Coldplay at 25: From alternative band to ‘manipulating emotions on a grand scale’

On January 16, 1998, a band called Starfish played their first gig at a small pub in London’s Camden called The Laurel Tree. Shortly afterwards, Chris Martin (vocals and piano), Jonny Buckland (guitar), Guy Berryman (bass) and Will Champion (drums) changed the band’s name to Coldplay and self-released their debut EP Safety.

The group made just 500 copies — including both CDs and cassettes — which they basically distributed to record companies and concertgoers. A year later, Coldplay became the first unsigned band to feature on Steve Lamacq’s prestigious Evening Session on the BBC. Their next single, Brothers & Sisters, was released by the indie label Fierce Panda. By that time, however, six record labels were vying to sign the band, which ultimately chose Parlophone, a subsidiary of EMI.

Driven by their first major hit, Yellow, their debut album, Parachutes, was released in the summer of 2000 and went straight to number one in the U.K. sales charts, and also earned a nomination for the Mercury Prize.

“Coldplay began their career as an alternative rock band, and — without being particularly innovative or groundbreaking — their first album is full of great compositions,” says María Taosa, a music director on Spain’s Radio 3 channel.

According to Marc Gili, vocalist of the group Dorian, who worked as a product manager at EMI during the early 2000s, Coldpay “started out as an introspective band, following in the path of Radiohead’s OK Computer and Richard Ashcroft, or more underground acts like Red House Painters or Sophia, but they soon realized that to fill large venues they had to give the radio what it wanted at all times, and also increase the tempo of the songs.”

Twenty-five years after the release of Parachutes, all 10 of Coldplay’s albums have reached number one in the U.K. They are the group with the most monthly listeners and streams on Spotify, and until Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, their Music Of The Spheres World Tour was the most lucrative tour of all time. Starting in 2022, the tour will conclude this September with 10 shows at London’s Wembley Stadium.

The band’s impact outside the U.K. is just as big: they’ve already performed 10 nights at River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires (Argentina), six at similarly sized venues in São Paulo (Brazil), Singapore, and Goyang (South Korea), four at the Lluís Companys Stadium in Barcelona, and kicked off this year with another four shows in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates).

However, the London quartet is still lacking something: critical acclaim. This is where there is an intriguing paradox. According to Metacritic, which aggregates reviews, their highest-rated album is their sophomore effort, A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002), with a score of 80/100. This record marked their transition from playing smaller venues to medium-sized arenas.

While Parachutes and Coldplay’s third and fourth albums (X&Y from 2005 and Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends from 2008) received respectable scores of 72/100, the ratings for the band’s subsequent works — those they’ve showcased on increasingly monumental tours — have steadily declined. Mylo Xyloto (2011) scored 65, Ghost Stories (2014) 61, A Head Full of Dreams (2015) 60, Music of the Spheres (2021) 55, and their latest release, Moon Music (2024), only scored 58.

What explains this inverse relationship between Coldplay’s soaring popularity and their waning artistic recognition? “As soon as they made the leap to stadiums, Chris Martin, who is a chameleon of mainstream pop, began a personal race to outdo himself with each new album,” says Gili. “This has led to some successful mainstream collaborations but also to others that are downright aberrant. On an purely artistic level, their evolution has been highly uneven.”

Gili continues: “In recent years, their approach feels increasingly predictable and lacking in real value. They should make an effort to release a truly good album again in the next two or three years, or else their legacy will be very unbalanced, due to the difference in quality between their earlier and more recent work.”

“I think they found their infallible formula in epic and colorful pop, and they’ve milked it to the point where you can immediately recognize a Coldplay song as soon as it starts playing,” says María Taosa. “But in recent years, that has often resulted in songs you forget the moment they’re over.”

Taosa continues: “This shift towards more prefabricated and predictable music arguably began with Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, although that album still has songs that capture Coldplay’s genuine essence. And it is true that some critics of their last two albums highlight the frivolous or superficial nature of their lyrics, even though they want to address universal themes and current concerns. It is also true that they opt for that formula of creating songs designed to be sung in a stadium.”

Jordi Bianciotto, a music critic, agrees: “I see Coldplay as comfortably settled into a pop canon with new-age overtones, affected humanist lyrics, cute choruses, and few lasting songs. Within their generation, Coldplay was a standout in their early albums, which showcased more inventiveness, exploration, and inspiration. But their evolution reflects a transition towards a multigenerational pop approach, designed to manipulate emotions on a grand scale. Messages that strengthen the spirit, transcendent lyrics, love as a universal solution... It all ends up sounding a bit hollow and pretentious to me, although there are also moments of success and lucidity.”

