It has to be said, Coldplay have certainly moved on to their commercial and anthemic 'X & Y's and 'Viva la Vida's without looking back. Their debut Parachutes is almost a secret that they've been hiding all this time. It's rarely talked about by either the band or it's ever-growing fan base of screaming girls and yet it still manages to grab number 14 in the 100 greatest albums. How? Well, it only has to be listened to. Parachutes isn't ground breaking nor does it "raise the bar." It is simply a collection of brilliantly written pieces of music which do not try to be clever or pretentious, isn't targetted at a particular audience and isn't marketed in any clever way. It's just good, honest and straight from the heart. It's calmingly melancholy but not depressing (or depressingly bad which X & Y turned out to be.) You won't hear any synthes or full string orchestras in the backgroud or layers upon layers of guitars to fill the spaces with cheap, rubbish effects. It's drums, guitars,… more »

It has to be said, Coldplay have certainly moved on to their commercial and anthemic 'X & Y's and 'Viva la Vida's without looking back. Their debut Parachutes is almost a secret that they've been hiding all this time. It's rarely talked about by either the band or it's ever-growing fan base of screaming girls and yet it still manages to grab number 14 in the 100 greatest albums. How? Well, it only has to be listened to. Parachutes isn't ground breaking nor does it "raise the bar." It is simply a collection of brilliantly written pieces of music which do not try to be clever or pretentious, isn't targetted at a particular audience and isn't marketed in any clever way. It's just good, honest and straight from the heart. It's calmingly melancholy but not depressing (or depressingly bad which X & Y turned out to be.) You won't hear any synthes or full string orchestras in the backgroud or layers upon layers of guitars to fill the spaces with cheap, rubbish effects. It's drums, guitars, piano and voice.
Singles like Yellow, Shiver and Trouble display commercial greatness and potential that Coldplay could (and have) achieve. The spacey High Speed and Spies give the album depth and spectrum. And the exquisite Everything's Not Lost brings a jazzy and hopeful close to album. This in my opinion is Coldplay's finest hour closely followed by 'A Rush...' Absolutely magic to chill out to; highly recommended.