Radio One have been playing this for months, but it's only just got a video:

Kanye West ft Chris Martin - Homecoming


Do you know what? It's a great song, but all I think of when I see the video is "Oh crap, Coldplay have a new album coming out this year".

Labels: coldplay, kanye west, Music, video

I'm not the biggest Coldplay fan in the world. Yes, their heartfelt piano ballads are effectively written and uniquely anthemic, but they're just a bit whiny, aren't they?

Nonetheless, every band of their stature has one song that transcends their limitations and The Scientist is most definitely that song for Coldplay.

The song's lyrics are typical Chris Martin fare: I'm sorry for that thing I did. It won't be easy but I want to fix our relationship. Ooooooh. Oooooooh. Oooooooooh.
It's right moving, so it is.

The video, however, is a little shard of filmic genius that gives the record a huge emotional punch. "I had this idea that I wanted to do a story that's tragic but starts off happy and ends happy, and the video is about rewinding to that happy ending," director Jamie Thaves told MTV.

In the beginning, Martin is lying down on a mattress before (rather creepily) righting himself and tracing his route back to a car crash, in which his girlfriend apparently dies. The video ends with the couple happily talking in their car, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that lies ahead.

The overall effect is creepy and other-worldly, but also incredibly moving. Thaves, who came up with the story before he'd even heard the Coldplay track, has woven similarly powerful narratives into some of his other videos - notably Radiohead's Just, which I'll feature on here sometime in the future.

Technically, the video must have been incredibly difficult to pull off. It was shot forwards - with Martin walking through fields and jumping over walls in London and Surrey - but in the final cut, the pictures are reversed in order to tell the story.

This means that, during shooting, the music had to be played backwards. Martin therefore had to learn how to sing The Scientist in reverse. Apparently, it took him a month.

On the DVD single, there's a "reversed" version of the video which proves how hard it must have been for Martin to learn the nonsense syllables for the video. I've put it up on youtube in case you want to have a look.

In the meantime, here's the real thing!

Buy The Scientist on DVD at Amazon

Labels: coldplay, Music, Review, video

In Quantum Physics, there is a theory that the act of observing something happening causes a change in the thing being observed. "A watched kettle never boils" is probably not an example - but you get the idea.

So, what happens when you point a microphone at, say, Coldplay and start to record what they're doing? Ignoring the fact that Chris Martin isn't a quantum particle (although I'd bet he'd like to be), are you changing the very nature of what they do by observing/recording their music?

Funnily enough, there's an article in the New Yorker suggesting that this is exactly what happens.

Over the last 100 years, for example, violinists have increasingly used vibrato. The reason the technique came to prominence is that it gave the instrument a fuller sound amongst the crackly grooves of vinyl. These days, vibrato is ubiquitous, even outside the recording studio.

Pop music fares a little better, as it uses the techniques of the studio to keep it fresh -- although we've all heard amazing live acts sound flat and lifeless on CD.

Perhaps the biggest danger for pop is when bands get more interested in the studio than they do in playing together.

Blur's "13" is a case in point - most of the songs on that album are patchwork recordings pieced together in ProTools by William Orbit. It's an interesting piece of art - at the expense of having actual songs.

So, there you have it, a link between pop music and quantum physics.

But where's Dean Stockwell to make it all better?

Oh boy.

The New Yorker: THE RECORD EFFECT by ALEX ROSS

Labels: blur, coldplay, Music

Drew Barrymore and Penelope Cruz mesh faces.
No tongue, though.

Urgh! Why on earth did Prince Charles post a slice of cake to Jamelia?

We all know the USA has become an increasingly tough market for foreign recording artists. But launch.com have perhaps got the wrong end of the stick when they insist that "Coldplay have become only the second British band to have a new entry in the US singles chart."

Has Paula Abdul been doing the dirty with an American Idol contestant? Will Fox axe her from the show? And why is it so important to rival network, ABC, to make this public? Ratings envy, anyone?

From the "I want one of those" department:
Hayden Christensen's Sith Happens T-shirt

Labels: coldplay, drew barrymore, hayden christensen, jamelia, Paula Abdul, penelope cruz

Over at Coldplay's official website, they've posted a Christmas video. The band play cover versions of Mistletoe and Wine and Little Donkey dressed in santa hats, while Chris Martin breakdances. Christ alive.

COLDPLAY : OFFICIAL SITE

Labels: coldplay, Music