42Escapist

The Race leaked a while ago. It isn't difficult to find a full version, which is apparently the version that was cut from Ghost Stories. I wonder if you're referring to that version. ? In fact, I first heard it just the other day. Yes please! And speaking of Midnight, I'm really hoping Jon Hopkins is working with them again.

Wonderful video! The guest appearances are particularly cool, never thought I'd see Matt Smith in a music video but here we go ? The song itself is amazing. I also can't wait to hear Flying On The Ground, which will also be on the Back The Way We Came compilation album. Dead In The Water is one of Noel's best solo tracks. No question. The emotion in his voice is powerful. And he sounds just as good in this version.

The song is already growing on me after just a few more listens on repeat. It's not perfect but it's one of Coldplay's better "pop moments" of the last decade or so. And just because this one is clearly aiming to be a massive hit, doesn't mean the entire album is going to sound just like it. We might get spacey songs that are more along the lines of X&Y, kind of like the ethereal sounds of Moving To Mars and All I Can Think About Is You. Maybe even something like ALIENS or Hypnotised. So I'm still hyped for what's next. This is an exciting time.

I miss Jonny. His guitar is there but it's buried in the mix. But apart from that, the song reminds me so much of Birds. It's pop Coldplay, yet something about it just keeps me coming back. Maybe it's the indie pop vibes, maybe it's the way this band knows how to craft a melody. I'm not sure if it's better than Orphans or even Adventure of a Lifetime (which is quite poppy yet also has one of Jonny's coolest riffs ever). But I have a feeling this song is going to grow on me. That's true. Guy sounds great and his bass line is yet another thing that reminds me of Birds.

Something about Chris playing One For My Baby makes me want Coldplay to cover the classic Fly Me to the Moon (which Frank Sinatra famously covered) on the Music of the Spheres tour. ?

I already know the setlist so I know there's nothing new, but I can't wait to watch this. I'll do so in a little bit, looks like a cool little concert with its own stage setup as opposed to the Instagram live streams from last year that were just Chris sitting at his piano at home and playing requests from the chat. EDIT: Alright, that was pretty good. Chris gave me Matt Bellamy vibes with his so-called "Coldplay in a box," especially when he was playing his guitar ? Just because Matt is an unconventional guitarist who puts a touch pad MIDI controller on his guitars:

The Race might fit pretty well on the album, especially with lyrics like these. It'd fit on AHFOD, it'd fit on the Kaleidoscope EP, and it'd fit on an album that combines space themes with love songs (which seems to be the case with Higher Power). https://lyrnow.com/196592 "(Of the night, Of the night) In and out of time, in and out of space Only you make my heart race Only your eyes, only a taste (Oh) I've been running out of time in another space Such a beautiful face And I'm seeing lights and I'm seeing shapes all over the place Oh, oh, oh"

I'm just hoping there's some sort of resemblance to the X&Y sound in LP9. Moving To Mars is a great example of a non-Oldplay song that's like that. It reminds me of What If. But I also want something like Talk that manages to be a guitar-based anthem as big as something from MX but still has a space rock atmosphere to it. And something like White Shadows or Low that lets the individual band members shine without being hidden by layers of synths, but still has a space rock atmosphere (and real drums). I'm probably asking for too much, but I'm not giving up hope that there will be at least a couple of great songs. Also, Chris should play electric guitar more. He's a good rhythm player, yet he has hardly ever picked up an electric guitar during a concert since the X&Y era (apart from performances of a few songs). Live 2003 is full of songs that feature Chris on an electric guitar and he sounds great. He even plays one in Don't Panic and it doesn't sound out of place.

I could've sworn I saw something earlier that said the song was 3:31, so this makes sense. I can't remember what it was, I think it might have been r/Coldplay on Reddit.

Back in the day, around 2016 or so, I remember trying to recreate the X&Y cover in Minecraft's Pocket Edition (now called Bedrock Edition) with wool blocks stacked above the ground. I think it actually looked decent, sadly the save file was corrupted after an update and I can't seem to find any screenshots of it. I tried the Ghost Stories cover, too. I tried building the pair of wings over water so that every night in the game, it would look like the actual album cover. It was missing many of the small details on the pair of wings, but it still looked fairly similar. Sadly, that was part of the same save file as the X&Y cover. I should try making them again ? If I do, I'll post some screenshots.

Three different songs have been stuck in my head today: The Race, the snippet of Higher Power, and the new Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds single We're On Our Way Now.

Federico Vindver is credited in Higher Power. Didn't he post something related to Coldplay on his Instagram story at one point and people were speculating that it was a sign he was continuing to work with them? He previously worked on Everyday Life. Denise Carite, who appeared in the Love Choir, is also credited. And obviously the second Martin is Max Martin.

I hear Hurts Like Heaven and Birds. I'm not gonna give up on this song just yet because Hurts Like Heaven and Birds are great. I can hear the 80s influence, with some A-ha sprinkled in because we know they're A-ha fans. I just want to hear that classic Jonny Buckland guitar hook and solo... hopefully he's in there somewhere.

Alien Abbey Road ??

