Random Review #68 Coldplay - Parachutes

C2S8CD11 Where do I start with this one then? Last week Coldplay released their new single to the delight of the media but to a barrage of abuse across social media sites, calls of over produced, lazy writing, boring etc rang round the internet so are Coldplay as bad as we all think? I think they are somewhere between, ‘not as bad as we think’ and ‘not as good as they think they are’ and I think this album proves it.

Coldplay sit with Keane, and U2 as bands we love to hate. It’s when they become what I I call the‘supermarket bands’. What I mean by that is when bands become accessible to the masses people who threw Viva La Vida in the shopping trolley along with the latest Michael Buble and turn up at the gigs and only know the songs from the latest album and talk throughout the older tracks as they have no interest in them. It’s happening to Elbow at the moment but as yet we all still love them as the band still seem attached to the people where as the aforementioned bands seem to forget their roots and become distant memories of the people they used to be.

It is years since I have listened to this album and when I pulled it off the shelf my heart sank a bit, I can say I wasn’t looking forward to it but I can report that I have enjoyed listening to it, and I realise why we all loved Coldplay so many years ago, and the reason for that is actually they were good, full of energy and belief in what they were doing. This was before the celebrity wives, kids names after fruit, the silly outfits, the storming out of interviews by climbing out of windows and everything else that has made loath Chris Martin and the 3 other band members that I doubt we would recognise if they passed us in the street (unless they had those stupid patchwork jackets on!)

Parachutes is a good album, not brilliant but with potential to make us think we were on to something. Don’t Panic, Trouble, and Yellow are all great tracks and although Yellow has been played so much if I heard it again in the next ten years it might be too early there is much to like on Parachutes.

Coldplay were a good band who wrote good songs, both statements are now open to debate and I have to say I fell out of love with them after the second album, not because the they are a ‘Supermarket Band’ but because they seem to have forgotten about the music, and seem more interested in being very serious and changing the world and much as that’s very admirable we actually we want some good songs and the we can change the world! (Well maybe)

Mark 6/10