The opening bars of Coldplay‘s single “People of the Pride” sound like they could soundtrack a Marvel superhero movie, but the anthemic song’s new music video suggests a world where evil reigns supreme. Released Tuesday (March 15), the Paul Dugdale-directed project pairs neon clips of a robot-run dystopia with black and white footage of the band performing live in concert.
Filled with action-packed film of the pop-rock quartet’s October 2021 performance at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, the new video essentially doubles as an advertisement for what concertgoers can expect of Coldplay’s 2022 Music of the Spheres world tour, which kicks off in Costa Rica in just three days. Between these live performance shots, clips of evil-looking soldiers overseeing sweatshop workers, roaring electronic tigers and a mysterious crowned dictator surveilling it all flash in and out.
“There’s a man who takes his time from his homemade cuckoo clock,” lead singer Chris Martin sings, as concert footage of him marching in military style morphs into animation of robots doing the same. “And he makes us march around it. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.”
“People of the Pride” is one of a handful of singles off Coldplay’s latest album Music of the Spheres, which dropped in October last year and peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. The band achieved its second Hot 100 No. 1 with “My Universe,” a BTS-assisted track off the record.
The British band isn’t the first to jump on the blossoming animated music video trend, as Kanye West has also recently taken to putting his tracks to CGI. Most recently, he depicted a Rapture-like situation in the video game-esque visual for “Hurricane.”
Watch Coldplay’s new “People of the Pride” music video below.