42Escapist

I remember watching a performance of Viva la Vida from around 2008 or 2009... I think the Saitama broadcast from 2009? And there's a little bit at the very end where you can clearly hear two distinct vocal tracks: one that's unquestionably live because Chris sounds like he's trying to catch his breath, and one that sounds flawless. It's easy to tell that Chris is singing along to his own vocals whenever they play Midnight. Chris sings along to his own recording so it sounds just like the studio version, which also has doubled vocals and a slight delay so it sounds like an echo.

The Hardest Part vs Warning Sign

Even in the Tonight Show performance? I certainly hope not. Though all of the electric performances have used playback for the backing vocals, except for maybe Will's. Maybe. I can't tell if Will is actually singing.

Well... this acoustic live version was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. Sounded better than the studio acoustic version because the vocals seemed to be live and the performance actually felt... natural. "Natural" as in not artificial with a copied and pasted vocal track, just the band, the Love Choir, and Jimmy Fallon at the end having a great time. It reminded me of this. Fun, uptempo, and back to basics. That's the Coldplay I like to see when they do acoustic stuff for promo appearances.

That's right, the acoustic version of Princess of China does have the same vocal tracks... and even it sounds better than this. Chris does the "3, 2, 1" count in at the beginning and that's the only part that differs. Most of the acoustic stuff on Everyday Life sounds so good. Listen to that guitar tone in Old Friends. It's beautiful and it sounds crisp rather than overly compressed. WOTW/POTP has awful sound quality, but that's the point. It was recorded from a phone and the simplicity is charming. It's a calm little interlude before the grandiosity of Arabesque. But this just isn't the same. If anything on MOTS sounds as bad as this version of Higher Power, I'm gonna be quite disappointed.

It's alright. I don't really like how the vocals are mixed and implemented into this version. It'd sound better with brand new vocal tracks apart from the ones in the normal version of the song. A good acoustic Coldplay song in my opinion is one that sounds like it's being sung with natural vocals. No auto tune or fancy effects. And this version falls short in that regard. It doesn't sound intimate like Til Kingdom Come, Us Against The World, Old Friends and all the other acoustic Coldplay songs do. The instrumentals are pretty, though.

Trouble In Town vs Square One

Kaotica is absolutely inspired by cyberpunk. It's a run-down dystopian world where scrap metal and garbage are all over the place, and there are few signs of life apart from Chris and the aliens who dance with him. It's like Earth in the movie Wall-E, which is filled with so much garbage and pollution that everybody flew off into space to get away from it.

Trouble In Town vs Daylight

People have cited one of the Roadie 42 blog posts before, where he says that Chris asked him to "build a solar system" after everyone got back from the last leg of the Viva tour in Latin America. I wonder if that has to do with the solar system of 12 "spheres" that the album is based around, or if it has to do with the stage setup, a bit like what was used for the American Idol performance of Higher Power. http://timeline.coldplay.com/article/roadie-42-blog-118/ I wonder about this quote from another blog post in 2010. It might just be referring to the bizarre guitar tone that Jonny achieves in Princess of China. But it might be something different, something that we haven't heard. Who knows... "The conversation about today’s song is getting underway. Guy, Will, Chris and Phil are sitting with producer Markus Dravs. Jonny has already sat at his guitar-world and has begun experimenting with sounds. His guitar is being fed into his laptop. What is coming out the other end sounds very much like it’s arriving from another planet." http://www.coldplay.com/roadie-42-blog-121/ EDIT: Honestly, this is exactly the kind of thing that Jonny could be doing with the Meris Enzo guitar pedal... he could be going for more of these really bizarre and otherworldly sounds.

I was thinking about this a while back when Chris did that little live stream solo gig, I think it was something for Dell? And he had a MIDI controller on his instruments, which he jokingly called "Coldplay in a box." The one on his acoustic guitar definitely reminded me of the (much more advanced) Kaoss Pad that Matt Bellamy uses. And when that's combined with synth pedals, it really can let one musician make an extremely wide range of different sounds with a single instrument. It'd be so cool if Jonny were to use a guitar-synth device alongside what he already does. He could do some even more other-worldy stuff and that'd be great for an album like MOTS that's supposed to be space and alien-themed. If only Coldplay would do something that sounds like Black Holes & Revelations... or maybe The Resistance. Imagine a spiritual successor to X&Y that's heavier and angrier, with orchestral stuff sprinkled in. But I think they're done with "angry Coldplay" for now after Trouble In Town, Arabesque, and Guns. By the way, I love that you posted this version of Map of the Problematique. I was at Glasto for it and it was definitely a highlight of the set.

