Top 10 Coldplay Songs

I'm one of those legion of Coldplay fans that protect the group with a trademark fierce loyalty. This assertive quality is brought out within us from the all too often groaning music reviews that claim the band is over-sentimental and unoriginal. But as all true fans know, Coldplay are actually modern musical geniuses: having managed to balance mainstream pop with enough of a unique blend to appeal to nearly all markets, both Top 40 teeny-boppers to alternative snobs. Not only this, but their 'nice guy' image, only flirting lightly with the image of rock stars, has meant that they rarely assume the all too familiar arrogance of their other colleagues at the top of their game. I'll sit down and have a beer with Chris Martin over Bono any day. I love the guy, but I just don't want to be preached at.

Now having produced four albums, each providing a different texture to a complicated musical palette, I attempt, here, to conflate their achievements into a top ten list of, if not conventionally the best tracks, than perhaps some of the most interesting.

10. Fix You from x&y
Well of course this is on the list. This is the absolute height of the Coldplay ballad, perhaps what they are most infamous for. Yes, indeed, throw your head to the ceiling, wail and sob as loudly as possible, and ride Jonny Buckland's beautiful riff to the best modern hymn around. By far, the best track on this (possibly their worst) album.

9. See You Soon from the Blue Room EP and Coldplay Live 2003
Known only to true Coldplay fans, this gentle guitar is Coldplay at their most acoustic, beautiful and young. This is before Brian Eno went anywhere near them: pure, raw, emotion, with lyrics that make little to no sense but are pleasing in a pop existential kind of way. It's on the Blue Room EP but the Coldplay Live 2003 recording is much better and gives the track a spacious quality that it needs.

8. Everything's Not Lost from Parachutes
Right back on their first album, this all too often forgotten final track perhaps reveals the future for this young band. Piano based, jazzy chords, mixed with the all too familiar Jonny Buckland guitar riff, lifts this track right into the warmth of positive energy it hoped for. Excellent for road trips, or to dry your tears after listening to Fix You.

7. Politik from A Rush of Blood to the Head
Coldplay's appetite for ambition showed on this, their opening track for their highly anticipated second album. Chris Martin claims it to be one of his favourites, quite tellingly, as no other Coldplay song really sounds like this. In fact, this doesn't sound like Coldplay. Nevertheless, it is the perfect starter to what is, in my opinion, a near perfect album, and is like pure cocaine when administered live.

6. Strawberry Swing from Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends
Again, a different sound for the group, launching with an almost Paul Simon Graceland type guitar and drums into a song that proves Coldplay as master manipulators of emotion. With warm chords and fresh guitar, this song seems to achieve John Lennon's once pot-induced goal of creating the sound of purple. This track creates purple, pink and loving red.

5. In My Place from A Rush of Blood to the Head
A close but older relative of Strawberry Swing, this song is known for two fundamentally Coldplay elements. Firstly, the chorus near chant 'Yeahhhhhhh', which you will unconsciously find yourself yelling at quite a volume whenever you hear the song. Secondly, Johnny Buckland's riff hits you like a splash of cool water in the face, partnered with Will Champion's perfect drum intro.

4. Yellow from Parachutes
The first hit. If you don't know Coldplay, you will at least know this song. Perfectly pop, but the true oddness of this tune is often overlooked. Listen carefully to the guitar introduction and you'll realize just how atonal the chords really are. That and what does Yellow actually mean? Martin happily admits the word was a random find while writing the song. A song about a colour with an atonal guitar solo, praised as one of the best pop songs of the century? Told you they were genius.

3. Death and All of His Friends from Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends
This is a personal little favourite of mine. The climax to the brilliant and most recent hit album, Coldplay here explore new territory with a fairly obvious Brian Eno influence. The end riff, which one would conventionally call a chorus but is more like a chant or mantra, is absolutely exquisite, and is once again made for unbridled enthusiastic signing.

2. The Scientist from A Rush of Blood To The Head
In my opinion, their best gentle ballad, and perhaps, the most boring. Built around a simple five chords and simply played, the beauty of this piece is simply in it's wonderful melody, which will stay in your head forever more. Referred often by those unfamiliar with the real title as 'Take Me Back To the Start', it's another one to hide in your bedroom and sob to.

1. Viva La Vida from Viva La Vida or Death and All of His Friends
This is a great song, and again, one where Coldplay go against the grain of themselves. Laden with a heavy string track and currently wrapped in controversy, this beautifully written piece is so incredibly difficult not to like. The football chant near the piece's end is a stroke of marketing genius. It will just never leave you once it arrives.

Like a Richard Curtis film or a McDonald's burger, Coldplay are exactly what you want them to be, sometimes against higher calling. Unapologetically sentimental and raw, not to mention insanely popular, they are one of the best bands currently ruling the world, and will be around for a long time.