Moon Music
On October 4th Coldplay released their 10th album - Moon Music. This album comes as a sequel to their 2021 release, Music of the Spheres. Moon Music features 10 tracks, and since its release, it has received quite a mixed response of reviews.
Prior to the release of Moon Music, the track “feelslikeimfallinginlove” was released in June of this year, which quickly gained popularity on TikTok. 4 months later they released the album, which in classic Coldplay fashion is just enough to keep them on the scene. There are some tracks which do provide a certain atmosphere of intimacy, like JUPiTER, and a couple of interesting features. Overall the tone of the album is quite childlike, creating an innocent but relatively empty atmosphere with its melodies.
Coldplay via Spotify. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
The song WE PRAY features Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI - where we see a blend of Coldplay and traces of other genres providing us with an upbeat dynamic track. GOOD FEELiNGS is in collaboration with Ayra Starr and MOON MUSiC, the intro to the album, features Jon Hopkins. The introductory track of the album does emulate Coldplay works from the past, such as the studio album Ghost Stories, mainly due to the composition. Personally, it offers a sense of intimacy, hope and beauty in the sad/melancholic melodies.
JUPiTER is a very interesting track, and also quite reminiscent of their earlier works, explores a woman's sexuality - giving us a level of thoughtfulness we havent seen from Coldplay in years.
“‘Moon Music’ is kind of the story of waking up in the morning and feeling terrible about yourself, terrible about the world – depressed, isolated, separate, alone, and not able to be yourself. Through the album, it’s a journey to feeling the complete opposite at the end of the day.” - Chris Martin via NME.
While the album does carry a ‘positive vibe’, it does not necessarily contain enough depth or intimacy, it just feels like an album that was pushed into release. Nevertheless, Coldplay have established themselves not just as a name, but more so as a brand in the music industry and in pop culture; they’ve been around for a long time - maybe too long. They’ve done well in terms of their permanence in our collective memory, but at this point it seems like they’re just forcing themselves to make music.
Ghost Stories is my personal favorite studio album of theirs, due to the level of intimacy I felt, and still feel, when listening to the songs. Most album releases after Ghost Stories have failed to resonate with me personally, with some singles being the outliers.
Aside from their lack of personality in their music, they have done some interesting things in the past decade - starting with the Mylo Xyloto shows. They were the first to introduce the LED wristbands which have now become a staple in Taylor Swift’s shows during her Eras Tour. Their Music of the Spheres tour has become quite significant in the world of sustainability, with their kinetic dancefloors - allowing the audience to generate the power needed for their concert.
Coldplay has the capacity to create beautiful works of art which resonate with audiences worldwide, and have been listened to for decades. Hopefully, we get to see their full potential realized in their next studio album and tour, because when they put in their best, they create music which is timeless.
