Ccrules2791

I know some people have Viva fatigue but it's really the biggest song they've ever done. I took a break from it for a bit and coming back to it gave me chills. AFHOD intro 1. Clocks (shortened) > 2. Hymn for the Weekend (w/ Beyonce) 3. Yellow (shortened) > 4. Viva La Vida 5. ASFOS (w/ Fireworks) Maybe they'll mix it up but remember there may be a special guest on top of Beyonce & they have broad daylight for the halftime ... first in a while since they are in California. Would rather not see Fix You -- Charlie Brown would be a pleasant surprise or anything that isn't POC off of MX.

Setlist predictions? Assume we have 14 minutes (typical performance of the halftime show). A lot of times these things are partial My bet: AFHOD (as intro - 3 mins) -> Clocks (partial 2.5 minutes), special guest (seems like Bruno Mars - 1.5 minutes), Viva La Vida (3.5 minutes) -> Hymn for the Weekend w/ Beyonce (partial 2 minutes) -> A Sky Full of Stars (w/ fireworks - 3.5 minutes) = ~15 minutes. -- Would love for the final to be ETIAW but feel like it's that or ASFOS for last song.

I agree with a lot of these lasts two pages. Coldplay has also made a lot of growers lately -- songs that on first listen seem good but after repeated listening one gets more attached to. It's been like this for me since MX for sure (Paradise was a grower, and I even appreciate ETIAW much more than when I first heard it). HFTW, Fun, Army of One, Everglow, Up&Up -- all pretty much growers. Only had the woah reaction first time to Birds, Amazing Day, title track. Not a bad thing -- I think that's why you see a positive shift in the last few days on here. Don't think XMTS will grow though unforunately (or fortunately haha).

Up&Up as a whole probably has the strongest lyrics of any Coldplay song. Birds has some great lyrics. I'd say that the only lyrical clunker on this one is XMTS -- there are a few meh (HFTW, AOO) but AHFOD, Everglow, Amazing Day, Up&Up, Fun are great. Would love to see a night/day comparison of AHFOD v. GS - think the former comes out on pretty much every angle.

^ I agree. I also think -- and this may sound crazy -- that AFHOD, Birds, HFTW is Coldplay's strongest 1 - 2 -3 opening punch of ANY album. MX with HLH, Paradise, Charlie Brown is tied or second. But I find these three to flow well into each other and HFTW has really grown on me. I think the album gets a little disjointed with Everglow through XMTS. Not that the songs themselves are bad but just flow wise. DAAHF is probably my favorite closer; but Up&Up is fantastic.

After listening to the Church concert, makes me very happy that they put out the album first before debuting a lot of the songs (unlike with MX). Up & Up sounds great live as does title track. Can't wait to hear Fun, Birds, Army of One live -- liking the trickle of plays approach. They could really do a concert like CM said of openers/closers. Would love to see LiT ii back for an encore this tour.

Fantastic song -- one of my favorite songs on the album. Like the quick stop. I don't think they've ever done much of those. Chris really likes Birds haha -- Fly (On), Speed of Sound, Birds, Amazing Day, Up with the Birds, HFTW, I'm sure there are a few other references on here.

I think the front end flows nicely as is already: AHFOD Birds HFTW AOO/XMTS AOAL Fun Kladeioscope Everglow Miracles Amazing Day Color Spectrum Up & Up

Hi guys! So second time through. Here are some initial thoughts: AHFOD - Great opener, maybe second for me behind like LiT, wish that the words were a little more audible. Will check out the live version for that. Definitely a positive vibe. A Birds - Wow. Wow. As a fan of Phoenix, this feels right up their ally. Just so happy and can definitely be a sound track to some movie montage scenes (sorry). I like the sharp drop at the end; can't have all songs end the same. A+ HFTW - Growing on me. Beyonce is a great edition, and the melody is great. You want to love the lyrics in this sort of combo, but it's kind of hard even for an arden fan. Find it harder to love than other big center tracks (i.e. Viva La Vida). Still, great music sound, and I think it works around Chris's theme. Need some more listenings. B Everglow - Decent. We got a lot of Coldplay ballads that are better, and some are worse. Definitely better than a lot of MX/GS (Up in Flames, True Love) seem like the comparisons. C+ Adventure of a Lifetime - Fantasticly fun, like an younger sibling to ETIAW. It actually makes me go back and appreciate the former (which honestly could fit on this album as the center song IMO more so than on MX). Anyways, love the full band use in this and feels like high energy. B+ Fun (ft. Tove Lo) - Underrated possible hit hear. There's something very magical about this pairing and the lyrics are more Coldplay. I like how it starts loud -> duet -> quiet. Could see this going places. A- Army of One - A little less catchy than I thought it would be. Maybe needs more listens. The music sounds good. B- X Marks the Spot - The Q review said it best. Maybe some hidden tracks are best truly hidden. Not as terrible as forums were hyping it, but heart boom line is fairly awful. D Amazing Day - A classic. Absolute classic. Heck, I think half of the songs here are classes. We've heard this one a lot, but the sway style, beautiful strings, and nice lyrics. A+ Up & Up - I need to listen to this live version that everyone is talking about, but this one is no slouch. Reminds me of hey jude in that it's supposed to be quiet and builds. The perfect message that ties in with the Guest House, and the solos are fantastic. Definitely Coldplay meets Champagne Supernova meets Hey Jude. A Transition Tracks - Come on guys, no need to be so harsh on these. They are what they are! I like how CP does them, and luckily the album length doesn't suffer like I felt like with MX. Yes the numbers are the same. Overall - This might be a case, unlike ghost stories, where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Not sure if there is a standout track of the album nor how cohesive it is. Yet, there are a bunch of strong individual songs and the theme of recovery resonants (Up&Up). B+

