In a recent thread on Reddit that appeared in the run-up to the 10th Coldplay album, a poster asked, “Will new [Coldplay] album be a return to their roots or more commercial fluff?” Such a distinction might seem a bit odd considering that Coldplay’s early-2000s “roots” involved sculpting 1990s Radiohead and 1980s U2 into soft-rock valentines. But the Coldplay purist had a point. One can imagine a fan of “Clocks” or “Yellow” or “The Scientist” feeling a bit adrift amid the shiny elation of the band’s last album, Music of the Spheres, which featured pop ringers like Selena Gomez and BTS, and with the help of pop scientist-producer Max Martin, matched some of the slickest music Coldplay have made with the cosmically-inclined theme of finding our shared humanity out there in the misty blue.
As its title implies, the Coldplay of Moon Music aren’t…
