Who really had the album of the year? Emily Lazar did.

NEW YORK (AP) — Chris Martin admits that Coldplay’s latest album could have sounded terrible if it wasn’t for one person — mastering engineer Emily Lazar.

Like the musical magician she is, Lazar added her special touch to the band’s eighth album “Everyday Life,” which was released in late 2019 and is now competing for the top prize at the 2021 Grammy Awards.

Martin describes the universal and political album as “a patchwork quilt of opinions and thoughts about life and humans and the planet and how much we love Nigerian music and how much we love gospel (music) and how much we love, like, old-fashioned, northern European church music.”

“All these weird things and sampling from voice memos — in the wrong hands it could have sounded awful.”

Lazar came in to save the day — a role she’s played on thousands of albums and a reason she’s making history at this year’s Grammy Awards.

For her work on Coldplay’s album, she shares a nomination with Martin and friends for album of the year. Lazar is also the mastering engineer on HAIM’s “Women In Music Pt. III” and Jacob Collier’s “Djesse Vol. 3” — both nominated for album of the year — making Lazar a triple nominee in the Grammys’ biggest category.

“You kind of go into a little bit of shock after the first one. You’re not even focused for the next one because you think, ‘That’s it.’ By the time we got to the third one, I almost had to check myself and say, ‘Why are they listing all the records that I worked on?’” Lazar said in a phone interview.

Lazar, 49, made history at the 2019 Grammys when she became the first female mastering engineer to win best engineered album (non-classical) for her work on Beck’s “Colors.” She was the first female mastering...