A Head Full of Dreams

''A Head Full of Dreams'' is the seventh studio album by British rock band Coldplay, released on 4 December 2015, by Parlophone in the United Kingdom, and by Atlantic Records in the United States. Coldplay recorded the album from early to mid 2015, right after the completion of their previous album '' Ghost Stories'', with a markedly different style and sound from its predecessors. For various songs, Coldplay collaborated with Beyoncé, Noel Gallagher, Tove Lo, Khatia Buniatishvili and Merry Clayton. The album was produced by Rik Simpson and Stargate. The album also features a sample of President Barack Obama singing "Amazing Grace" at Clementa C. Pinckney's funeral on the song "Kaleidoscope".

The album received generally mixed reviews from critics. Nevertheless, it was a commercial success as it topped the UK Albums Chart, and peaked at number two in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Italy, where it was held off the top spot by Adele's '' 25''. At the 2016 Brit Awards the album was nominated for British Album of the Year. It was the eighth-best-selling album of 2015 with 1.9 million copies sold worldwide, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. It was the ninth-best-selling album of 2016, with 1.4 million copies sold worldwide, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. As of November 2017, the album has sold over 4,5 million copies worldwide. It was supported by five singles: " Adventure of a Lifetime", " Hymn for the Weekend", " Up&Up", the title track, and " Everglow". A 5.1 Surround Blu-ray Audio version of the album was released via the band's website on 23 September 2016.

The album was promoted by the successful A Head Full of Dreams Tour, that lasted nearly two years. The following year after the tour's conclusion, the band released '' Live in Buenos Aires'', which was recorded on the final two nights of the tour in La Plata, Buenos Aires. A concert film and a documentary were also included in a deluxe edition of the CD. A second live album entitled ''Love In Tokyo'' was also released as a Japanese exclusive album which featured recordings from multiple legs of the tour.

Background

Coldplay began working on ''A Head Full of Dreams'' in late 2014 after promoting their sixth album '' Ghost Stories''. The album has a markedly different style and sound from its predecessors. In an interview with Radio 2 DJ Jo Whiley in December 2014, guitarist Jonny Buckland and bass guitarist Guy Berryman 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''. Lead singer 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. On 21 November 2016 frontman Chris Martin announced new material to be released for 2017 via Twitter, it would be named '' Kaleidoscope EP''. The album was 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.

Promotion

Tour

Compared to the sparse tour dates of the ''Ghost Stories'' era, Coldplay announced a larger global tour soon after the album release, which will be more reminiscent of the Mylo Xyloto Tour than the Ghost Stories Tour, to promote both ''A Head Full of Dreams'' and ''Ghost Stories''. It was confirmed that the band will perform in locations such as India and South America – more specifically Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico in the first half of 2016. They have since confirmed that pre-production on the tour has started and that the official tour is planned to start next year. On 20 November 2015, they announced the A Head Full of Dreams Tour, with shows in South America starting at 31 March 2016, Buenos Aires and a European leg is also announced for summer 2016, including four sold-out nights at Wembley Stadium in June. In February, the band featured a picture on various social media sites of a hot air balloon (a symbol used to promote the tour) by Glastonbury farms' main pyramid stage field, along with the date Sunday 26 June. Glastonbury organisers have since confirmed a record-breaking fourth headline appearance, having previously performed on the stage in 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2011. The band's appearance was then confirmed to be Coldplay's festival show of this year's tour. On 30 September 2016, after the huge success of 2016's A Head Full of Dreams Tour, Coldplay announced a new leg of the tour with dates in Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Ireland and Wales. On 7 October 2016, the band announced eighteen more shows in North America beginning in Aug 2017 and finishing in October. On 15 November 2016, they announced shows in Asia for April 2017, visiting Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.

Poster and artwork

Around 30 October 2015 anonymous posters were pinned up on the London Underground showing a geometric pattern, known as the Flower of Life, along with a note "December 4".
Coldplay fans claimed that the symbol resembled the design on a T-shirt worn by Coldplay frontman Chris Martin at the Global Citizen Festival in New York. On 2 November, Coldplay posted the same piece of artwork as an animated GIF on their Twitter account, seemingly confirming that it would be the album cover and 4 December was the album's release date. One day later, they published another animated image of which the former was a detailed view. The artwork was created by Argentine artist Pilar Zeta in collaboration with the band.
Oli Sykes, lead singer of British post-hardcore band Bring Me the Horizon, suggested that the flower of life symbol Coldplay used was similar to that of the design of Bring Me the Horizon's 2013 album ''Sempiternal''. Sykes took to Twitter accusing Coldplay of "jackin our steez". He did however clarify in a NME interview that the "flower of life" is a universal symbol and has meanings across the world, none of which he owns the rights to. He also specifies that it had meaning to him and that he is simply acknowledging the symbol being spread and is happy for its doing so.

