Coldplay - The Biggest Band in the World, Ranked
As a longtime devoted Coldplay superfan, the time has come for me to do a full catalog review and ranking of what many have called the biggest band in the world.
It’s been a minute since I’ve written here. I decided at the start of the year that I only wanted to write as inspiration came and, unfortunately, the past few months have been void of writing inspiration and I’ve been stuck in a period of not really knowing what to write about. I didn’t want to put out a piece for the sake of writing a piece, and I was tired of writing album reviews despite numerous excellent records that have dropped this year (perhaps I revisit this soon?), so I have just let ideas (or rather, the lack thereof) simmer until something came.
Well, something came. And it came in the form of the fulfilling of a boyhood dream of mine to see Coldplay live in concert earlier this month. And that boyhood dream spans back something like twelve or thirteen years. You see, in high school, I was the world’s biggest Coldplay fan. Coldplay is a band that holds a very special place in my heart for the role they played in getting me invested in music so many years ago. They were, for many years, my absolute favorite band, and I knew everything there was to know about Coldplay. I even, at one point, scoured the internet for every leaked or live recording of any unreleased Coldplay song I could get my hands on and compiled them into something like a bootleg album of my own that I had saved on my phone to listen to. The depth of my obsession with the band then was comparable to the fever pitch enthusiasm that Swifties are known for today, and I was known in my high school as the Coldplay kid, and I was absolutely proud of it.
In the years since high school, life has changed a lot, but so has Coldplay. The band certainly isn’t the same band they were in the days of my youth, and my music taste has evolved and grown and expanded. I still return to Coldplay semi-regularly, but almost always to the first half of their discography because their later work never hit the same way their early work did.
And that’s not just how I feel about the band. There is a widespread consensus in the community of music critics, indieheads, underground music devotees, and other audiophiles that Coldplay’s music quality holds an almost direct inverse relationship with the longevity of the band and there was a point somewhere between 2011 and 2015 where a lot of these kinds of people wrote off the band as having lost their touch. Even I, a massive Coldplay fan, started to feel that way around 2015.
That’s not to say that everything that came later was not good. It still was quite good, but relative to their roots, it wasn’t the same and that’s where a lot of people got lost. And with that in mind, I want to give a ranking of Coldplay’s ten currently released albums from worst to best, with commentary on the strengths, weaknesses, and highlights of each. As a devoted, long-time Coldplay fan, this is the article I was born to write:
This is the biggest band in the world, ranked.
The List
10) Moon Music (2024)
Landing at the very bottom of the list is Coldplay’s most recent effort, Moon Music. My feelings about this album are summed up best by Pitchfork’s summary on their review of this record where they said, “Moon Music demonstrates all the reasons to be sick of Coldplay, and all the reasons they’ll be missed when they finally retire.”
Moon Music isn’t necessarily a bad album, but it’s an album that I listened to once when it was released and then never again until I got around to writing this list because I had no desire whatsoever to listen to it. Moon Music is the companion to its preceding release Music of the Spheres and felt like it was made up of left over ideas from the first of the two that didn’t make the cut. It often just feels like bland pop rock that never really was meant to go beyond being a collection of radio hits. You see, Moon Music is extraordinarily radio friendly, and as a result it lacks some of the emotional depth that Coldplay really nails, instead trading it for sugary soft rock that’s fun to listen to, but not all that rewarding in the end.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that Moon Music holds the singular track in the entire Coldplay catalog that I actively dislike. That track is “We Pray,” and I genuinely cannot stand it. It doesn’t feel like a Coldplay track, it features way too many guest artists, and it lacks all the charm that Coldplay delivers best. Instead, it serves up the corniest, cheesiest dish I’ve ever had and it really just gives me indigestion.
