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Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Parlophone Records
Released: 2015.12.4
Time:
 45:45
Category: Pop
Producer(s): Digital Divide, Daniel Green, Rik Simpson, Stargate
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.coldplay.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2015
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] A Head Full of Dreams (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 3:43
[2] Birds (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 3:49
[3] Hymn for the Weekend (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 4:18
[4] Everglow (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 4:42
[5] Adventure of a Lifetime (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 4:23
[6] Fun [featuring Tove Lo] (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 4:27
[7] Kaleidoscope (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 1:51
[8] Army of One (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 6:16
[9] Amazing Day (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 4:31
[10] Colour Spectrum (D.Green) - 1:00
[11] Up&Up (G.Berryman/J.Buckland/W.Champion/Ch.Martin) - 6:45

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Guy Berryman - Bass Guitar, Design, Art Direction
Jonny Buckland - Guitar, Design, Art Direction
Will Champion - Drums, Backing Vocals, Design, Art Direction
Chris Martin - Lead Vocals, Piano, Design, Art Direction

Davide Rossi - Strings on [2,9]
Tim Bergling - Additional Programming on [3]
Regiment Horns - Brass on [3]
Beyoncé - Vocals on [3,11]
Gwyneth Paltrow - Vocals on [4]
Merry Clayton - Vocals on [5,11]
Tove Lo - Vocals on [6]
Khatia Buniatishvili - Piano on [7]
Coleman Barks - Narration on [7]
Barack Obama - Vocals on [7]
Annabelle Wallis - Vocals on [11]
Noel Gallagher - Guitar on [11]
Moses Martin - Tambourine on [11]
Rik Simpson - Vocals & Additional Instruments, Mixing on [1-4,6,7,9-11], Producer
Mikkel S Eriksen - Additional Instruments
Tor Erik Hermansen - Additional Instruments

The Choir:
Nico Berryman
Jonah Buckland
Violet Buckland
Blue Ivy Carter
Ava Champion
Juno Champion
Marianna Champion
Rex Champion
Aubrey Costall
Harvey Costall
Brian Eno
Elise Eriksen
Hege Fossum Eriksen
Selma Eriksen
Jacob Green
Sophia Green
Daniel Grollo
Finn Grollo
Kat Grollo
Mathilda Grollo
Max Harvey
Rofi Harvey
Idil Hermansen
Isak Hermansen
Alison Martin
Apple Martin
Moses Martin.

Stargate - Producer
Phil Tan - Mixing on [5,8]
Daniel Green - Producer, Mixing on [8,10], Additional Engineering
Digital Divide - Co-Producer on [3]
Emily Lazar - Mastering
Bill Rahko - Engineering
Miles Walker - Engineering
Daniela Rivera - Engineering
Tom Bailey - Additional Engineering
Robin Baynton - Additional Engineering
Jaime Sickora - Additional Engineering
Aleks Von Korff - Additional Engineering
Laurence Anslow - Additional Studio Assistance
Fiona Cruickshank - Additional Studio Assistance
Nicolas Essig - Additional Studio Assistance
Olga Fitzroy - Additional Studio Assistance
Jeff Gartenbaum - Additional Studio Assistance
Christian Green - Additional Studio Assistance
Pablo Hernandez - Additional Studio Assistance
Phil Joly - Additional Studio Assistance
Miguel Lara - Additional Studio Assistance
Matt Mcginn - Additional Studio Assistance
Chris Owens - Additional Studio Assistance
Roxy Pope - Additional Studio Assistance
John Prestage - Additional Studio Assistance
Kyle Stevens - Additional Studio Assistance
Derrick Stockwell - Additional Studio Assistance
Matt Tuggle - Additional Studio Assistance
Ryan Walsh - Additional Studio Assistance
Will Wetzel - Additional Studio Assistance
Pilar Zeta - Design, Art Direction
Phil Harvey - Photography
Ultramajic - Photography
Dave Holmes - Management
Mandi Bursteen - Co-Management
Arlene Moon - Co-Management

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Recorded between Summer 2014 - Autumn 2015 at Henson Recording Studio (Malibu, California) AIR Studios (London, England) The Bakery and The Beehive (London, England).


