
“Everyone on the planet has a right to be themselves” – Chris Martin Guitarist Jonny Buckland explains: “Knowing that the big one is coming allows us to go a lot smaller and to not worry about that we can be much more insular about what music we make sense.”
#Which coldplay song are you full#
Following their sparkling fifth album ‘Mylo Xyloto’ (2011), came the gloomy ‘Ghost Stories’ (2014) after ‘A Head Full of Dreams’ (2016), they burrowed down for ‘Everyday Life’. The project was bolstered by the pattern they’ve slipped into: for every day-glo pop bonanza record, there’s been a mellower response album. The NME review proclaimed it proof that “Coldplay are more adventurous than they’re often given credit for”, and described its stunning performance at the Citadel in Amman, Jordan as an “audacious undertaking”. Instead, there were sprawling compositions and collaborations with Femi and Made Kuti (son and grandson of Afrobeats pioneer, Fela) and Palestinian oud group, Le Trio Joubran. 2019’s ‘Everyday Life’ served as a subtle riposte – though the band don’t seem to give a shit – to those who miss ‘Oldplay’ and the turn-of-the-century indie-rock they brought to ‘Parachutes’ (2000) and ‘A Rush Of Blood Of The Head’ (2002). We last found the band at a delightfully experimental juncture. Martin’s response to those questioning the use of emojis for song titles (three of the tracks are ‘🪐’, ‘✨’ and ‘❤️’) is fitting for this era: “Well, why not? That’s our whole attitude to everything.” There’s no pressure on us, we just get to do what we love.” There’s a part of you that has to accept that we’re an older band, we were never the new ‘cool young thing’… but in a strange way it’s quite liberating. “We’ve already had all the good and bad reviews in the world and if we worry about the response, it makes you a little more cautious. “This album is our period of having no rules or fear about what people think or say about us,” Martin says. It’s typical of the experience of listening to their buoyant record ‘Music Of The Spheres’, where playful pop magic meets earnest human politics after two decades together, few bands, if any, are able to combine the two and do it with such ease and joy. Photography by James Marcus HaneyĪ few days later, we see the move in action at Coldplay’s intimate show at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire as blows rain down during the song’s monstrous opening. And I think whether you’re an old soft-rock superstar, or a young whippersnapper, you’re allowed to believe that.”Ĭoldplay on the cover of NME. This is the politics that believes that everyone on the planet has a right to be themselves. “We’re quite polite about it, though, as opposed to saying, ‘You fucking arseholes!’ But this is about human politics. “A lot of it came from the Black Lives Matter and Gay Pride marches where people using their voice to say ‘this situation is ridiculous’, so I think it’s our ‘This situation is ridiculous’ song,” Martin says.

#Which coldplay song are you free#
They struggled for years to nail it, but they were inspired last year to finish the song and speak of the people “sewing up of rags into revolution flags” who want “to be free to fall in love with who we want”. The opening verse, which references a man “who swears he’s God” and “walks around like he owns the fucking lot”, was written in the ‘Viva La Vida’-era back in 2008, and until now only existed as a brooding piano-led demo. “That’s our Rammstein cover that isn’t actually a cover,” Martin laughs.įor years, that song had been their Moby Dick. The song opens with a bone-crunching guitar riff – the band collectively cite Muse, Depeche Mode and Rammstein as inspirations – as it segues between serene, spacey chords and plenty of opportunities to let the hammer drop.

We’re discussing ‘People Of The Pride’, one of the highlights of Coldplay’s ninth album ‘Music Of The Spheres’, out today (October 15). “It’s where you go like this…” he says, leaping up from the bench we’re sat on in a central London park into a surf stance, slightly side-on his feet rock back and forth, the head starts swinging and the hammer – a clenched fist – comes down against his right thigh in time to an imaginary guitar riff. “I’ve always wanted to do a move called the ‘Till Hammer’, he tells NME, referring to Rammstein’s frontman Till Lindermann’s trademark trick, usually reserved for their punishing performance of ‘Du Hast’. READ MORE: Coldplay – ‘Music Of The Spheres’ review: world-conquering pop group reaches for the stars.You can walk into any stadium or arena on this planet, light the place up with multi-coloured wristbands while thrilling hundreds of thousands of people, and still think you’ve not quite nailed the move as a frontman. You can be Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, the 21st century’s biggest band, and still be keen to learn a thing or two.