Now, that’s not to say that the album has nothing worthwhile to offer. There are moments, such as the largely instrumental track “🌈” (yes, that’s the actual track name - technically the track is called “Alien Hits/Alien Radio,” but the listing on the album itself is the rainbow emoji) which is a pretty and calming piano-centric piece. And then there is “JUPiTER” and “iAAM” which feature the signature Coldplay over-the-top optimism that they’ve become known for in their later years. And let’s face it, “feelslikeimfallinginlove” is just an all around fun pop hit.
Listen: "iAAM"
Album Rating: 5.8/10
9) Music of the Spheres (2021)
Next up on the list is Music of the Spheres, the predecessor and companion to Moon Music. Technically, these albums are both titled Music of the Spheres with volume one (this one) subtitled From Earth With Love and volume two subtitled Moon Music, but for some reason nobody actually refers to them that way and just calls this one Music of the Spheres.
Both records are concept albums that Coldplay described as imagining what music would sound like if it came from other planets, but really only Music of the Spheres seems to demonstrate that, featuring a high level of experimentation centered around a radio friendly, pop-rock sound. And although that is very similar to my evaluation of Moon Music, Music of the Spheres stands out from its companion by pushing boundaries, offering variety, and providing a much more exciting listening experience. “People of the Pride,” in particular, stands out as the darkest Coldplay track ever written as a hard rock piece with dark lyrics and a much heavier feel to it than the band has ever done before. Interestingly, this track also was taken and rewritten from the Viva la Vida recording sessions from a track then titled “The Man Who Swears” which might lend to why the lyrical themes are darker than what you’d expect from late-era Coldplay.
Another highlight from the record for me is “♾️” (yes, another emoji track name) which is an energetic instrumental track that allows Jonny Buckland to shine on the guitar while the band experiments with textures over content, something that I wish Coldplay would do more of these days. I also would go so far as to state that the closer for Music of the Spheres “Coloratura” is one of Coldplay’s best compositions to date as a ten-minute prog rock outro to the record that draws from the raw emotional strength that Coldplay did so well in their early years. It’s far more intricate of a track than we’ve heard from the band ever at any point in their discography.
Overall, Music of the Spheres stands out as a more developed and well refined effort than Moon Music, while still lacking some of what made Coldplay so great in their early years. As a result, it falls near the bottom of the list, but the moments that make it shine make it still worth hearing.
Listen: "Coloratura"
Album Rating: 6.4/10
8) A Head Full of Dreams (2015)
A Head Full of Dreams is widely considered, by a broad array of people, to be the point of no return for Coldplay; the point where the band had officially lost touch with their strengths and sold out. That sentiment isn’t one that I share, generally. Is A Head Full of Dreams overproduced and highly commercial? Oh, absolutely, it is, but I don’t think it’s quite to the point of ruining the record. My perception of the record is, rather, that it’s the turning point at which Coldplay had officially completed their rebranding from an alt-rock staple to a pop-rock juggernaut, a journey that really started two albums prior with 2011’s Mylo Xyloto.
A Head Full of Dreams, at its core, is an album that is (like its album art) extremely colorful and vivid, carrying overtly pop sentiments and over-the-top optimism across almost all of the tracks, and it’s done in a way that Coldplay had previously held back. Does it suit the band? I suppose, but it pales in comparison to the solemn and melancholy vulnerability that pervades all of the band’s early work. If anything, this record cemented Coldplay’s ability to display a broad range of emotion and energy effectively by displaying the full opposite end of the spectrum of emotion from their roots. Heck, the record even carries some breadth within itself to that energy with over-the-top optimism on “Adventure of a Lifetime” and the overproduced pop radio hit “Hymn for the Weekend” (which is a wildly overrated track) on one end all the way to the absolutely heartbreaking reflection of grief and bereavement that is “Everglow” (an absolutely heart-wrenching track) on the other end.
