Oh, I think I've landed In a world I hadn't seen

Continuing my trip back through the 2015 album charts.

18/12/15 : A Head Full Of Dreams - Coldplay

Before we get to Coldplay, I need to talk about an album that I might well have listened to under other circumstances - but having had FIVE Elvis albums last year, there was no way he was getting another go in the second week of this year. If I Can Dream is quite an interesting concept though, whereby they've taken his vocal tracks and put them over orchestral backings - I had a quick listen and it seemed quite well done, so it was just unlucky that I met it now. So on to Coldplay we go - this is our fifth visit with Chris and the lads and I think I've heard it, but it certainly wasn't peak Coldplay time for me so I don't remember any of it.

Hmmm - it's alright I guess. None of it is terrible, but none of it's great either - there's a lot of aimless noodling going on here (I've got absolutely no idea what they thought they were doing on "Kaleidoscope"). For me, I just don't see there's any reason to head back to it - unless I felt the need to remind myself of all the songs that I've already forgotten. It will be interesting to read the critics' opinion, but I struggle to imagine this is too many people's favourite Coldplay album.

We're at #3 in the chart this week on their second week of a 93 week run, with it peaking at #1 in its tenth week (it then spent the next five weeks at #5) - interestingly for such a long run, it has never revisited the chart since. The rest of the top five were Adele, Elvis, Justin Bieber and Jess Glynne and there were no new entries in the entire chart.

Wikipedia has another sizeable entry (351 milliPeppers) but there's remarkably little of interest in there - they recorded the album, released it, toured it and people bought it. The critics were pretty mixed on it with NME declaring it "the most satisfying collection of songs they've written in years" and Under The Radar stating it was "insufferably bland at best and downright offensive at worst". Did the public care about any of that? They did not, buying it by the bucketload, although in a load of countries it only debuted at #2 because of Adele - it still sold over a million copies here and in the US though. It's also got quite the guest artist list on it - Avicii, Beyoncé, Tove Lo, Noel Gallagher and, apparently, "Kaleidoscope" features President Obama singing "Amazing Grace" at Clementa C. Pinckney's funeral - so now I know. There's also a choir involved at some point which appears to feature a load of people's random family members (including Blue Ivy Carter) and, errr, Brian Eno. OK.

"Customers also listened to" One Republic, Maroon 5, Imagine Dragons and Snow Patrol - yeah, some definite similar sounds there. But this just didn't hit the spot for me - it just felt a bit slapdash and forgettable.

11/12/15 - Surprisingly enjoyable
25/12/15 - A slightly successful album

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