Released swiftly after Ghost Stories -- just a year and a half, all things considered -- A Head Full of Dreams plays like a riposte to that haunted 2014 album. Where Chris Martin spent Ghost Stories in a mournful mood -- his sorrow perhaps derived from his divorce to Gwyneth Paltrow or perhaps not; it's best not to read too much into the tabloid headlines -- the Coldplay leader sees nothing but sunshine and stars on A Head Full of Dreams. Martin gives away the game with his song titles. He's quite literally having "Fun" on an "Amazing Day," living for the weekend and viewing his impending middle age as nothing so much as the "Adventure of a Lifetime." Coldplay match his optimism by tempering their signature soft focus, pushing themselves toward the light and undergirding the newfound positivity via glittering disco beats and a gossamer electronic sheen. Arriving after the deliberately dour Ghost Stories, this infusion of backbeat and glitz does indeed feel welcome and bold but such determined levity also suggests the gusto of a greying divorcee boogying down on the deck of a cruise ship, determined to seize every bit of life headed his way. This carpe diem spirit courses throughout A Head Full of Dreams, turning it into a 21st century equivalent of Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life, a divorce record where every end seems like a fresh new beginning. Appropriately, Coldplay invite more than a few guests to help usher them into this brave new world, the showiest being Beyoncé, who overwhelms the band's innate politeness on "Hymn for the Weekend," but Tove Lo eases right into "Fun" and Noel Gallagher amiably allows himself to be swallowed by the gentle wash of guitars and synths. All these cameos suit the overarching theme of A Head Full of Dreams -- how there's a big, bright, beautiful world just waiting to be discovered if you just open your heart and live a little -- and if this message is unabashedly corny, under the stewardship of Chris Martin, Coldplay cheerfully embrace the cheese, ratcheting up both the sparkle and the sentiment so the album feels genuine in its embrace of eternal middle-aged clichés.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



If A Head Full of Dreams is Coldplay’s final album, as frontman Chris Martin once recklessly warned, then the 11-track whirlwind finds the mega-selling British quartet racing toward the setting sun in a Mad Max: Fury Road gas-guzzling Franken-heap. Martin puts on the confetti-spewing Technicolor dreamcoat he discarded for 2014’s downer Ghost Stories and returns on the band’s 7th studio release with a rejuvenated spirit — just in time to get creamed commercially by Adele.

A 13th-century Persian poet helped Martin snap out of his post-conscious uncoupling funk. More specifically, Rumi’s short and sweet “The Guest House” prompted the 38-year-old to accept the dissolution of his decade-long marriage to Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow. The poem reads like something a co-worker pins to her “Words” board on Pinterest, yet its elegant beckoning of the heart’s deepest fears rings true. The stanzas resonated with Martin’s fragile state of mind so completely, he had poet Coleman Barks peacefully recite a few lines on “Kaleidoscope”. The mid-album palate cleanser features stirring, but minimal piano accompaniment and a ballyhooed snippet of President Obama’s muffled rendition of “Amazing Grace” from his eulogy at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church for a pastor who was one of eight killed in last summer’s Charleston church shooting in South Carolina. Its inclusion is a little precious, especially on a release stuffed with turns (some barely perceptible) from a pop goddess, British rock royalty (Noel Gallagher on “Up and Up”), ex-wives, current girlfriends, and fair-haired progeny.

Speaking of pop’s heavenly creature, Beyoncé lends her luminous presence to “Hymn for the Weekend”. Thanks to heavy production from Stargate, the Norwegian hit-makers behind some of Katy Perry and Rihanna’s finest, the sugary romper resembles everything Ryan Seacrest pushes out on his American Top 40 radio show. Without Martin’s distinctive falsetto, the track could belong to a bevy of American Music Award recipients. But, damn, it moves. They’re in talks to bring that pairing to the Super Bowl halftime show, an absolutely inspired choice.

