Thought it might be time to have another look at the first album released by an artiste, go right back to the beginning of their career and see either if the debut album foreshadowed their later work, or if it was completely different. We'll be looking at the first album and anaylsing the differences or similarities between the band's other albums that followed this, and seeing just how their musical style has changed, or remained the same, over the span of their career.
Parachutes --- Coldplay --- 2000 (Parlophone)
These days, it seems Coldplay have been around forever --- especially to those who hate the band! --- and you can't turn on the radio or MTV without hearing their songs. They feature in many television advertisements too, so there really does seem no escape. Yet they only released their debut album eleven years ago now, and at the time, although it went to number one, it's probably fair to say that no-one expected Coldplay to become the gargantuan music force and commercial property they turned into over the course, really, of two albums. Their second, “A rush of blood to the head”, released only two years later, catapulted them to international stardom and spearheaded a serious assault on the charts. Soon, everyone was playing or listening to --- or avoiding! --- their music, and whether you liked them or loathed them, Coldplay were quite obviously here to stay.
The album starts (and indeed, for the most part, remains) low-key, with Chris Martin's now instantly-recognisable drawl, with that East European lilt that belies the fact that he was born in Exeter and seems to have no foreign blood in his family. Not sure where that came from, but it's always been very evident in his singing. “Don't panic” is a short, mostly piano styled song, quite laidback and easy, while “Shiver”, one of the singles taken from the album, is more upbeat (though not a lot), and more guitar driven, but always with Martin's shimmering piano in the background. Johnny Buckland's signature guitar licks come more to the fore in this track, and Martin's voice is more a falsetto at times than on the previous.
Initially released as the lead single from the album, “Shiver” did not do well, and even on its re-release only just about made it into the top forty, while “Spies” gives something of a hint as to the greatness this band were to achieve, with a tight, dour little song that's mostly acoustic. Despite its somewhat sad and at times drab production, it's quite infectious, especially when the electric guitar, and drums from Will Champion punch in, giving the song a vaguely U2 feel. Six out of ten of the tracks on this album have one-word titles, allowing perhaps the perception that the band didn't put much thought into them, but the songs themselves are all expertly crafted, and for a debut album there are few if any duds.
“Sparks” --- perhaps an odd choice to follow “Spies”, being so similar in spelling, or maybe that's just me --- is another signpost to the development and evolution of this band, with a lovely, waltzy ballad on acoustic guitar, Martin's lonely vocal sounding like someone composing the song in a bedsit. The addition of some choice organ notes just before the chorus is inspired, and does a lot to fill out the song, which then falls back on the guitar, joined by rhythm guitar to add an extra dimension to the music as the organ fills come back in later, giving the sense of a tightly-written and controlled song; the instruments are used sparingly, but with proper economy, never overdone.
One of the bigger hits from the album then comes in the form of “Yellow”, which you probably know, as it's remained one of their most well-known songs, and has been used in some ad campaigns, promos and so on. It's a harder song in ways, opening on sharp insistent guitar, with Chris Martin's voice more lifted from the often murmur or mumble he evidenced on the previous tracks. Almost a case of Martin --- and Coldplay --- coming to life, waking up in fact. It's the most upbeat of the songs so far, very catchy and not at all surprising that it went into the top five on its release, and was instrumental in making Coldplay's name in the early days.
“Trouble” turned out to be another huge hit for them, not only from its chart placing of number ten, but for its use in everything from teen drama background music to promotional videos, particularly for charitable causes and so forth. A much lower-key song than “Yellow”, it's the turn of Martin's piano to again take centre stage, his vocal almost lost and lonely on the song, plaintive and yearning. The main riff though is on the piano, and has become very iconic as part of the Coldplay sound. There's also a hint of country in the use of the guitar, which sounds like pedal steel, but isn't, I think.
The title track is extremely short, less than a minute, and consists of a simple acoustic melody with a short vocal by Martin, then we're into “High speed”, which starts off with a very ELO-themed sound, another low-key song with Martin singing much louder and more insistently than on other ballads on the album. “We never change” sort of revisits the melody of “Sparks”, another laidback mostly acoustic ballad with Martin back to drawling the vocals, while closer “Everything's not lost” (an upbeat message to finish on, if ever there was one) is in fact two songs, one of which is a “hidden” one, making the total song length over seven minutes, but really it's two songs of about five and two minutes each.
“Everything's not lost” itself is sort of a piano blues song with a touch of gospel in it, nice guitar cutting in and a precursor to the sort of songs we would see later from Coldplay, while the “hidden track”, which isn't really hidden as it comes in one second after the closer fades out, “Life is for living” has again quite a strong country flavour, and in fact comes across to me as similar to the very early work of Tom Waits. Nice use of what sounds like an accordion to end the track, and therefore, the album.
“A rush of blood to the head”, their next album, and the one that would once and for all break Coldplay commercially, sees a move away from the acoustic, low-key numbers and more into high-powered pop/rock, and after that they would of course never look back. While “Parachutes” is not immediately indicative of the sort of work that would follow it, you can certainly see the seeds beginning to germinate, and as a debut, while not perfect, it's pretty darn close.
The odd thing I find about the album is that a lot of the songs, once you've heard them --- with a few notable exceptions --- tend to go out of your mind, but remain in your ear. That is to say, when you look at the tracklisting on the album at a song like, say “Spies” or “High speed”, you find it hard to remember what the song was like, and yet, when you spin the album it all suddenly seems very familiar again. Which is just one way I guess of saying that the songs from “Parachutes”, while perhaps not making a huge first impression, stay with you and reverberate around inside your brain, even if you're not consciously aware that they're there.
You may not hum some of the songs from this album, but they're in there, waiting to get out again. One way of getting into the national --- and later, international --- musical consciousness. Since the release of “Parachutes”, Coldplay have been nominated over a hundred and thirty times for various music awards and have won over forty of those, including six Brit Awards, seven Grammys (with three more pending for this year) and eight MTV awards. Their albums have sold a combined fifity million records and their last four albums all went straight to number one.
Whatever you think of them, Coldplay are not about to go away any time soon.
TRACKLISTING
1. Don't panic
2. Shivers
3. Spies
4. Sparks
5. Yellow
6. Trouble
7. Parachutes
8. High speed
9. We never change
10. Everything's not lost (incorporating “hidden” track “Life is for living”)