Coldplay – Music Biography

Coldplay

Hailing from London, England, Coldplay has enjoyed commercial success with each of their four studio albums. It’s estimated they have sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. Their music can be compared to other pop / rock bands like U2 and Radiohead, with layered guitar tracks and piano melodies featuring prominently in many songs.

A four piece band, the members of Coldplay met while they were students at the University College London in 1996. Their first album, Parachutes, was released in 2000 and includes the songs Yellow, Trouble and Don’t Panic. The album climbed the charts quickly in the U.K. but had a slower rise in the U.S., which may have been helped by the inclusion of Don’t Panic on the Garden State soundtrack.

That same year the band began their first headlining tour and appeared at the Glastonbury Festival. By 2002 they had released their second album A Rush of Blood to the Head which featured the popular songs In My Place, Clocks, The Scientist and God Put A Smile Upon Your Face. Their highly anticipated third album, X & Y in 2005, finds the band exploring signature guitar riffs on songs like Talk and Fix You. Guitars also feature prominently on their next album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends in 2008. The song Violet Hill has perhaps the band’s loudest crunching riff while the title track Viva la Vida is the first Coldplay song to top the charts in both the U.S. and U.K. In terms of new direction Viva La Vida is comparable to what U2 did with Achtung Baby in 1991. This isn’t surprising as both albums are produced in part by Brian Eno.

Coldplay for Guitar

In terms of style, Coldplay are comparable to bands like U2, Oasis and Radiohead. As a four piece band many of their arrangements rely on melodic guitar riffs and piano melodies. We have two lessons on Coldplay songs, God Put A Smile Upon Your Face and Don’t Panic.

Don’t let the intermediates tag discourage you from trying out our cool single-guitar arrangement of Don’t Panic, the opening song from Coldplay’s Parachutes CD (also featured in the Garden State Soundtrack).

God Put A Smile Upon Your Face is another very easy song to learn. We use our easy songs for beginners lesson to throw in some material on drones, moveable chord voicings and capos! It’s also an excellent start to working with open C# tuning.