"Parachutes" is the Grammy award-winning debut album by English rock band Coldplay, released on July 10, 2000 in the UK and on November 7 in the U.S.. Parachutes quickly shot to number one in the United Kingdom, staying in the top ten for thirty-three weeks. The album produced four hit singles: "Shiver", "Yellow", "Trouble", and "Don't Panic". In the United States, the album peaked at only fifty-one on the Billboard 200 yet, it still managed to sell over two million copies within a year. "Parachutes" won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2002. It was placed at Read more on Last.fm.
Today, after some eleven years on the Billboard charts, Coldplay is both marginalized and polarized by a divided media. There’s food for thought on both sides of the argument. The fact that they did little to change their own sound until the experimental Viva La Vida lost them points with initial fans. On the same token, many saw that album as an arty stretch that didn’t play to the groups strengths.
My position in all of this, as a music lover and critic by hobby, has been the same since I first listened to them. Parachutes was a terrific, epic British rock album. Being their first, it had the signature sound that carried over years later into A Sudden Rush, X0, and, in places, Viva. The difference is that Parachutes had a workman like quality to it, really good songs played and recorded really well. That was its strength. It wasn’t groundbreaking in a Radiohead kind of way. It was simply a tightly arranged set of emotionally driven tunes that produced rave reviews and broad smiles. To this day, I think its their crowning statement….before the soccer moms and the arenas and blah, blah blah.