the BTS remix and orchestral version it's obvious who they're targeting with this. And their own fans might buy a digital copy on top of the physical copies they had purchased before. It probably works in driving sales. And that's why they'll continue to do this.

It works the other way too. sometimes we might rate a song higher than we would if it was a different artist simply because the band and their previous work means something to us. For example, some people say some of the new songs are not so great musically but will probably work very well in concert, so overall they rate those songs higher than they would without a live show in mind that they get excited about. But perhaps a really strong song, such as Clocks, will always sound great no matter where you are when you're listening to it. Probably if you ask a large enough number of people it'll balance itself out.

I agree that some critics are quite harsh in their reviews, and that's not constructive. If I try to put myself in their shoes, there's also a limit to how much they can cover in a review if they want people to actually read their articles, so sometimes they won't elaborate enough or cover everything. Then again, completely dismissing or even deflecting any criticism isn't constructive either. People might have valid points about the quality of the songwriting, lyrics, production etc on MOTS. Most people aren't just "hating", "trolling" or "stuck in the past", the vast majority of reviews and comments that I've seen have praised Coloratura for example, probably the most experimental song on this album. Without that song the reviews would be even worse. I also agree that lately at times their words and actions have been contradictory. For example, Guy said a while ago (I don't remember which interview exactly) that MOTS is their most experimental album. But it's not really if it's mostly pop and aiming at mainstream listeners. The MU collab was another example. Things like that cause people to start questioning their credibitlity. And as a result they get comments about selling out etc. The whole rollout of the album has been a bit messy too in my opinion, I think that's adding to people's frustration as well.