⭐ Press Play… Today we celebrate Parachutes' 25th birthday 👀

“Can someone blow this thing up before my head explodes or starts ringing? / We live our whole lives inside a bubble.”

The band's origins date back to 1996, when Chris Martin met guitarist Jon Buckland at the University College residence. "I went to London like Dick Whittington went looking for gold," the Exeter-born singer said, referring to the traditional English character. "Only instead of a cat, I arrived with 12 bags. Then I met Jonny, and everything changed." They began playing together and writing songs. Later, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion joined them.

Before calling themselves Coldplay, the group had several names: Big Fat Noises, Starfish, and Pectoralz. Their final christening came courtesy of a fellow student, Tim Crompton, who based it on a book of poems by a certain Philip Horky entitled Child's Reflections, Cold Play. With the final line-up in place, they soon started recording: in 1998, they released an independent EP with three songs called Safety.

The following year, in addition to The Blue Room, they released "Brothers & Sisters," their first taste of success. It all happened thanks to a BBC DJ who included it on his show and then invited the group to play it live. The documentary Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams (2018) records that set, which also included "Shiver," which they would later record at Parachutes. "Brothers & Sisters" reached the Top 100 in the British charts and caught the attention of Parlophone, the label that released the Beatles and Radiohead, who signed them to work on their debut album.

Parachutes was recorded at Rockfield Studios in South Wales. It was there that “Yellow” was born, now amassing 2.333 billion streams on Spotify. During a break in the nighttime recording of “Shiver,” the musicians went out for a drink, and Chris was captivated by the sky. He came up with a melody and sketched out Neil Young-inspired lyrics that featured the stars. His bandmates were enthusiastic and created an arrangement, but the lyrics were still missing. The “Yellow” that ends each verse came from a Yellow Pages book someone had in the studio. It was a temporary idea, but it fit the time signature so well that it became permanent.

The rest of Parachutes is filled with contemplative songs laden with a certain melancholy. “Sparks,” a plea for a second chance at love (“I know I was wrong, but I won't let you down”), is one of the album's most intimate and endearing moments. It's another of the group's great classics: it has 971 million plays on Spotify. Regret also fuels “Trouble,” a piano ballad that serves as Chris's apology to his bandmates. “There were some things that weren't working in the band, and this song is about behaving badly with someone you really love. And I was doing that with some members of the band,” he later declared.

Although Parachutes was originally scheduled to be recorded in two weeks, a number of tours and concerts forced the recording period to be extended from late 1999 to May 2000. Recordings began first at Rockfield Studios in Wales, followed by Matrix Studios and Wessex Sound Studios, although the bulk of the recording was done at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool.

Since Ken Nelson noticed the band was very tense at the Liverpool concert, they spent extra time in the studio, thinking about how they should play the new songs live and at what pace.

For the band, these recordings were very comfortable. Drummer Will Champion described the process as "liberating."

Parachutes was released in July 2000 and debuted at number one in England. Much of its success was due to "Yellow," which had been released a few weeks earlier and was accompanied by a music video that became an MTV phenomenon: shot in a single take and without cuts on a beach in Studland, the video shows Martin singing and looking at the camera in slow motion. It's one of Coldplay's most iconic videos.

And you, which song do you like the most on the album?

Let's talk about it in the comments section!