MosesTheMarshmallow

[video=youtube;w1zC440FBJU] Longest and best guitar solo in live versions of this song. ;) (the MX version is shorter, and the Ghost Stories guitar solo is a little less interesting).

I may be wrong about this but I feel like Jonny might have a slow-attack pedal or effect. If you watch videos, esp from X&Y era, you see him playing what sound like swells without his foot being on a volume pedal. Also, HLH is pretty technically engaging. :)

Guy came up with Magic when Chris was out - so that's something.

Most conventional wisdom actually suggests a solidbody guitar has more sustain, but definitely read more about the differences between a solidbody and semi-hollowbody (you can google this very easily). One consideration is you can get a hollowbody to feedback more easily, which is occasionally an important part of the Coldplay sound. I think you see Jonny using the thinline more often than anything else from the AROBTTH tour onwards anyways. Try the MX-era Strat just to see what happens. :p (but no really, having that tremolo can give you some great results like in Paradise's solo). If you're really going for Jonny's sound, a lot of it comes from play-style and effects anyways. Edit - Jonny uses a solidbody Telecaster in most of the Parachutes tour. I don't remember which one...but if you want an early Coldplay sound you can't go wrong there either.

Maybe all the buzz from this will lead to an LP7 announcement. :lol:

Just a reminder - you can use synthesizers to do ANYTHING. Spacy on X&Y, experimental on VLV, shiny texture on MX, atmospheres (and EDM) on GS. Same goes for horns and strings - just listen to Bon Iver, Bon Iver - which uses horns/saxophones in a really creative way. Check out this Bon Iver live version, paying special attention to 1:20 onwards and again at 2:00. I made an earlier comment in this thread that it'd be cool if Coldplay did horns the way Noel Gallagher has, which is kind of Beatlesy I guess....but there are valid atmospheric and bordering-on-electronic ways to use horns too. [video=youtube;ndUJfXmAUxs]

Whoa a different guitar than all the other ones before - what to make of this?!?!?!

I think it'll be about a child whose dreams are dashed, but finds beauty in resistance against the forces that force us to conform.

Indeed - about 3 songs have very similar drum beats that go bass-bass-snare-bass...which was good for Tompkins Square Park but a little repetitive elsewhere. Overall feeling was that it was good - the production and instrumentation is really quite top notch, but where it went genre wise makes it easy to compare negatively with their old stuff or with "similar" bands. There's no song on this album like anything on ARBOTTH or X&Y where there was an instantly memorable vocal line (The Scientist) or instrumental riff (In My Place, Clocks, Speed of Sound....later on, Charlie Brown). I think it was a better listening experience than Babel, which was much too long, and occasionally too angry. I don't think this is a bad album or bad music though - it's harsh to claim they're not good at anything besides what they were doing before.

I saw a Noel Gallagher interview in which he implied the most common album release dates are March and October due to various market reasons....so um...October?! :)

I feel like they've self identified as pop since Viva? Could be wrong though. Also...there are some pretty epic moments of focus for not-Chris on GS. I feel like it's not a fair assessment to call it so Chris centric besides the lyrics. Especially Magic and True Love.

Aw the organist went into the prechorus too early. Just got on in time to see Chris. This is nice. :)

One qualifying point to make about X&Y live is I think that a lot of the songs are just plain hard to sing for Chris every night. What If, X&Y, SOS, White Shadows and Square One are heavy on the falsetto in the choruses. Which takes a lot of control. It's not like the Scientist where it's one syllable per word in falsetto...but like EVERY word. Which might be the tipping point in choosing an X&Y song vs another.

Atlas is my favourite track overall since it has a great AROBTTH-era piano-guitar combo fused with the electronic-ish drums and textures of MX. Christmas Lights does such a fantastic job of nailing the Christmas vibe while still having the Coldplay element. I also really love Miracles for taking some elements of GS but making them more epic and guitar-driven. Tough choice, really.

At the more funky parts, there is tremolo and a wah pedal (or possibly a low pass filter pedal). Maybe a phaser too.

Oh man the B-sides in the X&Y era......SOOOOO GOOOOOOOD. Though I can see why those two songs didn't make it - TIDU is very vaguely like Low or Speed of Sound; HYSTW is very vaguely like Twisted Logic. Such rocking songs though.... </3

Yay. :) X&Y has amazing amazing songs on it. Spacey and atmospheric is just the way I like it. Jonny does some really neat stuff. :D In fact all the members are really top notch instrumentally on this album. I kind of don't agree with its tracklisting though. *shrug* Fix You and Twisted Logic could be switched and the Hardest Part could just be cut.

I agree but I am an ever-vigilant defender of MX. Most of what you said about Viva actually does apply to MX but MX just happens to push boundaries in a direction more easily labelled as pop. Besides not having a song with an odd time signature, MX has an instrumental opener and several tracks of unusual structure - UFO, UWTB..even Charlie Brown, ETIAW, and POC are kind of odd in that they only have one chorus. I think when you consider the juxtaposition of electronics and vocoder-backing harmonies with guitars and fast drums on HLH, that's a similar level experimentation as VLV.

This might be a lot of trouble but could maybe the top post from each page be put in the OP or something? I suspect my post and POC's might be benefiting from first-page bias.

If Stargate indeed produced Miracles then I'm on board. That moment just after Jonny's guitar solo where the beat drops feels like the floor just drops out from beneath you for me. And I think that's attributable not only to the composition but also the exact volume/effects/etc applied to that moment.

Twiglet's post is a good reminder that just because someone has a pop name doesn't mean they're going to make that same kind of music when working with someone like Coldplay. Wasn't there a time that a rumour happened, and then Atlas Project picked it up, and we picked it up thinking AP had a good source, and then Coldplayzone thought it was legit ...and it was all sorts of cross-verification of each other over something that really wasn't true to begin with?

How do you think the music industry is different from when you guys first got big? What would you be doing differently as a band if Parachutes were coming out in 2015? Any advice for rising artists?

Chris doesn't play the piano part live in the handful of performances he's been a part of. But maybe he did write it. The piano seems too integral to the original beat so it's quite possible Chris was only asked to sing. I don't know though. Love the song!

Indeed - I really like the happy/upbeat songs like ETIAW, Charlie Brown. HLH is an absolute gem. But there's also elements of atmospheric rock / post-rock that they're really good at that I want to bring into the present discussion: The live version of Spies in the AROBTTH tour involved an entirely reworked intro and outro to the song that are very textured. [video=youtube;NwWurWdDEGY] Just listen to Jonny make the guitar wail in this live-only introduction to What If: [video=youtube;hghwZfCIQgU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hghwZfCIQgU And they keep alive the Jonny atmospheres with the revamped GPASUYF (see the transition from Violet Hill into GPASYUF): [video=youtube;EVIw1sXFJE4] Question (since I've never been to a Coldplay show) - is this the kind of stuff that people seem to enjoy live? These live transitions are one of my favourite parts of their shows, but I fear that the younger demographic Coldplay sometimes caters to isn't into the intense and chill experience of music that Jonny Buckland can deliver for people. That said, I'm optimistic that they'll bring something like the aforementioned into their shows again or into LP7. :)

X&Y has a flavour of space rock as well. :) A lot of good atmospheric guitar and synthesizers.