It seems like only when I heard this album for the first time. I knew Coldplay from their debut album Parachute and hits like Yellow, Trouble and Don't Panic. In November 2002, I watched the MTV Europe Awards and I was dumbstruck by their performance of the first single from A Rush Of Blood To The Head called In My Place. The beautiful chiming delay coming from Johnny Buckland's guitar and the memorable chorus made me want to go out and listen to the album.
Getting to the music store, the cover struck me as very avant garde and I was afraid that the album might be that over-ambitious second album, rich with pompous arrangements and political grandstanding. This was after all recorded just after the September 11th attacks, and everybody was getting onto that bandwagon (here's looking at you Bruce Springsteen).
I asked for the album, went to the listening booth, and my fears were allayed the second the minor chords to the album's opener, Politik, started. The soundscapes on this album is huge, but the songs themselves are not over produced, which says a lot about Coldplay. They make do with what they have, and they do it well.
Clocks with it's instantly recognisable arpeggios was pretty much the song that cemented them as a band that would be around for some time, while Amsterdam positioned them as cerebral, yet sad souls. And then there's The Scientist, the big lighter ballad of the noughties. It's video was extremely innovative and the song itself became a mainstay on the charts and at weddings/funerals/any post-breakup happening.
Key Track: The Scientist - just for that last epic minute. All big guitars, big drums, big piano chords, big falsetto. Big.
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