Really grooving the new direction. I remember my initial reaction to ETIAW and being like... is this really Coldplay? After a few listens, I really appreciated the song. Haven't had the same pumped reaction to recent stuff (Paradise was a grower, I like ASOAS but it felt a little too discordant than jubilant i think). But this one is just different from first listen -- like Coldplay meets Daft Punk. Can't stay the same. This feels like an upgrade of other takes on the genre by mixing in a great bass, guitar lick with the disco style background. Like a much more confident Fitz & the Tantrums if you know the band. Looking forward to the album. GS flowed really well but hoping this one is stacked from beginning to end like Viva (I felt like MX fell off towards the back half).

Is the snippet/clip only 8 seconds right? It's just multiply looped right?

Definitely weird that it's in a gas station here in DC -- but it is what it is I guess. The area is about 3 blocks from the Metro and near a pretty popular part of town. Was weird seeing it but definitely someone with access to the posters since there are four of them!

Back on -- I didn't really notice anything about the small left hand side. I think the bigger news for me at least was using the same December 4 date and not some later US release (I remember MX had a few day difference). So it's good to see consistency. No sign of it being Coldplay if we didn't already know. What's great is that the logo is fairly attractive on its own. Can't think of a CP logo for an album that stands out as much.

Columbia Heights -- basically 14 & W NW near the gas station across from the CVS

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32662[/ATTACH] Caught these guys on a walk earlier today in Washington DC. First time seeing these in the US! Have there been other non-London sightings?

Hi Guys! Had to jump in -- despite not being a major poster (have had an account on here for a while). At the first listen, thought this very much sounded like AIMH but really has a lot more going on I think. Johnny's guitar rift has a very sway-ey feeling to it. That makes it different than a lot of the other Coldplay ballads (The Scientist, Fix You) which have more of the tinge of sadness. I think this is in line with the theme of the album, a sort of momentary appreciation. The bass work is pretty impressive throughout. I also think the "OHS" work here -- like some other posters have suggested. Actually, the only other time that I really felt a positive reaction to that technique was in Viva La Vida. They just aren't overkill. Just nice and kind of quiet. We may have our set 1 closer here (pre-encore). Just Chris's end speech at the Global Citizens Festival "Have a nice day every body," -- could easily end the normal set of a new tour. Don't think it would be the last song of the show (which typically goes to a ETIAW or ASFOS type pump up song), but there's definitely opening/closing song material here. Any other thoughts? Think this bodes well for the album. MX in retrospect had a ton of big, explosive songs. GS while more intimate felt (purposely) small in scope. I think this song just feels big, lyrically, and musically is something that we haven't heard before. In a sense, maybe it's a natural progression of AIMH with some more time to bake in the cake (like a cross between that song and Strawberry Swing). Anyway, thanks for reading -- don't post often put looking forward to AHFOD.

Hey all! This is my first post real and first thread. I was just reading through some of the reviews and thinking about some of the reactions to the album. I was wondering if you guys thought that a lot of the more negative reaction is due to the fact that Coldplay debuted 4 - 5 songs during the summer. I know personally I really enjoy Charlie Brown, HLH and ETIAW. And I admit it's hard to not think of them as "older" songs already because they've been live for a while. But at the same time, I think that some people may be giving the album a bit of a hard time for an unfair reason--already hearing some of the material. I think that overall everything sounds great and was wondering what effect, if any, releasing some of the songs up early has had on the album.