MosesTheMarshmallow

Thank you for this!!! My girlfriend doesn't have the right version of itunes to make it work so it's nice to have this. Thanks! .........that's too bad. Hopefully it will be. Like the Bon Iver, Bon Iver deluxe edition which has visuals to go with every song.

Does anyone know if the visuals will become available some time somewhere? Will that be available on the physical CD / Target version???

Is there a non-iTunes stream??

Interestingly, I liked ASFOS on first listen better than I did for ETIAW. But in retrospect, ETIAW is really good lyrics.... "from underneath the rubble sing a rebel song" <-- it's like the worldplay and artistry of VLVoDAAHF but with the slightly poppier/life-affirming twist that MX put on things. Whereas now it's "I wanna diiiie in your arms." Which I find a lot less deep. That said, the lyrics of ASFOS are less cringeworthy than Magic ["fall so hard"] or Another's Arms ["your body on my body"]. Also, once you listen to the live version a few times I feel like the guitar parts become a lot more obvious in the album version. If you know what to listen for and suddenly it's all there.

Jajajaja this made me smile. :lol:

This - indeed the live version has a bigger Jonny focus. (Though it's also weird how some of the guitar seems to be on a backing track near the end) Indeed, I don't think this track is overproduced at all (that would suggest too much crap going on at once). Rather it's just produced in a way not everyone agrees with. My only gripe is that Jonny's guitar riff doesn't grow at the end as much as it could, the way songs like HLH, ETIAW grow.

Guy's laser harp is clearly corresponding to the bass because his hand changes correspond to note changes. Chris's harp seems to correspond to the synth riff at the end but he doesn't seem to be playing consistently enough for me to be convinced he's doing anything meaningful.

Could someone clarify what time they're on? Thanks!

Weird tactic sure, but I think the general public really doesn't seek things out past Midnight/Magic. Same goes for MX...I feel like most of my friends ONLY knew ETIAW and Paradise until way way later.

Well NGHFB and Snow Patrol did a prominent coheadlining tour in the US a couple years back...and I feel like Noel and Coldplay have to be even better pals than NG and Snow Patrol....so it could happen. :) Hopefully.

[video=youtube;zkwdmK80RYs] Just something to muse about while we wait. At first I thought Another's Arms was this song but it turns out it's still something completely unknown.

Possibly the best of any Coldplay artwork or about equal with VLV. Parachutes and AROBTTH were a bit boring IMO. X&Y was a cool concept but ultimately too simple. I like the paintings in VLV a lot. MX was a bit too bubbly-fonted and busy for me to like. Ghost Stories just has nice fonts, nice images, nice understated colours. It's nice to look at.

This is outrageous...one of the most unfairly commercial moves they've ever made IMO.

^Done. War has some of my favourite songs of all time...New Year's Day and Sunday Bloody Sunday are masterpieces.

Well.....keep an open mind? Paradise is vaguely inspired by hip hop (stuff like Umbrella), ETIAW and Midnight have roots in electronic type things... etc. Just because they're using inspirations from new places doesn't mean they're losing their identity. I think it's a very creative repackaging of that feel IMO. It adds to the intensity. And if you go back to old albums there's all sorts of odd but perhaps less adventurous influences. Like Chinese Sleep Chant via My Bloody Valentine, Speed of Sound via Kate Bush, A Whisper = something..but it's weird no?, Shiver via Jeff Buckley.

^O-hohohoho. :lol: WHAT IF.....the album is called "Ghost Stories" because every song has a hidden track that we don't know about yet, a ghost song if you will. :p

I agree. I think the issue is that on this album, Chris is singing in a loud-speech way - Atlas, Magic, Another's Arms, and Always in my Head all display this. Very dry with not that much reverb and it seems like it's structured to make the words better heard. Which is why it's so painfully apparent that some of these lyrics are a bit silly sounding. I will admit though, the final "your body on my body" is pretty chilling. And then when Chris whispers thank you....it's haunting but it's risky when your lyrics can be called "cheesy". Not the case with say, Yellow, where there's enough guitar stuff and whatnot to hide behind. By the chorus you hardly hear Chris saying "your skin and bones". It's all in the delivery, IMO. As I said in my above comment - the reverb matters so I agree with your assessment. The guitar solo is nice, I agree. It's a little boring though relative to what we know Jonny can do. Do you mean the "whooooooooo" noises on the backing track? That's inspired by some types of hiphop/trance/trap music (not sure which). I think it's a cool homage to that and fits the overall R&B-inspired feel of 3 of the songs we've heard so far.