Between those extremes, A Head Full of Dreams real strength shines in Jonny Buckland’s guitar work across the album, particularly on “Birds” and “Amazing Day.” These two tracks allow him to really stand out as an excellent guitarist, practically running the show on the prior and building out and accenting the composition on the latter. His talent is something that I wish was more readily apparent with this band. Sometimes I worry that the general public forgets that Coldplay is a quartet, and not just Chris Martin. In fact, just before the Coldplay show I attended recently, I regularly heard people referring to the band as singular “he” and not plural “they.”
A Head Full of Dreams is not the Coldplay album I would readily recommend to anyone looking to get into the band. It’s a solid effort, sure, but it falls far from where the band started and just doesn’t measure up to their early work. Still, it has moments that allow the band to demonstrate the breadth of their talent. And can we talk about the closing track, “Up&Up”? That one’s another all-timer from the band for me (and another shout out to Jonny for the guitar solo wrapping that one up at the end).
Listen: "Up&Up"
Album Rating: 6.6/10
7) Ghost Stories (2014)
From entry number eight to entry number seven on this list, there is massive gap in quality. Where Moon Music, Music of the Spheres, and A Head Full of Dreams lean into radio friendly pop-rock artistry and (largely, according to critics and long-time fans alike) lack the emotional and musical force Coldplay is capable of, everything from this point on in this list is much more nuanced and interesting.
Ghost Stories was released at the height of my Coldplay obsession and is a personal favorite record of mine purely for the nostalgia factor, but from an objective standpoint it needs to fall lower on the list. That being said, Ghost Stories is, I believe, the most solemn and somber of all Coldplay records (reflected heavily by the deep blue album art), exercising an emotional heaviness that exceeds all of their other records individually. It is a record with heavy themes of heartbreak and endings, written at the time that Chris Martin was in the middle of separating from his now ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow. The lyrics are highly reflective of the experience of separation and the sorrow that follows.
Ghost Stories is extremely raw lyrically, but dives deeper into an electronic sound (continuing from the trajectory that Mylo Xyloto set up in 2011). Some points on this record nail it with that change in sound, where others (mainly one) fall short of what the band is capable of. This is best demonstrated by the juxtaposition of “Midnight” and “A Sky Full of Stars.” “Midnight” is a long-time favorite track from the band for me as an ambient folktronica piece that’s sparse and easily the gloomiest Coldplay has ever sounded. It demonstrates very clearly the influence that ambient legend Brian Eno and ambient luminary Jon Hopkins had on the band after seven or eight years of collaboration as regular producers and co-writers by the point the song was released. The track has drawn comparison to the works of Bon Iver who has become quite famous for experimental folktronica paired with raw emotion in recent years, but “Midnight” is, I believe the height of the raw, tender themes of Ghost Stories. “A Sky Full of Stars,” on the other hand, is an EDM track co-written with DJ Avicii and, frankly, doesn’t really fit on the album because it’s emotionally and energetically the complete opposite of the rest of the record and doesn’t fit the almost complete, somber melancholia that pervades throughout Ghost Stories. Sure, it’s a fun track, but it really doesn’t belong here and is, I believe, not one of the bands best moments despite receiving heavy radio play.
Outside of those moments, Ghost Stories really just represents a solid collection of emotionally heavy tracks from the band that capture Chris Martin’s ability to convey the depth of his feelings without holding back (as on “True Love” which features the extremely direct chorus, “Tell me you love me/if you don’t then lie, lie to me”), as well as the ability of the band to compliment that intimate emotional pain with their own talents (Guy Berryman’s bass line on “Magic” is a personal favorite, and the brief guitar solo from Jonny Buckland on “Another’s Arms” always hits for me). It is, put simply, Coldplay writing a break up album in a way that only Coldplay could.
Listen: “Ink”
Album Rating: 7.9/10
6) Mylo Xyloto (2011)
Where Ghost Stories was released at the height of my obsession with Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto was the release that initiated that obsession. As such, I also have an extremely soft spot for the record due to the intense nostalgia I associate with it. Personally, it’s another favorite for me, and listening to Mylo Xyloto takes me back to high school more than any other album I can think of. It’s also the first Coldplay album that received polarized reviews from critics and fans as it takes a notable shift into a more pop-oriented territory than the band had done before.
