Campus CD Collection Blowin' Indie Wind Coldplay Grows Up, Distancing Themsleves from Radiohead

Author: Erika Mercer

Coldplay's music is like floating several hundred feet above the earth through a bright but hazy morning sky, feeling close to weightless. You're gazing down at the landscape below, which ranges from downy green pastures and quiet, level squares of farmland filled with grass-munching sheep, to towering, toothed mountain peaks and narrow valleys containing anxiously rushing rivers. You feel present in this landscape but detached, unaware of its immediacy — your feet are far above the ground, your thoughts aloft, lost in the haziness around you.
Combining two Englishmen, a Welshman and a Scot together in one band might seem to be an obvious recipe for disaster, but Coldplay has gone against all odds and used this blend to cook up a luscious dish of Brit-pop. The band formed in 1996 when singer and pianist Chris Martin met guitarist Jon Buckland during their years at University College London. Joined soon thereafter by bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion, the group released their first EP, "Safety," in 1998. This release was followed in 1999 by the single, "Brothers and Sisters," which caught the ear of a major record label, Parlophone Records. Landing a contract with Parlophone sent Coldplay down the road leading to a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2002 for their first full length CD, "Parachutes."
Despite more than enough criticism following its release for trying to sound like 1990's sensation Radiohead, "Parachutes" was a huge success for the band. Undaunted, the members of Coldplay defiantly waded through the criticism and established themselves a distinctive place in the world of British alternative/pop music. The first single released off the album was "Yellow," a heart-wrenching ballad, followed by the single, "Shiver," an edgier, more panicky song. In general, though, "Parachutes" is an exceedingly mellow album, almost too placid for its own good. It's a beautiful, calm album that you have to be in the mood for, an album that reflects Martin's quiet, polite personality.
"A Rush of Blood to the Head," released this past August as Coldplay's second full-length album, might not turn "Parachutes" on its head, but it does give it a sound discombobulating. Still at the center of the album is Martin's unique and unmistakable voice, which sails high above the instruments, gliding, sometimes penetratingly lonesome, other times breezy and buoyant. Apart from his voice, though, the band opts for a sound that is louder and faster, more brooding, more moody, more confident and more there.
In a recent interview, Martin commented on the effect of releasing a hit first album, "You start learning about everything, like the way girls work to the way George Bush works to the way the environment works to the way fair trade doesn't work. It's like in 'The Matrix' when they plug his head in and he learns Kung Fu and all that really quickly. That's what it's like."
"Rush" proves this statement: the lyrics are less vulnerable and less naïve, more mature and perhaps more jaded.
For example, the first song on the album, "Politik," was written only several days after Sept. 11 and reflects the emotions of that day. The song symbolically rises and crashes twice before the lyrics begin, then takes on a dazed, distressed quality with Martin singing, "Look at earth from outer space / Everyone must find a place / Give me time and give me space / Give me real, don't give me fake."
Only toward the end of the song does a hopeful, coping tone takes over: "Wounds that heal and cracks that fix / Tell me your own politik."
"Politik," as with all of Coldplay's songs, is soulful, passionate and riveting in a subdued, unassuming way. Even in the louder "Rush," Coldplay has found a way to be impressive — combining various sounds drawing on influences ranging from Nirvana to blues — using a strikingly unpretentious approach.