1. Why do you like Always in my Head? Just curious. I don't mean to seem overly critical but I feel a bit challenged (by Coldplay) as a Coldplay listener tonight. 2. I'm pretty sure Guy's still playing bass though because if you count the number of laser beams, it corresponds to the intervals between the notes in the bass line and he switches hand positions when he should be changing bass notes. So not technically theremin. So I think NME is wrong. :p :p :p 3. I'm surprised anyone was still able to play their instruments after that stream. It was getting pretty streamy in there. ;) ;) ;) Exactly. VLV and MX are very out there lyrically. Though I will also say the raw emotional honesty of X&Y really resonates with me. GS's stuff not so much for some reason. Incomplete but... *removed since Tash posted same video*

Thanks for the info and videos Tash!!!!! Brief thoughts: 1. I don't like Always in my Head. I've listened to it 3 times now and it's even more repetitive and one-dimensional than Magic or Up in Flames. I like both of those songs but Always in my Head has distilled other people's criticisms of those songs into one thing. I don't know. The guitar line and synths are pretty but just very static. The bass line when the song picks up a wee bit is really nice though! The song just doesn't go anywhere and the lyrics don't seem very redeeming. Edit: the high hat in this song is really nice. So is the bassline. 2. Magic sounds good live! My only complaint is that Chris doesn't play piano (Jonny does and only at the beginning). I think it would've added to the authenticity and emotion were Christ to play piano until the very moment he actually needed the acoustic, as in 42. The live-outro is nice too!! 3. Atlas sounds EPIC live. This was even better than the Apollo performance besides a couple small flubs Chris and Jonny made (though they save it in both cases). It's a shame Atlas isn't making it on any album since it just sounds so damn good. It's kind of like the Moving to Mars of this era - a piano-guitar union that recalls old Coldplay but sounds fresh and modern through the presence of electronic sounds and synthesizers and more deep lyrics relevant to recent Coldplay eras. Great to see Will singing at the end too! 4. Another's Arms...I like its intensity a lot. It has a couple noises from what seems to be trap music which I respect a lot. The song overall has a lot of sex and swagger in that vague R&B influenced way. I'm not very hot on that vocal sample...it would've sounded better as a an ebow noise on Jonny's guitar or something. Or if it were Rihanna (I honestly do think that). Maybe it's just the way it sticks out. Also, the lyrics are a bit repetitive...in fact, that seems to be a theme with the songs we've heard so far besides Midnight. Repetitive beats, chord progressions, and lyrics. I guess that's consistent with the more hip hop and R&B roots that Ghost Stories might be trying to pay homage to, but I think without an appropriate dose of the Coldplay touch, things get a bit boring. That said, Jonny's solo in Another's Arms is quite nice and the piano works well [but as a precursor to my point about MX...it's nowhere near as interesting as Hurts Like Heaven, the benchmark of Jonny's guitarwork.] This song feels pretty "accessible." I felt myself feeling it on first listen. 5. Midnight - Guy playing the laser harp?!?!?!. COOL. Chris's vocals are good but not great. You can tell he's a bit fatigued by the show (and rightly so, because they're still performing at top form). I'm a little sad that the live version doesn't have a lot more dimension compared to the album version. For example, I would've liked to see Jonny playing an extra guitar line or something...which would've given it more Coldplay identity. Overall, we've heard half of the songs from GS and my expectations are down and my hopes are low. I hope that what we've heard so far is the weak half of the album and that the good ideas shown in these songs are carried along with just a little more Coldplay bombasticness. I just listened to MX and what I heard was actually 1. a lot of lyrical depth and diversity, 2. Jonny, Guy, and Will really shining on their instruments, and 3. what in my mind was an optimal balance between the old-Coldplay and electropop.

Blue song now!

Interesting idea. I read somewhere that Midnight is based on a 2003 track by Jon Hopkins - is that true? Perhaps all these songs then are diverse B-sides being brought back to life.

LIT is in EADGc#c#...this could be too. I would imagine EADGBAe though like another poster said.

Indeed. A friend thought it was RHCP in the first 5 seconds too. The bass tone is very similar to Otherside. And the actual chord progression is a little like Scar Tissue. Everything else about this assessment I agree with too - nice electronic and notelectronic balance. Is good and catchy...but could have been a little bigger and better in places.

I think it will be a love story....for someone who died. ;)

Great song - loved the bass and drums from the outset. I don't like the vocals in the verse...it's a little too loud-talking-like for me. But the choruses really get me. There's this weirdly vague R&B inspiration and I like it! I wish Jonny's parts were louder and longer though. Trade that quiet outro for more guitar solo. </3