Live performances

At the Global Citizen Festival in New York Coldplay performed six songs, ending with the live debut of a new song, ''Amazing Day''. They also played ''Amazing Day'' at '' TFI Friday'', where they played four songs including the live debut of " Adventure of a Lifetime". During their concert at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles they performed four songs from the new album, including the live debut of the songs ''A Head Full of Dreams'' and ''Up&Up''. On 24 November Coldplay started releasing 10-15 second snippets of each song from the new album via Instagram at hourly intervals. On 7 February 2016, the band headlined the Super Bowl 50 halftime show.

Singles

" Adventure of a Lifetime", was released on 6 November 2015 as the album's lead single, the music video came out on 29 November 2015. " Everglow" then premiered on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 radio show on 26 November 2015 and released as a promotional single on the following day. " Hymn for the Weekend" was released as the second single for the album on 25 January 2016. The band received criticism from certain media outlets for the portrayal of Indian society in its music video. The third single, " Up&Up", was released on 22 April 2016, while " A Head Full of Dreams" arrived on 19 August 2016 with an accompanying music video. A stripped-down version of " Everglow", which was inspired by Martin's unrehearsed solo performance of the song due to a technical mishap at Glastonbury Festiva, was released as the fifth and final single on 11 November 2016.

Critical reception

''A Head Full of Dreams'' received generally mixed reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating from mainstream critics' reviews, the album has a score of 60 out of 100 based on 27 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Jon Dolan of ''Rolling Stone'' wrote that ''A Head Full of Dreams'' "might be Coldplay's brightest album ever" and concluded: "He's hris Martinhinted that this could be Coldplay's last album; if so, they're going out on a sustained note of grace." Barry Nicolson of '' NME'' called it "the most satisfying collection of songs they've written in years".

Alexis Petridis of ''The Guardian'' felt that ''A Head Full of Dreams'' "is frustratingly blighted by the sense that Coldplay haven't fully committed to the album's big idea" and remarked: "It's a moot point whether that's a sign of innate conservatism or of a band that know exactly what they are doing, who understand that you won't keep packing out those Midwestern sports stadiums if you frighten the horses." Citing the band's unwillingness to stray from their tried and true formula, Ian Gormely of ''Exclaim!'' wrote that "''A Head Full of Dreams'' might have been a poptimist masterpiece. Instead, it's just another Coldplay album, with all the baggage — both positive and negative — that entails."

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album 3.5/5 stars and acknowledged that " hemessage hat there's a big, bright, beautiful world just waiting to be discovered if you just open your heart and live a littleis unabashedly corny", but ultimately concluded that "under the stewardship of Chris Martin, Coldplay cheerfully embrace the cheese, ratcheting up both the sparkle and the sentiment so the album feels genuine in its embrace of eternal middle-aged clichés."

In a 1/5 star review in Truck & Driver's regular music reviews Shaun Connors queried "why such boring wishy-washy material has been successful," commenting the reasoning for this defeats all rational explanation. He continued: "With this latest collection of tedium there are contributions from Beyoncé (a so-so vocalist) and Noel Gallagher (a not even so-so guitarist)," to conclude with: "On the basis of this album, they've either run out of ideas or bored themselves senseless (or both)..." Under the Radar's Scott Dransfield panned the album as "insufferably bland at best and downright offensive at worst" and awarded it 2/10 stars.

Year-end lists

Accolades

Commercial performance

''A Head Full of Dreams'' debuted at number three on the Irish Albums Chart on 11 December 2015, the band's lowest charting album in Ireland and their first to miss the top spot since '' Parachutes'' in 2000. The same day, the album debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart on sales of 235,975, behind Adele's '' 25'', which denied Coldplay a seventh consecutive number-one album. It was, however, their highest first-week album sales since 2008's ''Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends'', which sold 302,074 copies in its first week. Had ''A Head Full of Dreams'' debuted atop the UK Albums Chart, it would have made Coldplay only the second band in the UK chart history (after Oasis

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