Coldplay’s invitation to Stargate (Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen) to serve as co-producers stems from a long history of embracing the bile thrown by critics at the band. Pin a U2-lite tag on them and they enlist Brian Eno on 2008’s Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends to Grammy-winning smash success. Call them bland and they retaliate with the blissfully unaware “Hurts Like Heaven” from Mylo Xyloto — an audacious attempt at a rock opera. No matter how overblown or nonsensical Coldplay have progressively gotten since 2002’s watermark A Rush of Blood to the Head, as long as they deliver one gobsmacking single per album, they’re kings — and rightfully so. That’s how you build a career.

A Head Full of Dreams follows suit with first single “Adventure of a Lifetime”. Between Jonny Buckland’s curlicue guitar, clanking cowbell from Will Champion, and swirling disco beats anchored by Guy Berryman, it’s a hypnotic, coke-dusted dance party so indebted to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” that Martin should receive an honorary chrome helmet.

While the band’s breakthrough “Yellow” and “The Scientist” cut to the bone with deceptively simple verses, Martin is fully immersed in a post-lyrics world at this point. The album’s title track opens with chimes signaling entry into a magical land — like opening the door to Willy Wonka’s gluttonous factory. But, the song wastes no time getting to its generic “oh oh oh-a-oh” chorus, the kind of thing that a glowing sea of wailers will shout up to the rafters of the stadiums the band visits on tour next year. A bit lazy, one could argue, but as Martin told the Wall Street Journal, he doesn’t want “anything to get in the way of the mood of the music … you can’t translate the melody into words.” He applies that logic on “Birds”, which bears a dumbfounding resemblance to The Cure’s “Close to Me”. (Instead of constricting with anxiety like the ’80s staple, it soars — pun intended.) Much like Radiohead (don’t freak out Thom Yorke disciples), the way in which Martin sings something matters more than what he’s singing, and here it’s enough.

If marital woes between Martin and Paltrow routed Ghost Stories down a maudlin path, their stance as Hollywood’s most friendly exes buoys A Head Full of Dreams. The blonde beauty never ventures too far from Martin’s mind. She even joined him in the studio on “Everglow”. Inspired by surfer wisdom, the piano-driven ballad minimizes her vocal contribution, but not the former couple’s bond. The wistful “Fun” palpitates like an unbroken heart while asking the Goop curator to reminisce about the good times. “Don’t say it was all a waste/ Didn’t we have fun?” Martin sings, with serene help from Tove Lo. Sure, there are some overwrought moments, some grandiose misses, but that’s not the point. Think of that line as the last note fades and just say yes.

Janine Schaults - December 04, 2015
© 2007 - 2015 Consequence of Sound



“Turn your magic on!” could well be the Chris Martin lyric to end all Chris Martin lyrics. It’s got the requisite amount of look-to-the-heavens wonder and potential glass half empty subtext you come to expect from a pen that spills both exuberant and wistful ink, and, well, it’s really rather naff and desperate.

If last year’s tonally confused Coldplay album Ghost Stories was Martin’s break-up record, A Head Full of Dreams is an attempt at moving on, rebounding into the sun with head held high, a smile on the face and bright colours painting the path. Yet the head feels weighed down with unresolved torment, the smile forced and awkward, the colours garish and messily-applied.

Shortly after Martin speaks of magic like it’s some kind of previously unacknowledged human characteristic on the album-trailing ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’, he notes that he is ”a dream that died by light of day”. There’s room for interesting duality here, and there’s no real reason why Martin can’t embrace the strange and thus mix light and dark effectively. However, he’s not interested in blurring the lines and so ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’, like so much of A Head Full of Dreams, is merely a throwaway nothing.