Mylo Xyloto is a concept album that tells the story of lovers in a dystopian urban society and was broadly inspired by the White Rose Movement in Nazi Germany and American graffiti culture and art. As such, the record carries a great deal of cohesion, running together like a multi-act play with extraordinarily colorful themes that are shared across tracks, as well as the visual art produced for the album and the tour that followed the album’s release (Notably, the Mylo Xyloto tour was the first time that light-up wristbands synced to a radio receiver were used in a stadium tour, something that’s gone on to be a staple for the band, and has also been adopted by acts like Taylor Swift for the record-breaking Eras Tour in 2023).
Mylo Xyloto, I believe, is the best Coldplay ever sounded in their pop-rock shift. It carried the extraordinary talent of the band’s early years, the emotional breadth that made them a big name in the first place, and experimentation that was needed by the band after four solid records without any enormous strides outside their comfort zone (although it could be argued that Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends was a start in that direction). I imagine much of the creative direction of Mylo Xyloto can be credited to legendary producer Brian Eno who co-wrote the album with the band (Eno has been credited over many decades as being responsible for pushing much of the creative direction as a producer for important acts such as U2, David Bowie, and Talking Heads, among many others). The clear break from Coldplay’s norm on this record is apparent on tracks like “Major Minus” which feels more raw and aggressive than Coldplay had been up to this point (and features one of Jonny Buckland’s best guitar solos), as well as “Up in Flames” which features the first clear point at which drummer Will Champion traded a traditional drum kit for a drum machine (which was, weirdly, a point of frustration for many long-time fans who believed it was a bad choice, a contention with which I firmly disagree).
At the same time, many fans were torn on the mega-hits that spawned off of Mylo Xyloto like “Paradise,” “Charlie Brown,” and “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall” (the latter of which is a personal favorite of mine, perhaps due to the nostalgia, as it was the lead single that accompanied the album’s announcement), as well as the major shift in sound on “Princess of China” which features a guest appearance from Rihanna. The album was extremely polarizing, as it was a major risk for the band to step so far outside of where they had dwelt in for a full decade. Some saw it as a necessary change, others saw it as too far into the realm of appealing to radio play and climbing the charts. Unfortunately, I feel like this is the reaction any time a band tries to reinvent themselves or make a change. Some will love it, others hate it, and not everyone will be pleased.
My opinion on Mylo Xyloto? It’s a solid record that deserves all the love it received at the time of its release and none of the hate. Heck, the opening track “Hurts Like Heaven” was my favorite song (no contest) throughout my entire time in high school after it was released.
Listen: “Hurts Like Heaven”
Album Rating: 8.1/10
5) Everyday Life (2019)
2019’s Everyday Life was an extremely surprising pivot for Coldplay when it dropped. As the follow up to 2015’s A Head Full of Dreams, Everyday Life has almost nothing in common with it. In fact, it broke from the highly accessible, radio-friendly pop-rock trajectory that Coldplay had been on since 2011 and felt more akin to 2008’s Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. In many ways, it felt like a true comeback album and was the most well-received Coldplay album by critics since 2002’s A Rush of Blood to the Head with a Metacritic score of 73/100 (A Rush of Blood to the Head’s score was 80/100).
Everyday Life is an extremely experimental record, playing with a wide variety of styles from many cultures and genres (“BrokEn” and “When I Need a Friend” feature Chris Martin singing a cappella with a gospel choir and a chamber choir respectively, and "بنی آدم" - pronounced “Bani Adam” - is largely an instrumental contemporary classical piece on piano, for example). Lyrically, the album touches on heavier subjects, including social issues like racism (“Trouble in Town”), gun control (“Guns”), and absentee fathers (“Daddy” which is a piano piece that’s as pretty as they come, even if it is heartbreaking). It’s possibly the most unique Coldplay record out there, and easily the most underrated.
