Coldplay Become One-Man Bands in ‘A Sky Full of Stars’ Video
For Coldplay‘s “A Sky Full of Stars” video, frontman Chris Martin mostly goes it alone – as a one-man band. Throughout the Ghost Stories track’s four minutes, the singer-guitarist marches through the streets of Sydney with a bass drum strapped to his back and various accoutrements, including a bicycle horn, a harmonica and an iPad, among others, strapped to his person as he regales camera-phone-snapping onlookers with sweet nothings like, “You’re a sky full of stars/Such a heavenly view.” He meets up with his bandmates at various points – once under a wall with the words, “I Have a Dream,” written on it – and eventually they all march toward a confetti-splattered finale.
Spring Music Preview: Coldplay’s ‘Midnight’ and 26 More Must-Hear Albums
Coldplay co-wrote the EDM-tinged ballad with Avicii, who recently told the Austrian website Kronen Zeitung that Martin gave him a lot of freedom to do what he wanted on the track. “I’ve never worked so hard on a song,” he said. The Swedish DJ also referred to the band as being among his “biggest idols.”
Martin has said that many of the songs on Ghost Stories were a result of his “conscious uncoupling” with wife Gwyneth Paltrow and other life challenges he confronted since the release of Coldplay’s last album, Mylo Xyloto, in 2011. “You have to really not run away from that stuff,” he told BBC Radio 1. “Life throws these colorful challenges at you…what we decided to do on Ghost Stories was to really be honest about it and say, ‘This is what’s been happening.'”