Believe it or not, but there was a time when Coldplay were enormous and also had music of worth. Their latest album releases have been experiments in inventing a new circle of hell. Their woeful pop-slop collaborations are leaving listeners high and dry across the globe. But it never used to be that way. Parachutes at least felt truthful. It remains their most listenable work. Head back to their earliest works, then, ahead of a sold-out series of concerts which are bound to put Chris Martin and his cycle-powered shows back in the news cycle. We must ride the wave with the rest of them, and so Parachutes is chucked on the record player. It has sadly landed rather than shattered. People wonder why Coldplay is mocked so much by the more dedicated listener, and it is because the band is a shell of its former self.
You can hear the pride of what Martin and the group once offered throughout Parachutes. A shaky debut, but aren’t most? It’s a shame Coldplay drifted from the likes of Don’t Panic, an opener which cements the sincerity, the positivity, which makes Martin look detached from reality these days. A beautiful world is what he may see, but it is not what many now live in. A surprising integrity can be heard still on Parachutes, an album which was affected by the rock-adjacent pop noise of the times. Certainly influenced by the British music scene which preceded them, and there we find the major problem which plagues Coldplay now. They can take an idea and form it into something catchy, but they are always influenced, rather than the influencer. It is why they ended up collaborating with BTS, why their most recent album, Moon Music, is waterboarding for the ears. Contrast that with the excellent double bill of Shiver and Spies. The band has not come close to that quality ever since.
Not because they are incapable, but because they must wait for an interesting act to catch their attention. The group must make notes from what has come before them. Rarely does this work in the long run. Parachutes is a chance to hear the R.E.M. and Oasis influences. At least Martin makes the latter band’s tone a vaguely listenable one, the only person to do so. Those staggering early works come to life on big hits like Yellow and Trouble, songs which, despite being so frequently featured in every pocket of surface-level culture, do not yet feel overplayed. Give it time. Coldplay never moves itself on from being a mirror to culture, to what is popular, and it weakens their longevity. They did write We Never Change, after all. There is no doubt about the success, the consistent quality of Parachutes, but warning lights are flashing throughout.
Its title track is an underwhelming presentation, while Sparks feels like a compilation of every faux heartfelt acoustic track of the past two decades. In maintaining a crisp sound, a pop-ready noise, they strip themselves, time and again, of humanity. It is what Parachutes still lacks despite the crisp and well-mixed sound they provide. A few slower moments which give pause for thought, but they are no greater than the everyday romances which frequently feature on the charts. What Coldplay lacks is the great writing which keeps a song alive without the need to constantly amplify it and stretch the band away from its core meaning. Parachutes struggles with that, both highlighting the shallow waters yet still having fun as it splashes around in closing track Everything’s Not Lost. Tremendous moments which would rarely happen again for Coldplay can be found here.
