Pharrell Williams, David Guetta, Los Unidades lead ‘Global Citizen’ EP

Pharrell Williams, David Guetta, Los Unidades, and African musician WIZKID are some of the artists to be featured on the upcoming Global Citizen EP 1 album. On Tuesday (Nov. 27), international advocacy organization Global Citizen announced plans to release a four-song record at the end of the week. Due out this Friday (Nov. 30), the EP will be released in partnership with United States-founded Atlantic Records and United Kingdom-based Parlophone.

In conjunction with the surprise album announcement, the first single from the record was released. Titled “E-Lo,” the song is performed by Pharrell Williams, Jozzy, and Los Unidades aka Coldplay under a new moniker. Watch the Nelson Mandela-inspired lyric video for “E-Lo” above.

Pre-orders for Global Citizen EP 1 are currently available here. All pre-orders come with an instant download of “E-Lo.”

Proceeds from the forthcoming release will go directly to Global Citizen’s campaigns and advocacy efforts to end extreme poverty as well as assist in areas such as gender equality, education, water, and sanitation.

Global Citizen’s veer into the music world is not at all surprising since the project is headed by Coldplay’s Chris Martin who also curates Global Citizen’s annual live music festival.

“For hundreds of years, we have witnessed the power of music in bringing people together to drive activism and demand change,” said Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans.

“We are thrilled to release Global Citizen EP 1 with new songs from these incredible artists who stand with us in the fight to defeat extreme poverty, and we are extremely grateful to Dave Holmes, Parlophone Records and Atlantic Records for their dedicated partnership and support as we demand to see an end to extreme poverty by 2030.”

Coldplay manager Dave Holmes adds: “It was a real honor to help further the Global Citizen movement by putting together this release alongside Chris and Parlophone. We’ve ended up with so many incredible performers, and we’re all extremely proud of the finished EP. May it be the first of many.”

The EP will arrive a few days before this year’s Global Citizen Festival set to take place on Sunday, Dec. 2 in Johannesburg, South Africa. This year, the festival will honor the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Martin, Williams, WIZKID, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Cassper Nyovest, D’banj, Ed Sheeran, Eddie Vedder, Femi Kuti, , Sho Madjozi, Tiwa Savage, and Usher will all perform at this year’s event.

GLOBAL CITIZEN EP 1 TRACK LISTING:

1. “Rise Up (feat. Nelson Mandela)” – Stargate
2. “E-Lo (feat. Jozzy)” – Los Unidades & Pharrell Williams
3. “Timbuktu (feat. Stormzy & Jess Kent)” – Cassper Nyovest & Los Unidades
4. “Voodoo (feat. Tiwa Savage, Wizkid, Danny Ocean & David Guetta)” – Stargate & Los Unidades

Coldplay’s New Album Might Be Their Last

Good news, Coldplay fans; the band will be releasing a new album.

But sadly, the good news also comes with some bad news; it might be the band’s last record, at least according to frontman Chris Martin.

Martin was on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show earlier in the day to celebrate the band’s song, “Magic” from Ghost Stories, being named the “Hottest Record of the Year.”

While on the show, Martin revealed that less than a year after releasing Ghost Stories (which was released earlier this year), the band had headed into the studio to record some new music. What came from that recording session would become their seventh album which at present time is tentatively titled, A Head Full of Dreams.

While discussing the record, Martin compared A Head Full of Dreams to the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, giving the impression that this might be the band;s final record.

“It’s our seventh thing, and the way we look at it, it’s like the last Harry Potter book or something like that. Not to say that there might not be another thing one day, but this is the completion of something,” said Martin.

He added, “I have to think of it as the final thing we’re doing. Otherwise we wouldn’t put everything into it.”

Even if the seventh album does become their last, one thing Martin has promised fans is that they will be heading out on tour in support of the record which we can assume will not be like the Ghost Stories tour which only included six stops, worldwide.

Check out the full interview below or skip to the 3:15 mark where they start speaking about the new record.

BBC Form Supergroup to Cover Beach Boys Song

What happens when you get together tons of musicians for a worthy cause? Usually one hell of a song.

Thanks to the BBC, tons of musicians were asked to come together to cover the Beach Boys “God Only Knows” from Pet Sounds to officially launch of BBC Music. The TV spot featuring the reported 27 artists began to air yesterday (Oct. 7).

Pharrell Williams, Elton John, Chris Martin, Florence Welch, Stevie Wonder, Brian May, One Direction, Chrissie Hynde, Baaba Maal, Sam Smith, Lorde, Dave Grohl and many more can be spotted in the video. Also making the list of performers was Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys; how else do you pay homage to the guy (or band) that wrote and the song.

As if the long list of singers on the track wasn’t enough to get your head spinning, the BBC also used their 80-piece BBC Concert Orchestra on the song.

