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lol!! It's nice to know that I wasn't too crazy for thinking that Djokovic and Berryman look kind of similar. :0) It's nice to hear that you think the same thing, but because you're a bigger fan of Coldplay than I am, you've probably been thinking that they look similar much longer than I have. :0) lmao!! Very nice!! Apparatchicos is a nice word for male Apparatjik fans. I was thinking of a more vulgar term for a male Apparatjik fan. hehe So, Apparatchicos it is. :0)

+1 Morten has a truly amazing voice and has such dynamic range. It's incredible how he can hit such high notes and sustain them for a long time, as evidenced by Take On Me, Summer Moved On, and I Wish I Cared. Plus, he can get quite low and gruff. However, I prefer his voice when he sings very smoothly in the upper register. I can't wait to get my hands on his new solo CD, "Out of My Hands."

I'm so embarrassed. Being a huge DM fan, I should've known that Anton Corbijn directed "Viva La Vida." Corbijn has designed DM's last six studio album covers and directed many of DM's videos, especially for Music For The Masses, Violator, Songs of Faith and Devotion, and ULTRA. Also, he's designed the stage sets for DM's last six tours. I do enjoy Corbijn's video for VLV. It may not have the breathtaking scenes, like the video for Enjoy The Silence has, but I love seeing the European architecture in VLV. The VLV video definitely has the typical Corbijn quirkiness in it, as well. I found out that there's another video for VLV and that it was the first video made for the song. Do Coldplay fans like one more than the other? As for your comparison of the two Apparatjik albums, I agree that We Are Here is more emotional than SPIARH. I think that getting to hear the natural voices for We Are Here helps create part of that emotion, and as I alluded to before, I think that SPIARH's Signs of Waking Up captures the emotionality from We Are Here the best. I can understand your point about not knowing exactly what's going on with Apparatjik. So many things about them seem so cryptic and well beneath the surface. They're so random and quirky, but I enjoy that about them. I'd never known that singing songs with scientific themes could sound so wonderful. Also, it is great how interactive Apparatjik is with their fans. It seems that there aren't too many bands that do that. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the use of random capital letters for SPIARH's song titles. As for the lyrics, does anyone know where they might be found? For some songs, I have a difficult time understanding all of the words. I would like to see some concert dates soon. From the a-ha shows that I saw in person, Magne was such a ham, and I bet that he'd be even more of a ham on stage next to Jonas, Martin, and Guy. Plus, there'd be no telling what strange outfits that they'd wear on stage. :0) However, because William7 talked about Mew working on new material, I hope that doesn't mean that there won't be any Apparatjick concerts. It is sad that I found out about this thread way after the time when it was moving faster. I understand that many Apparatjick-releated things have already been discussed here. I haven't visited the Mew forum. Like you, I need to learn more about them one of these days. When I found out about Apparatjik back in 2010, I had never heard of Mew, but Jonas' voice is very good and has such range. It would be neat to hear what Mew fans think of Apparatjik. From what I've read, Mew is more of a guitar-based band, and if many of their fans aren't into electronic music, Apparatjik might've been a shock for them. :0) In my opinion, a-ha's music is the closest to Apparatjik's music. There are obvious differences, but at least, a-ha has made several electro-based albums, like HHAL, SD, SOTR, ME/MS, and FOTM. I totally agree. As I was talking about earlier in my very long post, I can see how Apparatjik's music isn't what some Mew or Coldplay fans typically listen to. Because you're obsessed with Guy, have any Coldplay fans ever said that Guy and Serbian tennis player, Novak Djokovic, look kind of similar? ;) So, what are male Apparatjik fans called? j/k :0) I found it funny that the guys came up with that term for female Apparatjik fans. They just forgot about their male fans, but I certainly don't blame them. :)

