Coldplay went out of this world — literally — for the premiere of their new single “Higher Power.”
The British rock band beamed the first performance of “Higher Power,” replete with dancing alien holograms, to French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet on Thursday (May 6) before the song arrived on terrestrial platforms via Parlophone/Atlantic. Pesquet is currently serving as mission commander aboard the International Space Station, where he listened to the track for the first time.
The empowering Max Martin-produced hymn prods each listener to tap into their potential and find their greater purpose with its punchy, spacey synths, which can feel like a scarier deep dive than actual space exploration.
Frontman Chris Martin expanded on this to Pesquet, saying he believes “it’s safer” for humans to scrutinize life on different planets because they’re too scared to look at life on Earth with the same lens. “Really it’s one big allegory,” Martin adds. “The song is about trying to find the astronaut in all of us, the person that can do amazing things.”
But where the actual recording came about is much more commonplace, according to Martin’s interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “It came on a kitchen sink. A bathroom sink. And then the title, ‘Higher Power,’ had been around for a while. If you go on my phone, there’s like 15 abandoned Higher Powers that aren’t that good. Voice notes,” he said. “And then it just dropped through that song. On a keyboard that my friend’s friend lent me. Because of where we were staying, there wasn’t a piano. So I was super grateful.”
And in T-minus three days, Coldplay will perform “Higher Power” on American Idol for the “Coldplay Songbook & Mother’s Day Dedication” episode Sunday. The band will also open the 2021 Brit Awards on Tuesday with the new single.
“Higher Power” is the first taste of Coldplay’s yet-untitled ninth album, which the band has been teasing via a worldwide viral campaign under the guise of AlienRadio.
Watch the premiere of “Higher Power” from high above and listen to the song below.