We warned you, epic might be an understatement. Give the track as listen.

When asked by The Guardian about the remake of the song, Wilson said: “All the artists did such a beautiful job. I can’t thank them enough. I’m just honored ‘God Only Knows’ was chosen. ‘God Only Knows’ is a very special song. An extremely spiritual song and one of the best I’ve ever written.”

The cover will be released as a single to raise funds for the BBC’s Children in Need charity. This isn’t the first time the BBC has done such a supergroup for charity. Back in 1997, the network released a version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” featuring Elton John, Bono, and Reed himself.

Kings of Leon Joined By Special Guest During Hollywood Show

After internal band problems resulted in their last tour being cancelled and this current tour having to miss a few stops die to an accident that resulted in serious injury to their drummer, Kings of Leon are about to finish their Mechanical Bull tour.

Throughout the tour, the band have debuted a never-before-played song as requested by their fans as part of their “Song for the City” program. At last night’s stop at the Hollywood Bowl, the audience chose “Talihina Sky” and we given the added bonus of having a special guest appear on stage with the Tennessee band: Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

The Coldplay frontman played piano and contributed backing vocals to the secret tracks from KOL’s debut album, Youth & Young Manhood. But “Talihina Sky” wasn’t the only song Martin, stayed for; the frontman stayed to perform “Notion” from KOL’s Only By the Night.

This isn’t the first time Martin has joined KOL on stage. Back in May during Radio One’s One Big Weekend, Martin joined the band for their song, “Fans.”

Watch some fan shot videos from the show below.

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Chris Martin made a little appearance tonight !! #kingsofleon #hollywoodbowl

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Oh just #ChrisMartin from #Coldplay playing some piano for #kingsofleon at the #hollywoodbowl #nobiggie #music #epic

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Listen to Chris Martin and Cat Power’s ‘Wish I Was Here’

When the soundtrack tracklist for Zach Braff’s upcoming film Wish I Was Here was revealed, all the artists on the record were put in the backburner when it was revealed Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon had contributed a new song for the album.

Today, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and Cat Power’s Chan Marshall have come to take the attention from Vernon and put all the attention on their new song; the title track.

The song is currently being streamed over at NPR.

When being interviewed about the film, the subject of the song came up and just how it happened.

“Chris had the idea that it would be sung by a woman,” he said. “I thought that was a genius idea because one of the things the film is about, is a strong woman (Kate Hudson’s character) becoming the matriarch of her family. When Chris and I were talking, we both kind of simultaneously said, ‘Cat Power.’

I reached out to Chan Marshall and she and I met and really clicked. I set her up to watch the film in her apartment. The whole time she was watching she kept texting me all the different parts she was loving. She said yes the instant it was over.”

The Wish I Was Here Original Soundtrack is set to be released on CD and digitally on July 15 while the vinyl will be released on August 5. As for the film that inspired the soundtrack and was funded by Kickstarter donations, that’s set to be released on July 18.

Kings of Leon Joined On Stage by Chris Martin

What happens when two headlining acts come together to perform one of their songs? You get exactly what happened this bast weekend at Radio One’s One Big Weekend in Glasgow on Sunday.

After headlining the festivities the nothing before, Coldplay’s Chris Martin decided to stick it out an extra day which resulted in the frontman performing alongside fellow headliners, Kings of Leon. The singer took to the stage to sing back up and play guitar alongside the band while also dressed up like KOL frontman, Caleb Followill during the band’s song “Fans.”

Talk about flattery. But it looks like the flattery goes both ways since Followill introduced Martin by calling him the “second most famous singer here today.” We can only guess who the most famous singer at the venue was (we’re being sarcastic of course).

Check out the video straight from the festival here.

 

Coldplay’s Chris Martin And Others Join Lily Allen on Stage

Lily Allen is known for telling it how it is and not giving a care in the world when people act shocked that she would say such a thing. Remember how last month people were up in arms when she released the music video for her first new song since she started a family, “Hard Out Here”?

Last week, our favorite little spitfire was back, but toned it down a little bit to perform at a London benefit for Kids Company dubbed “Under 1 Roof” which also featured many artists. Allen went on to perform Ella Fitzgerald’s “Dream a Little Dream of Me” with Robbie Williams as well as “Somewhere Only We Know” with Keane frontman, Tim Rice-Oxley.

Also making the list of songs she performed, Allen also did her own song, “The Fear” accompanied by Coldplay frontman, Chris Martin which can be seen down below.

You see, just because you call people (and industries) out doesn’t mean that you don’t have a soft side.

“THE FEAR” WITH CHRIS MARTIN

“DREAM A LITTLE DREAM” WITH ROBBIE WILLIAMS

“SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW” WITH TIM RICE-OXLEY