Coldplay: Day 5

The next few songs are the true beginning of the Parachutes era for Coldplay. They released Shiver, along with a couple other songs which don't appear on the album, on March 6, 2000, a few months before Parachutes. This practice of releasing non-album songs along with their singles is something we don't really see these days (at least that I can think of). I have no actual evidence for this, but it feels like bands back in the day would record songs much more often and just release them, even if they weren't perfectly crafted, or their absolute best work. These days it feels like artists have to make sure each song they release fits correctly into their brand and album "era." My uneducated guess would be this has something to do with the digital/streaming age and how maintaining brand purity and reputation is almost as important as your actual music quality. And of course we have You-Know-Who to thank for the explosion of popularity in the word "era."

https://www.vogue.in/content/are-album-eras-changing-music-as-we-know-it-taylor-swift-olivia-rodrigo

Anyways, Shiver is a pretty great song. I had never listened to it before this project, and on first listen I actually wasn't blown away, but I had to listen to it three times for the listen-through, and then once more for this retrospective and it grew on me. I really like the guitar riff that shows up a few times, and the guitar in the chorus. For You and Careful Where You Stand are both slow ballads, For You is on the piano, and Careful Where You Stand is on the guitar. These two songs are types of songs that I have always had a hard time with. I prefer songs with structure and melody, as opposed to meandering, lyrically focused songs where the singer "pours their heart out" or something. I like Careful Where You Stand more out of the two though, there's some cool chords and atmosphere in there.

Okay, now on to the real start of Coldplay. Well that's not really true, but the first Coldplay song to have real commercial success, and the one that really defined them for a lot of their career. I'm of course talking about Yellow. Yellow was released on June 26, 2000, just a couple weeks before Parachutes and from what I understand, was an immediate hit. One contemporary review,

https://web.archive.org/web/20080615014122/http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/109811/review/5944377

called Yellow "unrepentantly romantic", and where "the spirit reigns supreme." I don't remember when I first heard Yellow, but I feel like the melody and song have just been in my brain forever. I guess I could have heard the song when I was a literal baby so maybe that's why. Regardless, Yellow is one of my favorite Coldplay songs. I actually didn't really know the song that well until a few years ago, but I sort of rediscovered it around 2021-2022 and really like it now. Also, fun fact, I learned to play it on the ukelele once :).


Couple of other random things about Yellow:

You may or may not know about this random Chinese version of the song that was in the movie Crazy Rich Asians (2018): (sorry lot of links today)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPZ2hPn9rEQ

This song makes me laugh a little since it's not even really close to the original lyrics, they just stole the melody for some reason.

Also this Coldplay ranking from 2020 that I really like (Music of the Spheres and Moon Music not included, sadly) has Yellow as Coldplay's greatest song of all time. I personally wouldn't put it as my first, but I think it's a fair choice (last link I promise).

https://www.nme.com/features/every-coldplay-song-ranked-in-order-of-greatness-2704676


Okay well enough about Yellow, the other two songs that were released with Yellow were Help is Round the Corner, and No More Keeping My Feet on the Ground. I think it's pretty clear that Yellow was the centerpiece of this little EP, so the other two songs are sort of just there, but they aren't too bad. Help is Round the Corner actually reminded me vaguely of a Lumineers song (or I guess technically it should be vice-versa), and No More Keeping My Feet on the Ground seems like a pretty generic little song about moving forward and being happy, but it does have this little techno-guitar thing going on which feels sort of futuristic.

Songs Listened To:

Shiver, For You, Careful Where You Stand - March 6, 2000

Yellow, Help is Round the Corner, No More Keeping My Feet on the Ground - June 26, 2000

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