Coldplay’s debut album PARACHUTES is now available on vinyl.
Parachutes is the Grammy award-winning debut album by English rock band Coldplay, released on July 10, 2000 in the UK and on November 7 in the U.S… Parachutes quickly shot to number one in the United Kingdom, staying in the top ten for thirty-three weeks.
The album produced four hit singles: “Shiver”, “Yellow”, “Trouble”, and “Don’t Panic”. In the United States, the album peaked at only fifty-one on the Billboard 200 yet, it still managed to sell over two million copies within a year.
Parachutes won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2002. It was placed at #14 in Channel 4’s 100 greatest albums of all time and in 2006 at #33 in NME’s 100 greatest British albums. Despite the album’s critical and commercial success, lead singer Chris Martin said that Coldplay looks beyond Parachutes. “We know that’s terrible music,” he said, “and we always try to think about what we can do next.”
Review:
The London foursome Coldplay were early critics' darlings in their native
U.K., showcasing melodic pop on a slew of EP releases and constant live shows
just after the spark of the new millennium. Not as heavy as Radiohead or
snobbish as Oasis, Coldplay were revealed on Parachutes as a band of young
musicians still honing their sweet harmonies. Combining bits of distorted guitar
riffs and swishing percussion, Parachutes was a delightful introduction and also
quickly indicated the reason why this album earned Coldplay a Mercury Music
Prize nomination in fall 2000. Frontman Chris Martin's lyrical wordplay is
feminist in the manner of Geneva's Andrew Montgomery, but far more withered.
The imagery captured on Parachutes is exquisitely dark and artistically
abrasive, and the entire composition is tractable thanks to gauzy acoustics and
airy percussion. Coldplay's indie rock inclinations are also obvious,
especially on songs such as “Don't Panic” and “Shiver,” but it's the
dream pop soundscapes captured on “High Speed” and “We Never Change”
that illustrate the band's dynamic passion. This basic pop was surely a
refreshing effort in the face of big productions like the Spice Girls and
Westlife. Parachutes deserved the accolades it received because it followed the
general rule when introducing decent pop songs: keep the emotion genuine and
real. And Coldplay did that without hesitation.
All Music Guide – MacKenzie Wilson