It’s actually really quite difficult to put into words what kind of a record Everyday Life is because it covers such a broad range of styles and does so quite effectively. As I’ve said before, Coldplay is an extraordinarily talented band, but one of my concerns with their move in the direction of radio-friendly pop-rock in recent years is that it does them a disservice by obscuring what they are truly capable of. Everyday Life is a record that allows that full range of talent to sit on display for the listener. It’s got loud, energetic moments, such as the grimy, saxophone-driven “Arabesque,” (a strong highlight from the album), but it also has quiet, intimate moments like the entirely acoustic, almost country-folk “Old Friends.” It’s easily the most diverse record in Coldplay’s discography while also maintaining a high level of cohesion holding it together.
Everyday Life is easily the strongest effort from Coldplay since their early years, lending to its placement on the upper half of this list. It reflects all the things that I loved about Coldplay in their early years, even if it was just barely below the strength of their first four records. Oh, and the title track for Everyday Life? When that came out as one of the singles leading up to the album’s release, I had it on repeat for days on end.
Listen: “Everyday Life”
Album Rating: 8.2/10
Side Note: I think it’s also worth mentioning the track “Champion of the World” from Everyday Life. The track drew heavy inspiration from Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchinson’s solo track “Los Angeles, Be Kind” (released under the moniker Owl John). This was an incredibly touching hat tip to Hutchinson only a year after his tragic and untimely passing in 2018, and Coldplay included him in the songwriting credits for the track.
4) X&Y (2005)
The first album I ever bought with my own money in my pre-teen years was a digital copy of Coldplay’s third album, X&Y. This was the first Coldplay record I heard in full, and captures quite perfectly what about Coldplay it is that today’s critics miss from the band. It’s a purely alternative rock record from a band grappling with newfound fame as rising stars in the world of music. That strength as a singly focused album, cemented firmly in the world of 2000’s alternative rock, and a continuation of the first two successful records from the band is also what makes it the weakest of what I mentally refer to as the Big Four Coldplay albums (the first four releases from the band, often considered the best of the best of Coldplay: Parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head, X&Y, and Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends).
X&Y continues precisely where Coldplay left off after two critically acclaimed records kicking off their career. The problem is that it stagnates a little by doing exactly that. “Speed of Sound,” the lead single off of X&Y, is often cited as feeling like a copy and paste of the band’s 2002 hit “Clocks,” for example - it’s centered on a similar piano melody and builds much like how the chorus to “Clocks” does. And then there’s tracks like “Low” and “Twisted Logic” that just never really stand out.
But even with that sameness causing the album to stagnate at parts, it’s still one of the best Coldplay records (and also the longest with over an hour runtime) with purely alt-rock guitar-driven fan favorites like “White Shadows” and the Kraftwerk-inspired “Talk” which directly references the main riff from the electronic krautrock band’s 1981 hit “Computer Love.” And I have to mention “Fix You” which has become a Coldplay staple to this day as one of the most touching and far-reaching songs the band has ever written, a ballad for the ages to anyone and everyone out there struggling with their own heartaches in life.
X&Y is, arguably, an album that captures Coldplay in caricature form. It takes everything that made the band famous, as well as a good mix of their melancholy and optimistic sides that have kept them firmly in the spotlight for so many years. It has alt-rock hits and acoustic ballads (“A Message” is a personal favorite, and one of the first songs I ever learned to play on the guitar), and everything in between that you’d expect from Coldplay circa 2005. Additionally, physical editions of X&Y don’t even list the closer, “Til Kingdom Come,” leaving it as a hidden track, something that Coldplay has done with tracks on four of their ten albums to date. It really does just take everything about Coldplay that makes them who they are and compresses it into an hour-long record that I believe everyone needs to hear at some point in their life.
