COLDPLAY: Moon Music (Parlophone)
Verdict: Celestial sounds
Ten albums into a career which began with an unassuming debut album, Parachutes, in 2000, Coldplay‘s Chris Martin has suggested the band’s days are numbered.
‘We are only going to do 12 proper albums, and that’s real,’ he said in an interview this week with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. ‘It’s really important that we have that limit.’
He explained that a deadline would ensure they maintained quality control. And, while it’s advisable to be wary of any musician hinting at early retirement, the standard is high on new album Moon Music.
Embodying all the traits that have made them one of Britain’s biggest bands (and steering clear, for the most part, of the hackneyed lyrics that have let Martin down in the past), it’s a consummate Coldplay record.
The countdown to today’s release has gone swimmingly. In June, the group delivered a scintillating Saturday headline slot at Glastonbury, while tickets to next year’s stadium tour are selling fast.
Ten albums into a career which began with an unassuming debut album, Parachutes, in 2000, Coldplay ‘s Chris Martin has suggested the band’s days are numbered
Another indication of Coldplay’s status came last month when their ubiquity reached the England men’s cricket team
The ten Wembley shows the quartet are due to play will eclipse the previous record of eight, held jointly by Take That’s 2011 Progress Live show and Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour.
Another indication of Coldplay’s status came last month when their ubiquity reached the England men’s cricket team. After his side had been humbled by Sri Lanka in the Third Test at The Oval, batsman Joe Root explained away a poor performance by saying: ‘Coldplay can’t be number one every week.’
The odds are that Moon Music will comfortably top the charts, though. Produced by Swedish pop maestro Max Martin, it combines elements of their two previous releases — the adventurous spirit of 2019’s Everyday Life and the potent hooks of 2021’s Music Of The Spheres. Even their fiercest detractors would be hard-pushed to deny their gift for melody.
Like Music Of The Spheres, which was set in a fictional planetary system, Moon Music is dotted with celestial images. ‘I’m trying to trust in the heavens above,’ sings Martin on the title track, which begins as a symphonic overture and develops into a simple, but touching, piano ballad. The main character in the LGBT anthem Jupiter is a woman named after the giant planet.
With next year’s tour in mind, there are songs seemingly designed to be sung back at the band by tens of thousands of fans. Feels Like I’m Falling In Love is giddy and euphoric, and iAAM (short for ‘I am a mountain’) is driven by Will Champion’s booming drums and a searing electric guitar solo — a rarity for Coldplay these days — by Jonny Buckland.
When the band enlisted former Disney Channel starlet Selena Gomez and K-pop boy band BTS to help out on Music Of The Spheres, it came across as an unsubtle attempt to woo a younger audience. The collaborations here, though, have greater artistic merit, with rapper Little Simz and Nigerian singer Burna Boy delivering stellar turns on We Pray.
Chris Martin believes Moon Music is one of the band’s strongest albums. ‘If you’ve ever liked Coldplay, your favourite Coldplay song’s probably on this album,’ he says. So, is there another Viva La Vida or Fix You? That’s a high bar, and such things are usually only apparent once the songs have been done live, but I see two contenders.
A handout look at the new Coldplay album which is called Moon Music
The first, Good Feelings, is an electrifying R&B duet between Martin and Afrobeats singer Ayra Starr. The other, All My Love, has all the ingredients of a crowd-pleaser. Sung by Martin in a tender falsetto, it evokes The Beatles’ Let It Be and Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better.
On Moon Music, Coldplay are again reaching out across the universe. But the underlying themes are more down to earth, with everyday emotions expressed in straightforward, if overly sentimental, pop songs. Or as Martin puts it on One World: ‘In the end, it’s just love.’
This album won’t win many new admirers, but Coldplay fans are in for a treat.
JAMES BAY: Changes All The Time (EMI)
Verdict: Shifts back into gear
James Bay never lived up to the promise of his 2014 debut album Chaos And The Calm, which landed the Hertfordshire singer a BRIT for best male artist. He foolishly abandoned his blues sound on a poppy second album, Electric Light, then found himself out of step with the times when he went back to heartland rock on 2022’s Leap.
He should fare better this time. The UK’s three biggest songs of 2024 so far are by introspective male soloists — Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things and Teddy Swims’ Lose Control — and Bay reiterates his credentials as a soul-baring storyteller on Changes All The Time.
James Bay never lived up to the promise of his 2014 debut album Chaos And The Calm
Made with American musician Gabe Simon, who produced Kahan’s Stick Season, there’s a candour to Bay’s folky ballads and rockers.
There are also two notable co-writes, with Killers frontman Brandon Flowers on Easy Distraction, and Grantham singer Holly Humberstone assisting on country- soul ballad Dogfight.
