When the conversation about the greatest artist of our generation starts up, you might be used to hearing names like Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce or The Weeknd. Well, I think there is one name missing from that conversation — Coldplay.
Now everyone might know a hit or two from this British band, like “Yellow,” “Viva la Vida,” “Paradise,” “Fix You” or “Sky Full of Stars.” But I didn’t really hear anyone talking about them in recent years. Maybe I should’ve been paying more attention because their newest album “Moon Music” is one of the last ones this band will ever put out.
“Moon Music” came out on Oct. 4 and is their 10th studio album. The band’s frontman, Chris Martin, recently confirmed that Coldplay only plans on putting out 12 albums, before retiring from the music scene.
“There’s only seven Harry Potters. There’s only 12 and a half Beatles albums, there’s about the same for Bob Marley, so all our heroes,” Martin said in an interview with Zane Lowe at their Dublin concert earlier this year. “Also, having that limit means the quality control is so high right now and for a song to make it, it’s almost impossible, which is great.”
I understand this reasoning. That doesn’t mean that I like it. Because, in very simple words, “Moon Music” is kind of awesome.
I had the privilege of hearing one of the songs on the album before it even came out. On June 16, I attended their Music of the Spheres World Tour, which recently became only the second world tour to gross over $1 billion, in Budapest.
While I could write a separate article on that show alone — because let’s face it, the balls it took to cover the crowd in rainbow colors and put the text “Believe in Love” on the ending screen in the middle of Pride month in one of the most homophobic countries in Europe — hearing “feelslikeimfallinginlove” for the first time ever is something I’ll brag about for the rest of my life.
The text “Believe in Love” shows up at the ending screen for the concert, alongside fireworks. (Photo Courtesy of Alexandra Martinakova)
Coldplay never misses with any of their instrumentals, but there’s just something about this song that hooks you in and doesn’t let you go. Maybe it’s the way Martin sings it, breathless and full of emotion, that landed this song on my playlist permanently.
That song is the second track of the 10-song album and the first one to be released as a single. The only other single that came from this album is track three, “WE PRAY” featuring Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI.
This song sparked some interesting conversations about the beliefs of the band and Martin, but the only thing this band is preaching is love for everyone everywhere. Even their tour merch sports texts such as, “Everyone is an alien somewhere” or “We are all one in the universe.”
And this message is sprinkled throughout the entire album. The closing track, “ONE WORLD” is an almost seven minutes long instrumental with only two lines being repeated, “Only one world” and “In the end, it’s just love.”
So while most of the internet speculates about the religious affiliations of this band, all they are doing is trying to make people think about and love the world we are in and each other.
“JUPiTER,” the fourth track on the album, only cements this in my opinion. “I love who I love, the message from above/ Is never give up, love who you love/ Jupiter longed to be herself or die.”
And for their Music of the Spheres World Tour, they planted one tree for every ticket sold. All of their shows had free refills for water and had an average of 83% return on reusable LED wristbands. All shows also featured bikes and trampolines that attendees in the pit could use to power their B-Stage for the concert, and so many other measures that the band took to try and help the environment.
So yeah, while the words “God” and “pray” may be used more than once across these 10 songs, Martin isn’t trying to make us all go to church and devote our lives to prayer. Coldplay is just trying to make us realize that at the end of the day, we’re all one and the same and we should learn to love each other and our differences, instead of spreading hatred and fear.
