On Friday, Coldplay released its eighth studio album, Everyday Life. But this is no ordinary album. In fact, the 53-minute “double” album is divided into two halves—Sunrise and Sunset.
What’s exciting about Coldplay’s new album is that it’s essentially the “phoenix” rising from the ashes with respect to the band’s sound—a bunch of weird music that seems to be the band’s best release since a 2008 independent release of songs.
The first song off the album, “Church,” brings the band back to a familiar scene fans may recognize from the Parachutes album—the opening song “Don’t Panic.” The group historically has performed its music, hoping to unite the world in the universal principle that life is beautiful. However, as the world knows, it’s not as pretty as we would like or hope it to be. Enter Everyday Life.
Shining a light on the ugly parts of life, the “double album” emphasizes both the light and dark of life—the Sunrise and Sunset. If there’s anything to take away from this album, it’s the lyrics. Take a good, hard listen to the lyrics of each song and you should hopefully feel a chilling surge run up and down your spine.
While shorter in length than the group’s previous albums of X&Y and A Rush of Blood, each song, which times out at just under 3 minutes, takes listeners straight to the point. One of my favorites definitely was “Arabesque”—its lyrics are reflective of what our society should be built upon—equality. And Coldplay bleeds that principle into their very bones.
“You could be me, I could be you…Two angles of the same view…And we share the same blood.”
To help celebrate the album’s release, rather than going on tour, the band will be performing two very special shows in Amman, Jordan, which can be viewed globally for free on YouTube Originals. Coldplay will also play another show on Monday at London’s Natural History Museum, and all proceeds from that performance will be donated to an environmental charity.
You can watch the stream below:
However, don’t expect the band to be touring anytime soon, as the last time the group toured was back in 2017.
Chris Martin, the band’s lead singer, announced earlier this week to BBC News that they will not be touring again until they can find a way to address their “environmental footprint” associated with touring around the globe. According to Martin, they want their musical performances to be “actively beneficial” to both the environment and the ecosystem.
“Our next tour will be the best possible version of a tour like that environmentally,” Martin said to BBC News, referring to the band’s last world tour in 2016 and 2017, which featured over 100 shows across five continents.
“The hardest thing is the flying side of things,” he said. “But, for example, our dream is to have a show with no single-use plastic, to have it largely solar-powered.”
There are various ways, Martin says, to share and spread music without negatively impacting the ecosystem. The ways in which live music contributes to this, had a lot to do with how fans are traveling across the world—hurting Mother Nature.
“We would be disappointed if it’s not carbon neutral,” Martin told BBC News on Thursday. Traditionally speaking, concerts leave behind large carbon footprints, producing a massive amount of plastic waste due to both fans and performers, along with the lighting, mechanics, and of-course merchandise associated with concerts.
In a recent report by Rolling Stone, one study revealed that streaming music isn’t as innocent as people are led to believe when it comes to emissions—indicating that between data centers and the electricity required to transmit, also has a significant impact on the ecosystem.
In the band’s “off-time,” it will continue to work with environmental organizations to help unravel a way to make flying across the world “carbon-neutral,” while also removing elements such as single-use plastic from their touring lives. Martin emphasized his desire to one-day have the band’s entire concert powered entirely off solar power.
But Coldplay isn’t the only group to suddenly look to saving the world—other groups including U2 and Radiohead have joined the fight to save Mother Earth. Radiohead recently switched out spotlights at their shows in favor of more energy efficient LED’s, while U2 has cut down on the amount of cargo it travels with—in other words, Boni needs to cut down on his massive wardrobe.
You can listen to Coldplay’s Everyday Life by clicking here.