Both albums out today. Coldplay start a UK tour on August 18, 2025, at Craven Park, Hull (coldplay.com). James Bay’s tour starts on February 1, 2025, at O2 Academy, Glasgow (ticketmaster.co.uk).
Harley Quinn’s Jazzy tribute to the Joker
LADY GAGA: Harlequin (Interscope)
Verdict: Jazzy detour
What Lady Gaga’s fans will make of her latest foray into jazz is anyone’s guess. Her devotees — ‘Little Monsters’ — have grown accustomed to her spectacular costumes (like the infamous ‘Meat Dress’ of 2010), zany wigs and over-the-top live shows.
Her most recent album, 2020’s Chromatica, was a celebration of her roots in electronic dance music.
Gaga is in her element on the jaunty, big-band numbers Get Happy and Good Morning, and she lets rip on the show tune If My Friends Could See Me Now
But the singer (right), born Stefani Germanotta, also enjoys updating the Great American Songbook, as she showed on the two duets albums — Cheek To Cheek and Love For Sale — she made with the late Tony Bennett. Guided by the master of intimate singing, her instinctive phrasing proved her jazz credentials.
She charts a similar path on Harlequin, a ‘companion album’ to the new Joker: Folie à Deux film (reviewed opposite), in which she stars as Harley Quinn.
A mixture of cover versions, songs from the movie and two original numbers, it’s a soundtrack-of-sorts.
Somewhat confusingly, though, there’s also an official cast album available, plus an original score by composer Hildur Guðnadóttir.
Gaga is in her element on the jaunty, big-band numbers Get Happy and Good Morning, and she lets rip on the show tune If My Friends Could See Me Now, but Harlequin lacks the warmth of her duets with Bennett.
Of most interest are the original tracks. Folie à Deux, which is in the film, is sung with a hint of menace. Happy Mistake, which is only on this album, is a stark ballad about fame: a primer, perhaps, for a forthcoming studio album. ‘I can try to hide behind the make-up,’ she sings, ‘but the show must go on.’ A trouper to the end.
BEST OF THE NEW RELEASES
ROCK & POP
THE SMILE: Cutouts (XL)
With their second album in ten months, Radiohead spin-off The Smile are undoubtedly prolific. But there’s also a hint of diminishing returns on Cutouts, with the trio’s twitchy rhythms and labyrinthine melodies losing the capacity to surprise. The musicianship, as ever, is exceptional. Jazz drummer Tom Skinner anchors the band superbly, while guitarist Jonny Greenwood delivers classic rock riffs on The Slip and funkier lines on Zero Sum — which also features the improbable sound of Thom Yorke rapping.
CLASSICAL
JONAS KAUFMANN: Puccini – Love Affairs (Sony)
It may seem Quixotic to judge Jonas Kaufmann’s latest CD by the parade of prima donnas featured, but it is inevitable.
In the opening ‘O soave fanciulla’ from La Boheme, the celebrated tenor sounds just a little throaty and hoarse, and it is his Mimi, Pretty Yende, who carries him through.
Then there are Anna Netrebko as Manon, Sonya Yoncheva as Tosca, Malin Bystrom as Minnie, Asmik Grigorian as Giorgetta and Maria Agresta as a touching Butterfly.
Having said that, the German star, 53 at the time of the sessions, mostly sings with a fine tone, even if his voice is heavier than it was on his Verismo Arias album in 2010.
He is well accompanied by the Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale in Bologna under Asher Fisch and at the end adds two popular arias from La Boheme and Tosca.
The presentation is excellent, with all the texts in four languages, photos of the artists and an interview with Kaufmann about his choices. The sound is atmospheric.
SCHUBERT: Symphonies 1-6, 8 & 9 (Challenge Classics, four CDs)
What , no Seventh Symphony? Even though it exists in short score and has been nicely completed by Brian Newbould.
Dutch maestro Jan Willem de Vriend and the first-rate Residentie Orkest of The Hague stick to the usual eight works and do not even try to fill out the famous ‘Unfinished’.
The Fifth and Sixth were recorded in 2022 in the orchestra’s brand-new hall, which sounds as if it has a good acoustic; the others were set down in two temporary homes.
I started my listening at the end with the Great C major, No. 9, and worked backwards, gaining the impression that these were friendly readings suiting the conductor’s name.
The early Symphonies by the teenage Schubert are taken seriously but not too solemnly and the style of each work is brought out, with the influences of Mozart and Rossini.
What this genius would have left us if he had lived even a few more years, is impossible to fathom. The riches in this soberly presented box are already enough to sustain us.
TULLY POTTER
