LisaFeehily

To be honest, I think it's too early to judge how well this collaboration with Max Martin worked out. Personally, I believe he's great at what he does, there's a reason for his immense success. That alone doesn't make him and Coldplay a dream team in my eyes though. On Coloratura it worked out very well, on HP less so (probably it's more his involvement as songwriter than producer that I'm not a fan of). I'd be surprised if they worked with Brian Eno again, or any of their other producers. If they want to keep evolving working with different people would make sense, in terms of their producers as well as their art directors etc.

Yes! ? And I can't even tell you what exactly it is about that song, I just can't connect with it at all. It's not even about oldplay vs newplay for me, or indie vs pop. Cause I love songs like Trouble in Town or AOAL. And I love it when Coldplay experiment, BrokEn for example is another song that I love and that I find more uplifting than HP for some reason.

Haha, yes, the ad distracted me from the solo a bit. I've installed an ad blocker now so it shouldn't bother me anymore! ? Youtube must have placed the ad due to the length of the video, it could still be removed though. Anyway, I think the video is very beautiful otherwise. Someone else on here rated Coloratura 7/10, and I think that's fair. It's a massive step up from HP (2/10). 10/10 for me would be songs like Clocks or The Scientist.

I really hope they'll remove the ad in the middle of the song on YouTube. The ones at the beginning and end should be enough. It was a weird interruption while listening. Honestly, I think that if they cut a song like this down to 3-4mins and released as a single that it would actually do better than HP. This style suits them as a band so much better in my opinion.

Speaking of Coloratura, what are everyone's expectations for that song? I looked up the word and found out that Coloratura is a style of singing most commonly used in Operas. Based on what I've read I suppose in the trailer it's the snippet starting at 1:36. Since they describe it as a piano-led anthem, will it be instrumental only? Or maybe involve chorals? Chris as an opera singer is too much for my imagination. ? Or maybe it's just a word that they liked the sound of and it'll mostly be a regular pop/rock song?

It's true that these days most singers use technology like live pitch correction or autotune. Probably, if you want to be really sure it's live you have to watch much older performances, e.g. from Queen. More recently, I'd say Amy Winehouse is an example of someone who made very little use of this. I actually watched a video on this the other day to understand how technology can be used to enhance performances. I also read the comments and it was quite interesting to see how it was split pretty much 50-50, with half of those commenting saying they preferred the polished version and the other half saying they preferred the more natural version. So whether we think it's right or wrong is very much down to personal preference. Sometimes, it can make it hard to tell what is live and what isn't, and in my opinion it can help weaker performers a lot but at the same time can make it very difficult to know how talented different musicians really are. And I still think that if a large portion of a performance is playback then calling it live is misleading, I think music must be the only industry where we think that type of thing is acceptable.

Another moment where I'd question if it was live is at around 2:25 when Chris made a mistake and you can hear how low the volume of his live vocals actually is.

At around 1:50min into the HP performance there's a transition from playback to live vocals in my opinion. Chris suddenly sounds quite out of breath, which he doesn't sound like at all during the chorus itself despite his dancing. I think from 1:19-1:50 is playback and same for the other choruses.

To me it sounds like Chris is lip synching the chorus during the Today Show performance of HP. And I also think Clocks was fully mimed.

The acoustic version is refreshing, especially the live performance of it. Seeing the choir on stage with the band is lovely. That being said, it's not a game changer for me. Acoustic or not, the song's just a bit flat. I'm also still getting used to how playback is the new live. I really don't buy that the Today Show performance was live, even if they call it that. Their visuals are always very beautiful and finally seeing a real audience is super nice. With real live music it would be a thousand times better though.

So it's been confirmed that HP is the soundtrack for the latest BMW commercial. I guess what Coldplay and BMW have in common is their goal to become more environmentally friendly. That, and how with their latest launches and their changes in style they've alienated large parts of their fan bases.

Yes, or maybe something to do with climate change? Or something esports-related?

If there are 12 planets then it could be a visual album, with them visiting each planet? that could be a way of introducing the different spheres to us and would allow for a more elaborate storyline to tie the different planets and songs together. And I agree, the video for the scientist is still my favourite one (admittedly I don't watch music videos very often), it was probably much lower budget but has a good storyline and it's just perfect!

I agree, I love her acoustic version of Bad Romance!

Hm, maybe she'll make an appearance too?

I watched an interview (can't remember which one) where Chris was asked if the different alienradio snippets meant anything and he said they don't. So who knows if it's just a bit of fun marketing or if it'll have a deeper meaning later on, and what they'll end up doing with that whole website. Same for the whole album conceptualisation with all the symbols etc. I hope it'll all mean something in the end. so far Higher Power might have a meaningful title but is otherwise not that deep so the album could be anything in the end.

maybe that'll be our BTS collab?

I thought the same, Human Heart was definitely a studio recording. I haven't watched all of their Big Weekend performance yet but the other 2 songs that I watched (Higher Power and Fix You) looked/sounded a lot like playback as well.

If it's a collaboration of some sort then some of the addresses could also have been pulled from the Coldplay store. Fortnite has hosted a few music events over the last couple of years already, e.g. Ava Max launched her album on the platform last year and BTS premiered a music video on there too. A few concerts have also taken place. These collabs are very lucrative, I read that Travis Scott earned $20million from his Fortnite concert! Something else I came across when looking for a connection between Fortnite and Coldplay is the Sensorium Galaxy, which is supposed to launch in Q2 2021. Chris Martin, as co-owner of Tidal, has invested in this and Epic Games are involved in this new platform as well. Even if it turns out that the posters and postcards have nothing to do with either of these I now believe that in future such collabs are likely to happen.

This could also be a continuation of Coldplay's gaming partnership. Looks like E3 will start on 12th June, and there's also Summer Game Fest happening in June, which iam8bit are involved in. maybe Coldplay will make an appearance?

Somebody could rip off the poster to see if the solution is on the next layer?! ?

I agree, some pre-recordings make sense. For example, if they wanted to play HP live they'd have to bring someone for the synths, a whole choir as well as Chris's daughter and whoever else might have been added in the recording. So realistically that's not going to happen. It can also make sense to pre-record something for a special occasion such as Worthy Farm. But what about the lead vocals on songs like Clocks, as a regular thing during their own tour? They wouldn't need to bring anyone else along for those. They used to be more than capable of playing these songs live so I wonder what's stopping them from doing it now? Are they not able to anymore? Don't want to? Think people wouldn't forgive a few mistakes here and there? Is that the case, are people too used to it from other singers/bands who do the same? At the end of the day, whatever the reason it shouldn't be called "live" if it's not. I bet most people don't watch closely enough to even notice this is happening- the band know this and are happy with it. There are singers and bands where I'd totally expect all of their performances to be playback but Coldplay are so talented they could play live and I wish they'd go back to doing that.

It's quite sad to think how much higher of a priority visuals have become in their performances vs musical integrity. they used to be so authentic back in the day.

If they have to lipsynch I'd prefer if they used the album/single version honestly. It's probably common practice in the industry but I'd expect better from coldplay. It's too fake.