Part of the Orphans video was filmed in public and I'm still shocked that nobody seemed to notice... or else ColdplayXtra probably would have said something about it immediately ?? Well-said. I don't particularly love Max Martin, but I could be pleasantly surprised. I ended up really liking Orphans, even though that's the main "pop" song on Everyday Life. I still enjoy it, it reminds me of Lovers In Japan and some of the better songs off of Mylo Xyloto. Maybe the more pop-oriented stuff on LP9 will be decent... I don't know, I'm torn between high and low expectations for what they'll bring to the table this time around. Of course I'm hyped as always, and Everyday Life is among Coldplay's best work in my opinion. But I'm not expecting the same kind of experimentation. The visuals for Higher Power suggest that this is going to be a very different era. Alright, I'm not surprised. I had been wondering if they were going to wait until late 2021 so they could tour a little sooner after the album release. I'm confident that Higher Power will still be on LP9, kind of like what they did with two out of the three tracks on the Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall EP. The Alien Radio clips even include stuff that relates to the idea of music of the spheres, so I wouldn't be surprised if Higher Power is just our first taste of the album. No matter what, I'm thankful that we're getting something to tie us over for a little while longer until the full album drops. Even if "a little while longer" ends up meaning most of 2021.

There has been some speculation that the album might include some 80s influences. I would personally love a synthwave Coldplay song, maybe something along the lines of what Muse did with some of the songs on Simulation Theory. But I would expect something more along the lines of Max Martin's previous work.

There's no way they would go all out trying to promote a single and then disappear. They've changed the website and released that band photo from a few pages back that shows them in new outfits. They created a whole Kaotican alphabet that has something to do with the themes of this era, which looks quite a bit like the Klingon alphabet if you ask me ? This is what I was thinking even before these extra symbols showed up. Every track on MX has a symbol. Ghost Stories is the same way, including the bonus tracks: Now what I'm wondering is if Higher Power is the first single of a new album and if each song on the album has a corresponding symbol... which one is used for Higher Power? Who knows, that may become clear once we know the complete lyrics to the song.

I still think the album is Music of the Spheres and Higher Power is just the name of the first single. They might be doing something like Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall in 2011 and releasing a Higher Power EP with a few new songs before the full album is ready to go. But I doubt that's the case. This is a big teaser campaign and they usually only do this kind of thing when the first single of the upcoming album is about to drop.

I wonder if these symbols are the same sort of things as the little symbols that represented each track from Mylo Xyloto. The swirl icon is basically the same as the one that was used for Hurts Like Heaven.

I've been excited about this possibility for months. I just wonder if it's going to continue the MX storyline, or if it's going to have entirely different themes. I'm thinking it'll be the latter, just because MX wasn't anywhere near as focused on outer space as these teasers have been... though it's worth noting that the MX comics state that the story doesn't take place on Earth, Silencia is a different world and its inhabitants are similar to humans but look noticeably different.

I wonder if there are hidden meanings behind clips like this one... some of the audio clips are obviously about space, spheres, planets, the music of the spheres, etc. but then there are ones like this that seem completely unrelated. The "don't let go" and "don't ever let go under any circumstances" bits remind me of lyrics from O and Us Against The World. Obviously "don't let go" is reminiscent of "don't ever let go" from O and "don't ever let go under any circumstances" is reminiscent of "whatever you do, don't let go" from Us Against The World. The moral of the story is to hold on tight, lest you end up like the poor child who fell off the carousel. I wonder if the similarity is a coincidence, or if it's entirely on purpose. This is a nice theory. I've always figured that ALIENS and Moving to Mars are meant to tie into one another. Both could be interpreted as songs about refugees, and the title Moving to Mars is literally named after a documentary that Mat Whitecross made about refugees. The ALIENS video tells a story about refugee aliens escaping their home planet and the lyrics of the song include lines that could reference communication across outer space ("all the ETs are phoning home," "call me," "call this line"). I do wonder if more songs like this are on the way, and if Alien Radio is indeed a song on MOTS, it could share those themes. Oh, and remember one of Chris's Instagram live streams last year when he played a bit of David Bowie's Life On Mars? I wonder if that was on purpose and meant to tie in with the songs he was working on for MOTS... he's definitely a Bowie fan and I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the band is the same way, otherwise they wouldn't have played Heroes at a bunch of AHFOD tour shows. And, of course, this happened: https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/coldplay-discuss-the-time-david-bowie-shot-down-their-collaboration-request-its-not-a-very-good-song-11848

I was always under the impression that Alien Radio turned into either A L I E N S or maybe something like MMIX with all the little spacey sounds. I wondered if it was connected to Moving to Mars, similar to Space Symphony (another early demo from 2008-2009). But now I really do think it's a separate song that's only now being finished, similar to how Arabesque was a work in progress around the same time.

I'm pretty sure this clip has leaked before, it's an early version of Adventure of a Lifetime. Edit: Here's a shorter version of Legends that leaked a while back.

I knew I had seen it in a clip like this but I couldn't remember exactly where. Thank you!

Listen t recording #14 for a little easter egg toward the end. They just had to sneak the number 42 in, didn't they ?