It’s odd to accuse Coldplay of a lack of ambition. No, really. Love them or loathe them, they’ve been quite committed in their bid to usurp U2’s throne – and spray paint it in neon pinks and blues, presumably – and thus have pushed their sonic boundaries as much as a mainstream stadium-sized outfit can over the years. Like Bono and friends, Coldplay are a quite fine ‘Greatest Hits’ band. Sure, their name tends to provoke rolling of eyes and genuine invective but you could easily cherry-pick from their discography and assemble something worthwhile. A Head Full of Dreams, for all its studio razzmatazz and encouragement of celebration, has no place at the party.

The weird thing is that Coldplay have already made this record, and they did it a good deal better, too. Mylo Xyloto is unlikely to pop up in many considered retrospective lists but it’s certainly one of the most interesting entries into their canon, nailing pop sensibility and emotive wandering in its best moments and failing somewhat nobly in its stumbles. A Head Full of Dreams, on the other hand, sounds like a well-studied, rigid, demographic-conscious impression of Coldplay, empty as a consequence.

It all just kind of sighs along, right from the opening gush of bargain bin Edge riffing and clunky disco rhythm. There’s some utter nonsense about “miracles at work” and “a conference of birds” (yep) before it all leads, inevitably, to the big “woah-oh-ohhhhh” moment, the staple of bands who really have nothing to say so let’s just do that thing that the big crowd likes to do. Compelling stuff, Chris. ‘Birds’, meanwhile, is The Cure by way of Phoenix, nicking the drums from ‘Close to Me’ and coasting by on familiar French zeal. Other efforts like ‘Fun’ (yep), ‘Army of One’ – and its weird swagger-laden hidden track – and ‘Up&Up’ all feel tired and hollow.

As for the Beyoncé-assisted ‘Hymn for the Weekend’, the words ‘career’ and ‘nadir’ don’t quite do it justice, so we’ll let Martin’s hilarious explanation from his Wall Street Journal interview take over:

'The original kernel was that I was listening to Flo Rida or something, and I thought, it’s such a shame that Coldplay could never have one of those late-night club songs, like "Turn Down for What". What would we call it if we had one? I thought I’d like to have a song called ‘Drinks on Me’ where you sit on the side of a club and buy everyone drinks because you’re so f—ing cool. I was chuckling about that, when this melody came —“drinks on me, drinks on me”—then the rest of the song came out. I presented it to the rest of the band and they said, “We love this song, but there’s no way you can sing ‘drinks on me.’” So that changed into “drink from me” and the idea of having an angelic person in your life. Then that turned into asking Beyoncé to sing on it.'

Minutes later, he’s in front of the piano singing mournfully about celestial lions.

Every new Coldplay album comes loaded with some kind of dramatic narrative hook. This time around, A Head Full of Dreams is not only totally, definitely the album the band most enjoyed making, honest, it’s purportedly their final bow, too.

It should be.

Dave Hanratty - December 14th, 2015
© 2000-2015 Drowned in Sound



If you subscribe to the idea that Coldplay are heirs to U2's throne, then A Head Full of Dreams is their Pop. On that record, Bono and company hooked up with Howie B, immersed themselves in club culture and produced their most dance floor-friendly record at a time when the music industry was trying to sell dance music to America under the guise of "electronica." Efforts on both fronts were a bit of a washout.

Eighteen years later, Coldplay are trying to walk a similar line, merging their stadium-sized soft rock with the EDM (the industry's most recent and far more successful dance music pitch) zeitgeist. It also marks a return to the pop maximalism of Mylo Xyloto, following last year's muted Ghost Stories, aided and abetted by Norwegian songwriting duo Stargate, best known for penning dance-infused R&B hits for Rihanna.

On paper, this sounds like an intriguing combination. But, as with their work with Brian Eno, Coldplay are reluctant to let their collaborators voices overshadow their own. The record's best tracks, "Adventure of a Lifetime" and the swinging "Hymn for the Weekend," featuring vocals from Beyoncé and programming from Avicii, provide a clue as to what might have been. But they seem more interested in borrowing EDM's aesthetic of oversized uplift than crafting memorable grooves. Coldplay-isms — Chris Martin's piano ballads, Jonny Buckland's bland single-note guitar riffs — continue to abound, and any substantive contributions co-producers Stargate or guests like Noel Gallagher make are relegated to the background.

