Coldplay

Coldplay never intended to become England's favorite rock & roll sons when their signature rock melodies ruled the charts throughout 2000. The Brit-rock quartet -- composed of Chris Martin (vocals/piano), Jon Buckland (guitar), Will Champion (drums), and Guy Berryman (bass) -- yearned to mess around a bit, plucking their own acoustics for fun while attending the University College of London. All had been playing instruments since their early teens and had been influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, the Stone Roses, Neil Young, and My Bloody Valentine.

They never imagined taking reign of the U.K.'s ever-changing rock scene. Each member had come from solid households of working-class parents that encouraged music to be played. Martin, the eldest of five, began playing the piano as a young child. He started playing in bands around age 15 and sought solace in the words of Tom Waits. Buckland, on the other hand, was into the heavy guitar work of Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix and was playing guitar by age 11. Scotland native Berryman was into funk instead of indie rock, therefore leaving him to play bass. The multi-instrumentalist, Champion, didn't plan to be a drummer until he joined Coldplay. He favored playing guitar, bass, and the tin whistle, but caught on to playing percussion when the band became official.

Coldplay was heart-rending like Travis, passionate like Jeff Buckley, and as fresh as Oasis when they first burst onto the scene, so it was ideal for the press and public to praise them. They played their first gig at a festival for unsigned bands in Manchester, and The Safety EP was issued shortly thereafter. The Brothers and Sisters EP was issued by Fierce Panda and released a year later. Both releases saw only 500 pressings. Their sweet melodies and swooning lyrics landed Coldplay a U.K. deal with Parlophone in April 1999, and the limited-edition five-track, The Blue Room EP, followed that fall. With endearing nods from the media, the dream pop foursome were hailed as the next Travis thanks to their simplistic acoustics and charming personas. Two more EPs, Shiver and Yellow, arrived in spring 2000.

Their full-length debut Parachutes, which earned the band a Mercury Music Prize nomination, was released in the U.K. In November 2000, Parachutes saw a U.S. release with Nettwerk; a month later, "Yellow" was chosen as the theme song for all promo spots for ABC. The well-received hype surrounding the band continued throughout 2001 as well, taking on three Brit Awards nominations and a sold-out ten-date tour of the U.S. in February. Rumors of a split consumed most of the U.S. tour. Martin frequently battled nasty colds and voice exhaustion, which led Coldplay to cancel a series of American dates and scrap a European tour. With all gossip aside, Coldplay resumed playing in summer 2001 and earned additional success with second single "Trouble."

By fall, they headed into the studio for a second album. Rumor had it that it might be Coldplay's last album, for the band felt they might not capture such brilliance again. A Rush of Blood to the Head was released in August 2002. ~ MacKenzie Wilson, All Music Guide

Written by MacKenzie Wilson

Coldplay ends U.S. tour ablaze

The distance between Coldplay's music -- melancholy and middling -- and its worldly ambitions -- towering -- disappears when you actually see the band perform in concert. It's not quite a revelation; such things are hard to come by at Nissan Pavilion, a venue whose bottlenecked access points create hellish commutes, especially on nights when megapopular British rock bands are on the bill. (Even St. Peter would see a few scowling faces if it took three hours to reach the Pearly Gates.) Put it this way: On Friday night, the Coldplay thing began to make sense. I'm still a little puzzled, though, as to why so many young men are so enthusiastic about a mousy quartet whose prettified balladry makes Elton John sound like Black Sabbath. Could it be the presence of thousands of beautiful young women? (I realize this is a stretch.) When swallowed up and spit back out by a massive, 20,000-plus audience, singer Chris Martin's woozy melodies take on grand echoes. And songs that (at best) beguile or (at worst) bore on, become steroid-enhanced twins on stage. Mr. Martin wasted no time assuming frontman swagger, leaping and bounding across the stage as his bandmates glided through the spacey "Square One," followed by a commanding run through "Politik." Whether hunched over a piano or strapped with a lozenge-shaped guitar, Mr. Martin was unconfinably aswirl, making good on a promise to play with "twice the energy" of a typical Coldplay concert. (Friday was the last show of the band's highly successful summer tour.) For all its talk of clean living and diet purity, Coldplay isn't above using tape accompaniment to bulk up its sound (or giant yellow balloons to announce the hit "Yellow"; or video-screen images of cosmic explosions to set the mood for "Speed of Sound"). But the band huddled around drummer-turned-pianist Will Champion for a boiled-down barbershop acoustic set that included "Green Eyes" and "Till Kingdom Come," which Mr. Martin wrote for the late Johnny Cash. A snoozing rendition of "Ring of Fire," however, was perhaps too literal a tribute to the Man in Black. As a reminder of how incalculably lucky Coldplay has been the last few years, Mr. Martin shared the war story of the band's Washington-area debut at the HFStival in 2000. "We felt like aliens from another planet," he said, mentioning later (during an extemporaneous "Everything's Not Lost") the indignity of playing second fiddle to rap-metalers Limp Bizkit. Things have changed, to say the least. Now America is alien to Mr. Martin, a Brit who specifically refused to lay eyes on American beers backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards, and whose American wife, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, doesn't want to raise their daughter, Apple, here (she prefers Europe, with its "respect for the multicultural nature of the globe"). For what it's worth, Mr. Martin and Co. seemed humbled by their rousing reception at Nissan; they were, simply, four musicians plying a craft and plying it well. And if we have imported beers to thank for that, then pass the Heineken.