Coldplay – Music of the Spheres Review

Listening to Everyday Life and Music of the Spheres back-to-back, you would be forgiven for thinking Coldplay is a fad band. They will take whatever is popular in the charts and present an imperfect version of it, to imply they too are just like us. But their political fascinations and call for action heard on Everyday Life disappears immediately. Music of the Spheres does not change how Coldplay works, merely what their attention is on. They went from asking for more of the world during times of ongoing crisis to peddling collaborations with BTS and emoji-titled tracks. It’s a cold world after all, and Chris Martin is our King. Or at least, he wants to be. He’ll adapt himself like a chameleon to the worst of pop music’s outings, be it nonsensical collaboration or a championing of environmental issues which feels faux given how brief the band’s flutter with politically charged music was before. 

A disturbing desire for relevancy is what drives Coldplay through Music of the Spheres. It’s never a good sign when the mood-setter is better than the song to follow. But Coldplay must contend with this on Higher Power and Humankind, two of the most miserably hollow pop songs you may ever hear. The trouble for Music of the Spheres is it’s not uniquely bad. It blends in with the rest of those desperate pop offerings from other artists. Latch onto whatever higher power you can believe in if you want to get through Music of the Spheres in one piece. There’s a synth nostalgia to some of these songs, which feels like a cloying inevitability of Coldplay at this stage. You can only make so many albums reflecting the pop structure of the times before you begin clashing with the modern style, even if your decades-long career is just repeating whatever is popular at the time of recording.  

Selena Gomez features on Let Somebody Go, keeping the quality as low as possible with a dire vocal performance. That’s not so much her fault as it is a lack of harmony with Martin and a dreadful drum machine beat. Sparse songs only work when the emotional core is strong enough to carry the burden of isolation. There are few, if any, Coldplay songs which could do this convincingly. Hollow pop music is too easy to find, and yet it remains some of the most-played music around. What is it about Music of the Spheres, then, that makes it so appealing? Because fans of We Are KING and Jacob Collier are brought on board with a collaborative song, Heart, and are thus falling for the same trickthat Gomez and BTS fans are given. Low, low hanging fruit dangled in front of them, and taken because to consume is to engage with the artists, to kindle those parasocial relationships.  

Coldplay has done an aggravatingly excellent job of building up this servitude of their fanbase. They cannot do wrong. Every song is an opportunity for fans to engage with the heartfelt and grounded life of Martin. But those with working brains can see through that, and at the very least can hear there is little else inspiring Coldplay these days. A tonal shift on People of the Pride sounds about as flat as a similar call to arms as Muse’s Will of the People. Coldplay has lost all sight of their core need for creativity. They are doing it without purpose. To chase a trend is not a valid reason to put anything out there, let alone forty minutes of music. Some of their very worst songs can be found here not because of the collaborations but thanks to strange studio choices. Agonising, helium-inspired vocals on Biutyful is an embarrassing moment, one of twelve to hear on Music of the Spheres.