Coldplay is an acclaimed British rock group who hit the big time in 2000. They had a reputation for their songs sounding rather alike...until Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. It was produced by Brian Eno, who fixed all the flaws he thought the band had. The album killed both the "Radiohead clone" and "one trick pony" tags. It's also the most paid-for downloaded album of all time.Joe Satriani has sued Coldplay for plagiarizing the rhythm and melody of his "If I Could Fly," in Coldplay's Grammy winning "Viva La Vida". *
Satriani sued before Coldplay won the Grammy.
They settled out of court, the verdict being coincidence. They were the first band on last.fm to have over three million listeners. The only other bands to break this benchmark are Radiohead, The Killers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nirvana.Discography so far:
2000 - Parachutes
2002 - A Rush of Blood to the Head
2005 - X&Y
2008 - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
2011 - Mylo Xyloto
This band provides examples of the following tropes:
Album Title Drop: Subverted for the most part. Every album has a track with the same title, but the only one to mention the album title was A Rush of Blood to the Head. A partial example is "I don't want to follow Death and all of his friends".
Arc Symbol: Taken Up to Eleven in Mylo Xyloto. Every single song has its own symbol◊, some of them obvious but others only understandable in context (e.g. the butterfly representing "Paradise" is mentioned in the lyrics).
Banned In China: Parachutes, due to "Spies" being interpreted as a potshot at their form of communism. Buckland commented that the banning was "really weird."
Black Sheep Hit: Parachutes is practically a Black Sheep Album: its intimate, acoustic style doesn't sound like any of Coldplay's other albums, and the band hates it these days. (Though "Yellow" still survives on the setlist)
Boy Band: When they first started, the group created an alter ego boy band called Pectoralz as a joke. No gigs were performed under the name.
Concept Video: The aforementioned Strawberry Swing. And the video for The Scientist.
Epic Instrumental Opener: Life in Technicolour. It originally had lyrics, which were cut out at the last minute. The non-instrumental (but still epic) version was released later.
Epic Riff: Quite a few...notably, "Clocks", "Viva La Vida", "Talk", "Yellow", and "Charlie Brown" (the latter even before its album was released!).
Line-of-Sight Name: Before the band became famous, Chris had a song in mind that began like this: "Look at the stars/Look how they shine for you/And all the things you do." Unfortunately, at the end of every few lines, he drew a blank where he felt some lyrics should go. While singing the unfinished song to a dart-playing Johnny Buckland, he noticed a copy of the Yellow Pages off to the side. You can probably figure out the rest from there.
New Sound Album: From indie darlings that wore Space Invaders shirts to big arena rock band that wears all black, and then from that to artsy-fartsy Middle Eastern strings and 7/4 time signatures. If the new songs are any indication, the fifth (and possibly last) LP Mylo Xyloto is going to be a mashup of all of the above, ranging from catchy electronica ("Every Teardrop is a Waterfall") to Parachutes-esque ballads ("Us Against The World") to epic arena rock ("Charlie Brown").
One of Us: To help prepare for the role of Pepper Potts in the Iron Man film, Gwyneth Paltrow, spouse of lead singer Chris Martin, borrowed a few comic books from her husband.
One of their songs is called "42", and another is called "Don't Panic". It's unclear whether these are actually references to the series, though.
Protest Song: "Violet Hill", which also offers a bit of a Take That with the line "And a fox became God".
Record Producer: They drafted in the godfather of ambient music and all-around awesome guy Brian Eno for Viva La Vida. It shows.
Before, Ken Nelson co-produced the first two albums and four tracks of the third.
Rock Opera: Mylo Xyloto is one - the story of two people (Mylo and Xyloto) who are "living in an oppressive, dystopian urban environment" meeting and falling in love. And yes, it has a happy ending.
Sampled Up: The riff in "Talk" (you know the one) is adapted (with permission) from the riff of "Computer Love" by electronic band Kraftwerk.
Chris Martin has admitted that "Fix You" was inspired by the Elbow song "Grace Under Pressure".
Self-Parody: The music video for "Life in Technicolor II". It is a rock concert, complete with pyrotechnics. It's also a puppet show.
Chris Martin's guest role in an episode of Extras Chris Martin appears to film a charity appeal video together with Andy, but the only thing he's interested in is promoting the 'Coldplay Greatest Hits Album'.
The aforementioned "Angst by Coldplay" advertisement...for such an earnest band, they like this trope a lot.
Shrug of God: The bandmembers rarely give specific explanations of a song's meaning (though they love to give fake ones). Chris, the main lyric-writer, has stated that he has no idea what "Yellow" is about.
Textless Album Cover: A Rush of Blood to the Head. Honorable mention to X&Y, which is written in a code. (the back card has the band and album name, still)
Viral Marketing: The lyrics videos for "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall".
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