A year and a half ago, November 2019: Coldplay released a new album, “Everyday People,” and watched it sink like a stone. Initial sales were only around 35,000 copies. Total sales now are about twice that. It was a disaster.
What happened? No singles? No marketing? The same thing happened this winter to Nick Jonas. It hurts.
Now Coldplay is coming back. Tonight, Chris Martin was a mentor on “American Idol” for an hour. The kids were forced to sing his songs. Then Coldplay gave a world premiere of their new single, “Higher Power.” Released on Friday with a lot of {“Idol” promotion, it’s number 5 on iTunes.
‘Higher Power’ also during a special link-up to the International Space Station, with the song receiving its first play on an “extraterrestrial transmission” to French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who is on board the ship.
A new album will be announced momentarily. After the “Everyday People” debacle, you can see that Martin — who can’t money from stadium tours right — is putting some effort into making all this new music work. What does it cost to take over “American Idol”? The price is worth it. And Martin was smart. Instead of getting involved with the bogus Global Citizen show this weekend, he chose a real program on a broadcast network. That has to work, right?