The only exception to Coldplay’s steadily declining critical ratings is their 2019 album, Everyday Life, which has a score of 73/100 on Metacritic — making it the second-highest rated album of their career. Bianciotto points to its distinctive qualities: “There was more adventurous material there, and inspired pieces such as Arabesque, which featured collaborations with Stromae and Femi Kuti.” Gili echoes this sentiment, describing it as “their last interesting album.”

Notably, Everyday Life was not supported by a traditional tour. Instead, the band opted for a few special performances, including two concerts at the Citadel of Amman in Jordan and another at London’s Natural History Museum.

Rock stars for the whole family

“I’m as amazed, even perplexed, as anyone else,” says Bianciotto, reflecting on the staggering records being broken by the Music of the Spheres World Tour. He offers a possible explanation, suggesting that “the phenomenon of this tour may be tied to the global post-pandemic mood, the urgent need for collective celebration, liberation, and shared catharsis — a desire to hold on to the values that represent the best of humanity: pacifism, ecology, universal love... All of that is what Coldplay stands for.”

He continues: “They’ve been very effective in capturing several generations of audiences. I think a part of it has to do with a certain naive, childlike quality to their music that captivates younger listeners. As a result, entire families attend their shows, and tickets are no longer sold individually or in pairs, but in packs of four, six, or more. Their policy of duets and collaborations has also played a key role in reaching different niches and expanding their audience.”

“Coldplay’s greatest asset has always been their ability to emotionally connect with large audiences,” argues Taosa. “Their debut album already included songs that became anthems from the start, such as Yellow, and they have successfully leveraged that charisma to create a discography and live shows that win over the masses around the world, from Abu Dhabi to Toronto.”

Gili agrees: “Their live shows are perfect for what they aim to achieve. They contain all the tricks and dynamics needed to entertain the masses for over two hours — explosive moments, dancing, luminescent toys, cutting-edge sound and lighting technology, and also spaces for intimate songs from their repertoire. There’s even a moment where fans are brought on stage to play with them, showcasing the band’s more human side. But what I would highlight most is that Coldplay is not a legacy act. Many songs from their latest albums are as well-received by their fans at concerts as those from their earlier work. Not even U2 can say that. It’s a rare feat for bands of this size, and it demonstrates how well they’ve managed to remain relevant on the radio for decades, despite changes in trends — even if that has occasionally come at the cost of the quality of their singles.”

The comparison with U2, though frequent, remains relevant. Coldplay shares many characteristics with the Irish band, which likely served as a model when they began their career. There are notable similarities in their sound, the fact that they have maintained the same four members throughout their journey, and their collaboration with Brian Eno as producer on Viva la Vida, the first album that saw them playing in stadiums. They even replicated the stage concept of U2’s Elevation Tour during their A Rush of Blood to the Head tour. Equally significant is their involvement in various humanitarian causes — a trait that, from the critics’ perspective, has often been met with skepticism.

Bianciotto, for example, suggests that “in their concerts, music serves as the channel through which they celebrate something akin to universal harmony, leaving the stadium with the belief that we’re all good people and on the right side of history.”

However, it can also be said that Coldplay has taken more explicit stances on controversial issues than many of their peers. They have supported the Palestinian cause since the start of their career, support the boycott of Israel — where they have never performed — and are among the most climate-conscious bands in the industry. In fact, the main reason they didn’t tour with Everyday Life was the inability to do so in an ecologically sustainable manner. In this regard, their Music of the Spheres World Tour stands as a testament to their commitment to reducing their carbon footprint.

The world has also changed, perhaps for the worse. The band faced backlash in 2016, when conservative U.S. groups accused them of promoting “a gay agenda” for displaying the rainbow flag during their Super Bowl halftime performance, but this reactionary movement has only grown stronger as the band has become more successful. From this perspective, Chris Martin might not be the Mr. Wonderful of today’s pop scene, but rather a revolutionary at heart, using his immense global platform to challenge the surge of ultra-right ideology. Not bad for the same guy who, 25 years ago, appeared on screens around the world, walking along a beach in a continuous shot while singing Yellow.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition