I think we can all agree: celebrities are so much more interesting when they’re a bit into aliens. We don’t want famous people to be just like us; they should be living lives we can barely dream of, let alone aspire to – whether that is getting zonked off their goolies on daily infusions of baby plasma, or believing the truth is out there. I’ve long been a defender of Coldplay, who, since day one, has been charged with the crimes of being beige and uncool. Well, Chris Martin is really keen on aliens right now, if the band’s Music of the Spheres tour is anything to go by, and all power to him.
The band has veered away from the melancholic alt-rock that made them famous and towards an anthemic space-pop sound that began with 2011’s Mylo Xyloto, their concept album “set on the fictional planet of Silencia”. But Martin and the band have moved on from single planets to whole galaxies: the Music of the Spheres tour has so much lore behind it that the band even built an app, where you can learn that on “the water planet” Calypso, the inhabitants speak “Aquamarine”. So yeah, on the spectrum of sci-fi worldbuilding, it’s on the Avatar end of cringe. If you are so inclined, you can also use the Coldplay app to calculate the carbon footprint of your journey to their shows (for taking the train, I am a “carbon hero”), or use AR to summon a little dancing alien called a “Kaotican” to do a jig for you. (Kaotica is “the trash planet”, FYI.)