Èkó vs Human Heart

I would think working with Stargate on AHFOD is what got them to indulge in the sounds of mainstream pop, not working with Max Martin several years later. If they really want to work with a successful pop producer, I wish Coldplay would work with Greg Kurstin instead... he may be known for his work with pop stars like Sia, but he did an incredible job on the last two Foo Fighters albums. And the Foo Fighters aren't mainstream pop. They're a popular alternative rock band and Kurstin helped them experiment, but he didn't turn them into something poppy at all.

Perhaps this site would be called Starfishing instead ?

Violet Hill vs Arabesque

Ahhhh I forgot about that tidbit of information! How interesting... Angel Moon's voice could be one of the female Love Choir singers, since they are credited in Higher Power and you can clearly hear them. And, get this... in the music video, you first hear the female voices sing right around the moment the big Angel Moon hologram appears. I still can't help but think that something in this era is going to connect directly to MX. Maybe the planet Silencia is one of the 12 "Spheres." The MX comics do confirm that it's a planet of its own. I just don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe MOTS is just a spiritual successor to MX and there's no connection to the MX backstory. Just similar outfits for the band, similar visuals onstage, and new lyrics in the supposed new versions of UATW and UFO that don't connect to MX at all.

It just so happens to be a Friday this year. And most albums are released on Fridays. ?

That makes sense. I see a lot of similarities with Star Wars, too, and I'm not just talking about resemblance between the "angel moon" sign and Ahsoka Tano. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones shows a part of the planet Coruscant that looks quite similar to the scenes inside the Kaotican city. Ironically, Noel's two most recent music videos tie into one another. The video for Flying On The Ground continues the story from the video for We're On Our Way Now. Something about the Higher Power video makes me think it's supposed to be part 1 of 3. But at the same time, if there are 12 planets in the fictional solar system, wouldn't there be one song for each of them? So how would the video for Higher Power tie into two other videos that are set on completely different planets? Oh well, hopefully it'll all be clearer before too long.

There are 12 different "spheres," so I'm guessing each of them represents one song. Maybe there will be more than 12 tracks on the album if we count little instrumental bits such as the Music of the Spheres intro. This what I was thinking as soon as I first heard it in the Glastonbury live stream. It makes me wonder... will it also be used at the end of the album? Just like how O is sampled in Always In My Head and a snippet of The Escapist is the intro to Life In Technicolor. Ghost Stories and VLVODAAHF go full circle.

That's definitely possible. There's nothing that suggests Dave Meyers wasn't asked to make a three part series of music videos for this new era of Coldplay's career ? Maybe they'll tell a story that begins with Chris journeying into the Kaotican city. After all, lots of artists have released music videos that tie into one other. Interestingly enough, towards the end of the video you can see what looks like two other planets or moons overhead. Due to their size, they're probably moons of Kaotica. You might be onto something with the theory that they'll release a set of three EPs. It'd be different from the conventional idea of how an album is supposed to be released, but artists can be inventive and release albums in non-traditional ways. It's happening more and more often. The latest Gorillaz album is a great example of this.

"A melodic orbit in three parts" I wonder what that could mean... perhaps the album is divided into three groups of three or four songs, each.

I'm really enjoying this video! They did indeed use the full Music of the Spheres intro and I love how they incorporated it in. The scenery is magnificent. And I should've known that Chris running like the Flash was a reference to the "million miles an hour" lyric ? Awesome! Yeah, there's quite a bit of Kaotican in the city so there could be some cool easter eggs hidden in there. Good luck on your finals ☺️

ALIENS vs Higher Power

Just like how a certain other Jonny (Jonny Greenwood) has played guitar before ? Either a Radiohead or a Muse-influenced record would be so cool. Maybe the music video will take inspiration from Sing For Absolution... and the screen cap really does looks like something out of a Muse video. Didn't someone find "Universe Girl" written in Kaotican on some of the band's equipment? That's what I see in the image on the left.

See You Soon vs Life Is For Living