Alright y'all we're back in business. It's been a little while since I continued this project, but here we are. Today, I'm gonna be talking about my first time listening through Parachutes, the first full-length album by Coldplay. Unfortunately, it's going on 3 months since I first listened to this originally, and honestly, I don't think I have too much to say. But Parachutes came out on July 10, 2000, about 24 and a half years ago now. It was basically an instant hit, possibly boosted by the success of the single Yellow. This Wikipedia chart does a good job showing the legacy of this album. It's considered (by many, at least), one of the better albums in recent history.
I honestly couldn't say why it's so highly rated. I think the album is okay. The songs mostly follow the typical early Coldplay style I've talked about a few times, slow and thoughtful. They're nice songs, don't get me wrong, Spies and Don't Panic are atmospheric, Shiver has some kick, and Trouble is a catchy piano ballad, but I don't think I have the music (and music history) knowledge to really account for why this album was so critically acclaimed and commercially successful (13 million copies sold!). The varied critical reception that Coldplay has received over the years is something I'm excited to dig into as the albums move along. Suffice it to say though, they were much more critically acclaimed in their earlier years.
For me, my personal experience with this album was basically nonexistent until I started this project. Outside of Yellow, I don't think I could have picked out any of the songs. Now, I like Don't Panic and Shiver mostly, and maybe Trouble.
Here's the full list:
Don't Panic - I've talked about this one
Shiver - Also have talked about this one
Spies - Mentioned this one, it's a slow song with paranoid lyrics about being surrounded by spies or something, the electric guitar in the song is kind of cool though, it's got this sort of soft, wet sound that I like.
Sparks - This is like a heartache song, about yearning for a lover you let down or who left. Fun fact this one went viral on TikTok in the last few years and has over a billion streams now on Spotify, the second most on the album.
Yellow - Yep
Trouble - Mentioned this one, yeah it's just a piano song also about apologizing to a romantic partner. I like the chorus though, 🎵I-I-I-I-I never meant to cause you trouble-e-e🎵.
Parachutes - this is a 0:47 second interlude thing. I think it does reveal some of the meaning behind the title and the album. He says "I'll be 'round, I'll be loving you always, always". I think maybe he is a parachute (or wants to be like a parachute), there to catch his love when (she?) falls. I think this fits with the earnest, heart-on-your-sleeve lyrics and delivery of the songs as well.
High Speed - This one was in The Blue Room EP from earlier. Genius (the lyrics website) says this is about a failing relationship, and that's probably true, but I also feel like the lyrics can be interpreted pretty easily to be remarks on the state of the world. The world moves faster and faster, we live life in high speed, and we're all wondering, "Can anybody fly this thing?" I'm probably reaching, but this song was released in October 1999, just a couple months before Y2K and in the early days of the internet, so maybe our fast changing world was on the band members' minds when they wrote the lyrics.
We Never Change - The second to last song on the album is a slow guitar song about trying to live a good life, but "We never change, do we?" Kind of depressing I guess.
"Everything's Not Lost - Includes Hidden Track 'Life is for Living'" - Yeah in between the double quotes is the full song title. This 7 minute song seems like a bit of a rebuttal to the previous one and their overall message in the album. There's a lot of sad songs about failing relationships on the album, but ultimately, Coldplay just wants us to "Sing, ah-ah-ah / Sing, ah-ah-ah / Just sing, ah-ah-ah." Even if all these sad things happen, life is for living and at least we can sing.
Well there you go, this sort of turned into a full-on analysis of the lyrics which I didn't really mean it to, but when I have nothing to say about the song I often start looking at the lyrics. To end this off, I thought I'd share this funny thing I noticed when I was searching for the album cover art. Currently on Spotify, the album cover is not actually this spinning globe thing, but a picture of the moon replaces the globe.
This is a funny thing that artists sometimes do these days with Spotify (or other streaming services), where they change the old album covers in order to celebrate their newest releases. Twenty One Pilots did it last year (2024) when they were hyping up the release of their latest album Clancy. The lead singer, Tyler Joseph, sometimes wears different colored tape in concerts to represent characters or themes, so to tease the upcoming release they put red tape on all the album covers.
Charli XCX did it too for her album Brat (2024) and the modified album covers are still up on Spotify as of this writing. For Coldplay, their latest album is called Moon Music, so it looks like they put this little Easter egg here for fun.
Oh and if you're curious, at 5:55 in this video, Chris Martin explains the somewhat random origins of the Parachutes album cover.
Songs Listened To:
Parachutes (LP) - July 10, 2000
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