Coldplay - Parachutes

So how about that hiatus? Yeah.

Coldplay gets some crap in more serious circles because of their sappiness and pandering to the mainstream, but at least on their debut album, they ain't bad. At times singer Chris Martin's falsetto can get annoying, but in general he fits the tone he's creating, and while the lyrics are never as deep or touching as he seems to want them to be, they get the job done without being too egregious. His piano playing can be a bit simple, but he can come up with simple tunes that are still effective and catchy. The instrumentation isn't particularly important to their style, but their guitarist is competent at his job of keeping things lively and nothing about the rhythm is bad either. Really, it's not bad music. Stop making fun of me for listening to girl stuff.

Like a lot of albums that aren't great but aren't bad either, Parachutes starts stronger than it ends. "Don't Panic" is short but lets you know what's up, with a nice, high pitched guitar line and pleasant vocals. "Shiver" is one of the harder songs because of its thicker, distorted guitar, but hard is a relative term with this band. "Spies" has an acoustic, slightly off-kilter sound, and it's pretty good at being something other than the love ballads they're known for. "Yellow" is the single that got them noticed, and it's a bit simple, but still well-executed and an enjoyable song. It's followed by "Trouble", with the nice piano and swelling chorus. Martin's probably the most obnoxious sounding on this one, but it doesn't ruin the rest of the song. There are some more songs afterward, they all follow the same pattern, neither painful to listen to nor really memorable. The only reason I ever get mainstream stuff like this is because I find it cheap, but I can still gleam some fun out of it.