The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the Billboard 200 dated Oct. 19, we look at the latest from 21st century rock greats Coldplay, whose unusual approach to physical releases may help them get back atop the albums chart.
Coldplay, Moon Music (Parlophone/Atlantic): Few rock bands this century are as familiar with the top spot of the Billboard 200 as Coldplay, which has reached No. 1 four times already – although not since 2014, when they last topped the chart with Ghost Stories. In the decade since, the band’s crossover success in the U.S. has been a little more modest, with their only top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 coming along with then-superpowers The Chainsmokers (“Something Just Like This,” 2017) and BTS (“My Universe,” 2021). And even with “My Universe” on its tracklist, the group’s most recent album (2021’s Music of the Spheres) tapped out at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
For its new album, Friday’s (Oct. 4) Moon Music, Coldplay is really giving it the old college try. The group has already made a number of promotional appearances, including playing two new songs from the set on last weekend’s Saturday Night Live (while frontman Chris Martin showed up on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon a couple days earlier to perform “We Pray” in the style of various rock legends). The band also played an underplay show at Music Hall of Williamsburg in New York City on Monday, and earlier that day, released a Full Moon deluxe edition of the 10-song set, expanding it to 20 tracks for DSPs and digital retailers.
The album does not yet have a true breakout hit, and is not expected to stream in extraordinary numbers. However, it should sell well, having been released in a variety of physical variants – with all releases designed with an eye towards environmental consciousness, as sustainability has been a major priority for the band in recent years. Each of the album’s LP releases will contain some nine recycled PET-plastic bottles recovered from post-consumer waste, and the CD version is claimed to be the “world’s first” to be released on EcoCD, which is created from 90% recycled polycarbonate, also sourced from post-consumer waste.
We will see this week just how much environmental sustainability excites Coldplay’s fanbase into buying one of the available versions of the band’s new album – which includes yellow, red, pink (with a signed art card) and “Spotify Fans First” green vinyl variants, and a “Notebook Edition” exclusive to their webstore, which also features a 12” hardback replica of Martin’s studio notebook with 28 pages of notes and personal illustrations, a bonus CD of voicenote recordings, and even a pair of moongoggles. But the Notebook Edition is sold out on the webstore, and Moon Music is off to one of the best starts of the decade for a U.K. act in the lads’ home country, so perhaps that bodes well for their U.S. fortunes.
Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet (Island): To be The Man, Moon Music will have to beat The Man – and “The Man” in this case is of course Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, which after briefly ceding the title to Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo is back atop the Billboard 200 for a fourth week this frame. Short n’ Sweet is still pulling six-digit consumption weeks – though just barely, as last week it notched exactly 100,000 units – and was actually up 1% in its performance from the week before, with added interest from the beginning of the accompanying Short n’ Sweet Tour no doubt helping there. That interest may be due to recede slightly this week, but Moon Music’s first-week units will still likely need to land in the 100,000s for the band to comfortably clear the pint-sized superstar with its new release.
IN THE MIX
Megan Moroney, Am I Okay? (Sony Music/Columbia): Megan Moroney has proven herself one of the most reliable streaming performers in modern country music with her set Am I Okay?, which debuted in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 a couple months ago and has continued to hang around the top 100 in the weeks since (landing at No. 77 this week). The set should make a big jump next week following the digital release of its (I’ll Be Fine) deluxe edition, which tacks another three cuts onto the 14-track original, including the heartbroken “Break It Right Back,” which is already off to a strong start on streaming.
Finneas, For Cryin’ Out Loud! (OYOY/Interscope): While sister and collaborator Billie Eilish continues to storm the Billboard Hot 100 – her “Birds of a Feather” is up to a new peak of No. 2 – writer/producer and recording artist Finneas also sets his sights on the charts this week with his own solo LP, For Cryin’ Out Loud! The solo artist has also gone the Coldplay route with his new set’s physical release, as the album is available on his webstore on orange, gold and pink biovinyl (a sustainable product made from polyvinyl chloride) as well as on a signed CD and a as part of a fan pack with a CD and logo T-shirt.
Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Warp): How often do we get to talk about 30-year-old ambient albums on The Contenders? It’s a rarity for sure, but Aphex Twin’s 1994 classic double-album Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 – widely considered one of the great electronic releases of the ‘90s — should make a chart impact this week, as the set was re-released as a 4x LP box set, collecting all the tracks available on different previous permutations of the album and even featuring two unreleased tracks being included on the physical version for the first time. Any Billboard 200 entrance this week would instantly mark the set’s peak; it failed to chart upon its original release three decades ago.