Coldplay have the distinction of being music's safest band, but that wasn't always the case. Although they always rocked listeners gently, there was a distinct sense of yearning and tension at play on debut Parachutes and its blockbuster follow-up, A Rush of Blood to the Head. Over the years, the band descended into a complacency they've tried to mask with experimentation. Despite a rolodex of A-list producers and guests, they've never embraced the role of sonic innovators the way U2 did. Pop was a failure in the eyes of many, but no one could accuse the group of half measures.

Despite pretensions both arty (Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends) and populist (this record), Coldplay remain steadfast in their unwillingness to mess with their (very successful) formula. A Head Full of Dreams might have been a poptimist masterpiece. Instead, it's just another Coldplay album, with all the baggage — both positive and negative — that entails.

Ian Gormely - Dec 03, 2015
Exclaim!



A Head Full of Dreams is the seventh studio album by British rock band Coldplay. It was released on 4 December 2015 by Parlophone and Atlantic Records. It is the second album by the band in North America under Atlantic, after Coldplay were transferred from Capitol Records America in 2013. For various songs on the album, Coldplay collaborated with Beyoncé, Noel Gallagher, Tove Lo, Khatia Buniatishvili and Merry Clayton. The album was produced by Rik Simpson and Stargate. Coldplay have also revealed that the album features a sample of the U.S. President Barack Obama singing "Amazing Grace" at Clementa C. Pinckney's funeral on the track "Kaleidoscope".

oldplay began working on A Head Full of Dreams in the summer of 2014 while they were promoting their sixth album Ghost Stories. In an interview with Radio 2 DJ Jo Whiley in December 2014, bassist Guy Berryman and guitarist Jonny Buckland gave a hint as to the difference between A Head Full of Dreams and its predecessor - Buckland called it the "night to the day", comparing the style of Ghost Stories to the expected uplifting theme of A Head Full of Dreams. Frontman Chris Martin hinted at the style of the album by saying that the band was trying to make something colourful and uplifting. He also stated that it would be something to "shuffle your feet" to. On 26 September 2015, the band performed at the Global Citizen Festival 2015 in New York City, playing a six-song set, including a new song called "Amazing Day". The band's producer Rik Simpson confirmed that the song would be on the new album.

A Head Full of Dreams received mixed to favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating from mainstream critics' reviews, the album holds a score of 60 out of 100, based on 27 reviews. Citing the band's unwillingness to stray from their tried and true formula, Ian Gormely of Exclaim! wrote that "A Head Full of Dreams might have been a poptimist masterpiece. Instead, it's just another Coldplay album, with all the baggage — both positive and negative — that entails."

A Head Full of Dreams debuted at number three on the Irish Albums Chart on 11 December 2015, the band's lowest charting album in Ireland and their first to miss the top spot since Parachutes in 2000. The same day, the album debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart on sales of 235,975, behind Adele's 25, which denied Coldplay a seventh consecutive number-one album. It was, however, their highest first-week album sales since 2008's Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, which sold 302,074 copies in its first week. Had A Head Full of Dreams debuted atop the UK Albums Chart, it would have made Coldplay only the second band in UK chart history (after Oasis) to do so with their first seven albums. The album did manage to top both the UK Album Downloads Chart and the UK Vinyl Albums Chart. The album also reached number two in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Italy, held off number one by Adele's 25 in all territories. In the US, A Head Full of Dreams debuted on the US Billboard 200 chart at number two, powered by first week sales 210,000 equivalent album units; it sold 195,000 copies in its first week, with the remainder of its unit total reflecting the album's streaming activity and track sales. In its second week, the album fell to number seven on the Billboard 200, selling 61,000 copies, for a two-week total of 256,000 units. The only country where A Head Full of Dreams has managed to chart at number one is Norway, replacing 25. This enabled Coldplay to achieve there what Adele prevented them from doing in other territories; all of their studio albums reaching the top spot.

Wikipedia.org
 

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