“Must have taken weeks of trial and error. Mad respect.”
One of the most iconic music videos of the noughties is the promo for Coldplay’s hit song ‘The Scientist’.
In the clip, lead singer Chris Martin sings the lyrics of the track while moving backwards in time Tenet-style to a happier moment in his life.
You catch the video, which also features Irish actress Elaine Cassidy, below.
People still ‘blown away’ by Chris Martin singing backwards in Coldplay music video
What’s particularly mindbending about the Coldplay video is that, in order to create the effect of Martin singing the song while moving in reverse, he actually learned to sing the track backwards.
In an interview with MTV News, the promo’s director Jamie Thraves explained:
“I had this idea that I wanted to do a story that’s tragic but starts off happy and ends happy, and the video is about rewinding to that happy ending.
“The original idea was a straight narrative without the lead singer in the video but Chris wanted to be in the video and he was really excited to learn how to sing the song backward.
“He got a tape of the song recorded backward and he listened to it over and over. He’s a very passionate guy, so he got really into it.
“What we learned later on is about the problems with phonetics, because you have to be very careful with the lip movement so that when you end on a sound your mouth is formed in the right way.”
Reportedly, it took over a month for Martin to crack singing the track in reverse with the Coldplay frontman even demonstrating the ability in a resurfaced interview below:
Commenting on the interview clip, fans were full of praise – with one saying they were “blown away”.
Another wrote: “Damn, the dedication to have learned the whole song backwards just to bring that idea to fruition!
“Must have taken weeks of trial and error. Mad respect.”
Someone else, meanwhile, said: “He can even sing his songs backwards, so beat that every other celebrities.”
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