Listen: “Talk”
Album Rating: 8.5/10
Side Note: X&Y was originally set to feature a guest appearance from Johnny Cash on the closing track (“Til Kingdom Come”), but Cash passed away before having a chance to record it with the band. To this day, I really wonder what that would’ve sounded like because I think it would’ve been an incredible feature on the album.
3) Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008)
Where X&Y stagnated with alt-rock sameness (but, again, is an outstanding record), Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends stands out by taking small steps away from the band’s usual fare. It’s not quite on the level of change that would show on 2011’s Mylo Xyloto, the record to come after it, but it’s a start. Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (yes, that’s the albums full name, but I’ll shorten it here for the sake of easy reading) is probably the most recognizable of Coldplay’s records, as it is the album that propelled them from stardom into superstardom with the hits “Viva la Vida” and “Life in Technicolor ii” (the latter is technically off the EP Prospekt’s March, but that EP is often viewed as a companion to Viva la Vida and is often paired with it in packaging for physical copies).
What allows Viva la Vida to stand out as the bands first steps away from their alt-rock roots is the introduction of non-traditional instruments into the music, as well as it being the first time that Coldplay played with themes and specific imagery. Viva la Vida draws heavily from themes of the afterlife as well as the revolutionary era of the 1700’s (as depicted by the album art) in the lyrics of many of the tracks, particularly on “Violet Hill,” “Viva la Vida,” and “Cemeteries of London,” among others. But what of the instrumentation? The album has some unique features that were new to Coldplay at the time with world-music-type percussion on the intro track “Life in Technicolor,” an organ on “Lost!,” honky-tonk piano on “Lovers in Japan,” and the strings on “Viva la Vida” and “Yes.” It breaks from Coldplay’s traditional style enough to feel new and interesting, but is familiar enough that it didn’t alienate longtime fans and drew in new ones.
As far as songwriting is concerned, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends features some of my all-time favorite tracks from the band (though I’ve said that many times at this point, haven’t I? Can’t fault a superfan, I guess). The album is highly dynamic (more so than anything the band had done up to this point) with many tracks that feature a buildup from a quiet beginning to a loud, heartfelt climax where each band member is contributing to a very full sound (rather than a fun, but hollow buildup to an electronic drop like we hear on 2014’s “A Sky Full of Stars”). I think this is most masterfully accomplished on the album’s closer “Death and All His Friends” which, to this day, stands as what I believe is the single best song that Coldplay has ever written - pretty, intimate, and sparse at first with a piano, Chris Martin’s vocals, and a light guitar filling the empty space, but concluding with the full band harmonizing over a driving rhythm and Jonny Buckland on guitar soaring ever upward.
Viva la Vida is also, I believe, the sound of a band that loves what they are doing and the music they are writing. There is, for example, a B-side from the Viva la Vida sessions titled “The Goldrush” that is filled with laughter and chatter from the band behind all the music. It’s a positive energy you don’t get a glimpse of very often, and even if it isn’t explicitly visible on the album itself, it feels apparent throughout the record.
Listen: “Death and All His Friends”
Album Rating: 8.8/10
2) Parachutes (2000)
Ah yes, Parachutes. Coldplay’s humble beginnings and the mellowest album of their entire discography. Parachutes is about as solid as debut albums come. Riding on the backs of U2, Travis, and Radiohead as their biggest influences, Coldplay came along with Parachutes to define what mellow alt-rock - and more precisely, what post-Britpop - would sound like moving into the new millennium. Sure, other acts had set up the post-Britpop scene to roll forward, but Coldplay planted the flag firmly in place to cement the scene’s permanence with the release of Parachutes. As for those influences? Well, Parachutes fit perfectly with the work U2 and Travis were putting out at the time (making the influence clear and unmistakable) and the influence of Radiohead’s earlier work bleeds into the record as well (though the influence is much clearer on Coldplay’s releases pre-Parachutes, such as the track “Bigger Stronger” off of The Blue Room EP which has clear similarities to Radiohead’s sophomore effort The Bends).
