Coldplay has unveiled the first single from its upcoming album, with the premiere of Higher Power taking place on board the International Space Station.
Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, and Will Champion teamed up with French astronaut Thomas Pesquet for the stunt, which saw the track played on the ISS and beamed back to Earth by satellite.
In a video chat, Martin told the 43-year-old aerospace engineer: “Right now we aren’t able to play for anybody on Earth, so we thought we’d just play for you. It’s like our one-man concert.”
Coldplay performs Higher Power. Pic: Parlophone and Atlantic
Produced by Swedish songwriter and producer Max Martin, the song had already been teased on a cryptic video and a website referencing an Alien Radio, and a part of it was on TikTok for 24 hours.
In the music video, the band members play in colourful outfits in front of shipping containers, while alien hologram dancers perform around them.
Last week, the band wrote on Twitter that the song had “arrived on a little keyboard and a bathroom sink at the start of 2020”.
Coldplay will perform in American Idol on Sunday, at the Brit Awards on Tuesday, and during Glastonbury’s Live At Worthy Farm livestream on 22 May.
The Band is the most nominated group at the Brits, with 28 nominations in total and nine award wins.