Coldplay song yellow
Former Creation Records boss Alan McGee once labelled their sound as “bedwetters’ music”. ‘Not cool’ĭespite Coldplay’s early success, however, the band always had its detractors. At live shows, he points out, it still “gets an ecstatic reception, even from those who were far too young to experience it when it was released”. It was clearly going to be a hit.” Coldplay may have had many bigger songs but “Yellow”, says Sutherland, will “always reach new audiences”. “Something so simply melodic and sweetly optimistic stood out a mile. “It was dominated by noisy, angry American rock bands,” he says. He remembers the new millennium as a “funny” year for music. It’s a sentiment echoed by Music Week editor Mark Sutherland, who was writing for Melody Maker when Yellow came out. I think ‘Yellow’ represented something that was possibly under-represented.” “There was a lot of that nu metal, like Limp Bizkit.
“I think, especially when we took the song to America, it was something that was very different to what was on the radio,” says Champion. The timing of the song’s release worked in the band’s favour, its tender tone forming a stark contrast to the brash rap-rock that was popular at the time. I can’t really imagine how it would be if that song had fallen in someone else’s lap.” Where it all began: Coldplay in September 2000 (Photo: EMI) “We’re extremely grateful for it because it really enabled us to build Parachutes around it, allowed us to go to America and play to bigger audiences.
“It was something that we needed, something that would allow us to get to more places,” says drummer Will Champion. It was a surprise to the record label and, Martin’s faux-confidence aside, to the band themselves. Released two years to the day after Martin’s prediction, Yellow, the second single from debut album Parachutes (which is 20 years old this Friday), shot to number four in the UK charts and made an impact in the US. But before any of this came a simple song called Yellow. They have sold more than 75 million records, won countless awards, including nine Brits and seven Grammys, and collaborated with some of the world’s biggest pop stars, from Noel Gallagher to Rihanna and Beyoncé. Each of their eight albums has reached number one in the UK. The original Yellow single, released in 2000 (Photo: Parlophone Records)Ĭoldplay, of course, have made good on Martin’s starry-eyed promise.