That's what I get for not listening to the various drafts of the songs that eventually ended up on the album. It would've been neat to hear the progression of those songs. I need to check those out on SoundCloud. Even though I don't know what all was changed, added, removed, etc., I'm very happy with the final production and presentation of the album songs, other than the autotune and guest vocalists, as I said before. I'm a big fan of electronic music, and strictly speaking about the music production, it's great. It's varied, layered, atmospheric, etc., even though most of it is produced on the computer and not from traditional instruments. However, it is great hearing Guy's bass or Magne's guitar in Combat Disco Music. Also, I don't like how the journalist in that review used "derivative" for the music. "Derivative" is such a cliche now. One could say "derivative" about any style of music these days. Apparatjik put their own personalized and awesome touch on electronic music. Thank you for the welcome, squareonefivesix. To bring up another fine point for Coldplay, I love that Coldplay borrowed a scene from Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence video for one of their own videos, but unfortunately, I forgot which Coldplay video that has that scene. In my opinion, both albums are somewhat similar musically. Both are predominantly electro-based albums. The second album may be a bit more uptempo than the first. Both albums have random and quirky lyrics. The main differences are that the second album has a lot of autotune and uses guest vocalists for four songs, and using autotune, Guy actually sings on a song for the second album. It'd be neat to hear other Apparatjiks compare and contrast the two Apparatjik albums. I really shouldn't have made light of the band's use of their communism theme. I don't know if you're a fan of OMD, but for their last album, "History of Modern," OMD mentioned in their CD booklet that they consider "communism" as "modern." Obviously, OMD and the guys from Apparatjik didn't grow up in communist countries and may view it differently than people that did grow up in communist countries. I visited Serbia twice in the last year and a half, and even though the former Yugoslavia isn't considered to be one of the countries that was behind the Iron Curtain, which Lithuania certainly was, it still was an eye opener for me to visit my first former communist country and to hear people's stories about what it was like to grow up there, to go along with their very sad experiences of war after communism fell. So, please accept my apologies for making light of Appartjik's communism theme.

Thank you for the welcome. It can be a bit intimidating walking into a place where people know much more about a certain band's (Coldplay) music than I do. I'm sure that this was mentioned in several threads here, but being a big Pet Shop Boys fan, I really enjoy their cover of Viva La Vida. However, I'm not too sure if Coldplay fans enjoy it. :0) lol! Yes, the drooling over Guy did dissipate in the later pages of this thread. :0) I didn't mind reading all of the drooling, though. One of my all-time favorite bands is Depeche Mode, and I've been a member of the official forum for nearly 15 years, and I've seen a lot of girls drooling over Dave Gahan at the forum. :0) There's no telling what kind of pressure that bands like Coldplay and a-ha felt when making new albums, especially when fans and even their record labels demand that they make an even better album than the previous album. So, Apparatjik must be a great relief for Mags, Guy, and co. to go into Mags' home studio and just have fun while recording an album. It's great how they've all bonded so well with them being from different countries (though, Denmark and Norway share some commond bonds) and to have 15 years or so in ages between some band members. Yet, they all connect mentally and musically, in order to create such fun, special music without any expectations, demands, etc. from fans, record labels, music magazines, etc. If that journalist could've seen pics of the band wearing wetsuits and antlers and the other crazy costumes that they've donned, the journalist probably would've changed his tune for his review. As for Autotune, it really is a shame that they used it so much for this album. As you said, they all have nice voices, and it would've been nice to hear more of their natural voices, like we can for We Are Here. Autotune should be only used by people that really can't sing, like Rebecca Black. :0) However, this will sound silly, but I do enjoy Guy's vocals on "cervux seQuential," even though they're Autotuned. The chorus that he sings is so hook-ladened. Hopefully, Guy will get to sing using his natural voice for the next album. With how much fun these guys are having in this group, I have faith that they'll want to make a third album. You do bring up a great point that most of Apparatjik's lyrics are quite random, quirky, etc. and are open to interpretation. In a way, they remind me a little of the quirkiness from They Might Be Giants' lyrics. As for "don't Eat The whole) banana," I now view it in a much different light now. hehe lmao!! Nice quote from one of Lisa's lines in the song that Guy sings. :0) Is it hard to be a witch? j/k Speaking of Lisa, who is she? Because almost all Apparatjiks have "A" for a last name (which I love the sort of Communist take it has), it's difficult for me to look up who Lisa A is.