Coldplay’s success with the release of Parachutes was nearly immediate with the release of the mega-hit (and all-time Coldplay classic) “Yellow.” It was with this hit that Coldplay had set their course, but really Parachutes as a whole did the heavy-lifting. The record is an immaculate, mellow, introspective gem that is, in my book, required listening in this life. It’s Chris Martin’s cathartic crooning mixed with Jonny Buckland’s deeply reverberating guitar that permeates every inch of the record that sells it for me, not to mention the work of Guy Berryman on bass and Will Champion on drums assisting in filling out the space.
Highlights off the record for me? First, there’s “Trouble,” a piano-based ballad that is completed by Jonny Buckland’s guitar work which creates a deeply soothing-yet-sorrowful atmosphere. Then, there’s “Don’t Panic” and “Everything’s Not Lost” as the opener and closer to the album, both of which bleed that subtle optimism that Coldplay was known for before they decided to start writing over-the-top cheesefest hyper-optimistic arena anthems. It’s the subtlety that is the strength in Coldplay’s early years.
Really, there are no low points on Parachutes. It’s a beautifully powerful album that is made more powerful by its subtlety and unassuming nature. And it’s this subtle unassuming triumph that allows Coldplay to shine very clearly without any studio production masking their talent for music and emotion. If you’ve never heard Parachutes before, make time for it because you won’t be disappointed.
Listen: "Trouble"
Album Rating: 9.6/10
1) A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
Here it is, the best of the best of Coldplay’s work. 2002’s A Rush of Blood to the Head. Often considered the band’s magnum opus (and for good reason), A Rush of Blood to the Head was painstakingly crafted by the band as they obsessed with putting out the best possible record they could create (even to the extent that Chris Martin reported working late into the night to the detriment of his health and never being satisfied with anything he had created). The result? A career-defining record that took Coldplay’s initial success from Parachutes and immortalized the band as a landmark act that would go on to fill stadiums and later be described by many as the biggest band in the world.
Coldplay built off the success of Parachutes by turning up the volume on A Rush of Blood to the Head. Unassuming and subtle are not words I would use to describe this record, no. Rather, A Rush of Blood to the Head is full, deeply pronounced, and dynamic. Jonny Buckland’s guitar doesn’t reverberate into open space here, but rather builds into soaring solos (as on “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face,” my personal favorite track off the album), lead melodies (“In My Place”), and even punctuated driving rhythms (“Politik”). And then here the work of drummer Will Champion is much more involved than on Parachutes (“Politik” again here is a clear demonstration of this - really, this is one of the great, underrated Coldplay tracks of all time, the guitar and drums driving the rhythm together, occasionally breaking for Chris Martin to do his thing).
You see, where Parachutes was a band humbly displaying their talent, A Rush of Blood to the Head is when Coldplay decided they were allowed to be proud of their talent, and maybe even show off a little. It’s here on this record where Chris Martin begins to find his stride with his skill for intimate and meaningful lyricism (as on “The Scientist,” one of Coldplay’s most moving tracks, or closer “Amsterdam,” a personal favorite). It’s on this record where Guy Berryman’s best bass lines appear (“Daylight” and “A Whisper,” the prior of which is one of the very few bass-dominant Coldplay songs, and one of the best among those). It’s this and the work of Jonny Buckland and Will Champion I already mentioned that make A Rush of Blood to the Head the ultimate Coldplay record.
I could continue to go on and on about this record, but words can’t do most of it justice. A Rush of Blood to the Head is, like Parachutes, mandatory listening, only this record doubly so. Over the years I’ve gone back and forth about which Coldplay records are my personal favorites, but one thing has remained certain throughout all the changes - A Rush of Blood to the Head is, without a doubt, Coldplay’s absolute and objective best record.
Listen: “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face”
Album Rating: 10/10