A Head Full of Dreams by Coldplay
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". Coldplay 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. The album has been produced by Rik Simpson (the band's longterm collaborator) and Norwegian duo Stargate (Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen). Mixing duties were carried out predominately by Rik Simpson. Stargate executive produced the album.
Chris Martin felt that <i>A Head Full of Dreams</i> marked the end of something for Coldplay. In his mind, the band’s lead singer compared it to the seven colours of the colour spectrum—on their seventh record, they were completing a journey. It made for a dazzling and joyous album, something that felt like a culmination over everything the four-piece had explored over the previous 15-plus years. There were no concerns about what was cool and what wasn’t anymore. Coldplay were way beyond that, more interested in celebrating that they were a band who loved pop music as much as they loved rock ’n’ roll, so why not combine it all? To that end, <i>A Head Full of Dreams</i> features appearances from Beyoncé, Noel Gallagher, Brian Eno, Tove Lo and Merry Clayton with some guests that went beyond the realm of musical peers. There’s the political—Barack Obama pops up on two tracks for spoken-word excerpts—and the personal in a Coldplay Jr choir made up of all their children, plus Martin’s ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow singing a line referring to their break-up on the tender ballad “Everglow”. Beginning work on the album directly after the completion of <i>Ghost Stories</i>’ low-key introspection, <i>A Head Full of Dreams</i> was designed to be that record’s opposite, a return to big holler-along choruses and monumental, hug-your-mate hooks. Teaming up with megahit specialists and Grammy-winning production duo Stargate, they dived deeper into the pop world than they ever had before. From the spiralling riff that conducts the pulsing dance-pop of “Adventure of a Lifetime” to the euphoric “whoa-oh-oh”s of the title track, this was Coldplay at their most unashamedly positive and uplifting. On the irresistible R&B grooves of “Hymn for the Weekend”, Martin and Beyoncé joined forces for one of the group’s most rousing and rhapsodic choruses. The idea behind <i>A Head Full of Dreams</i> was that if you focus on something hard enough and want it to happen, you can will it into existence. Here, all of Coldplay’s dreams came true. Their first spectrum ended with the biggest of bangs.