I'm new here. I do like Coldplay but just have only one of their CDs, which is A Rush Of Blood To The Head. However, I love how they've covered some of my favorite bands in concert, like Echo & The Bunnymen and a-ha. Also, I love that they used Kraftwerk's wondeful melody from "Computer Love" for "Talk." I was going to try to read this whole thread and started out from the very beginning and got quite a few laughs, especially about discovering what "flum" and "ferreting" mean and to read many of the comments about Guy. :) Unfortunately, I couldn't make it all the way through to the last page, but I did read the last 10 pages or so. Because I'm a big fan of a-ha and of Mags, I got into Apparatjik when they released We Are Here, but I didn't listen to any of their drafts for "Square Peg In A Round Hole." So, when I got the CD in the mail on Tuesday, it was the first time for me to hear any of the songs on the new album. I definitely don't agree with the journalist's review for the new album that busybeeburns posted. While I do enjoy We Are Here much more than Square Peg, I do love that it's a fun album. It's obvious that Martin, Mags, Guy, and Jonas had a great time making this album, like I'm sure thatt they did for We Are Here. As we know, Apparatjik have made so many funny pics, videos, emails, tweets, etc. They don't take themselves seriously, but this journalist sure takes himself seriously. My main gripe about the album is that they used autotune too much and that they used too many guest vocalists. Anyway, here's a little album review that I posted at West of the Moon. Speaking of which, I wonder if Romanglass is Catherine at WOTM? Plus, it was nice to find out that Guy sings the lead vocals for "cervus seQuential." The album does start off really well with "timepoLice." It's a nice uptempo number with killer synth work, cool beats, and great vocals by Jonas. The chorus is so catchy, but I think that the song would've even been better without the guest vocals by Pharrell. The music is very cool and upbeat for "cervux seQuential," but I'm not a big fan of the female vocals. Her vocals remind me of Fergie singing "My humps, my lovely lady lumps." hehe Another uptempo number is "tell the bAbes." I love hearing Jonas screaming out "Tell the babes, tell babes, she wants you!!" Guy's bass is very nice in this song. The album slows down a bit with "Signs of waking uP," which is a beautiful song, and this song could've easily been on We Are Here. This is probably my favorite song on the album. There's no autotune in this song, and Jonas and Magne both do a great job trading vocals in this song. I love how Jonas does his "oohs" and "aaahs." My least favorite song is "do IT myself." It's too r&B sounding for me. To joke about this song, it sounds like Williams is saying, "autotune myself." hehe I really like the music for "blastLOCKet," but I have no clue who Ceta and L Gortex are. (As others have mentioned here at Coldplaying, the vocals that are sung so rapidly are quite catchy." "Hooh! Hah!" is the only description needed for "COmbat disco music." :0) What a great song title "your voice needS SUB titles" is. Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of the verses, but Jonas saves the day with his great vocals in the chorus. I really enjoy the guitar in the chorus, too. I think that "(don't Eat The whole) banana" is a humorous but very pretty song. I love the contrast with the pretty piano layered against the cool bass line, and there are some cool vocal effects, too. Along the same lines as "(don't Eat The whole) banana," "superpositions" has funny lyrics with great acapella vocals. I love how Jonas bursts out with his vocals for "gzMO." Is the title paying homage to Gizmo from The Gremlins? j/k That melody that Jonas sings is so pretty. Unlike the autotune vocals, I really do like the robotic vocals in this song. I'll sound like a hypocrite here, but I do like the autotune vocals that Magne sings for "control Park." It's a nice chill song to end the album.