Coldplay came back from the brink to reinvent themselves with this triumphant emotional aftermath. 'A Rush of Blood to the Head' took some time to get started after the exhaustion of their extensive tour for their debut album 'Parachutes'. Lead singer Chris Martin remembers: "Three months after 'Parachutes' took off, we went through a strange period of not really knowing what we were doing. One thing kept us going: recording 'In My Place'. Then other songs started coming...it was the song that made us want to do a second album."
The band produced the sessions with Ken Nelson with Martin on vocals, guitar, and keyboards; Jon Buckland on guitar; Guy Berryman on bass; and Will Champion on drums. Recording began one week after the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Buckland says: "We started recording in London. It was the first time we had been in London for any period of time, so we weren't really focused."
Martin considers: "We were getting reacquainted with normal life. We hadn t seen our friends for a long time; there were bills to be paid... So we decided to go to Liverpool where we did some of 'Parachutes'. Once we got up there we became obsessed with recording...It s really nice to work when everyone is sleeping or busy doing something else. It feels like you' re doing something in secret. If a song arrives, the most amazing thing for me is running upstairs and getting Jonny to come down and have a listen. In Liverpool, it was often just me and Jonny working on the weekends. Then on Mondays we would have something new to show Guy and Will, our bassist and drummer. It was really fun. It was back to how it was when we were living together in college, you know?...We didn 't think about anybody else except the four of us while we were making 'A Rush of Blood to the Head'." Buckland adds: "We were away from all the record companies and anyone else. We didn 't really go outside."
'A Rush of Blood to the Head' went to thirty eight in Mexico; ten in Austria; five in Sweden and the US; four in Finland, France and Spain; three in Portugal; two in Belgium; and number one in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Europe, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, and the UK. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album and the Brit Award for Best British Album. It has sold over fifteen millions copies worldwide.
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"In My Place" went to one hundred and seventeen in the US; sixty-five in Germany; sixty in France; forty-three in the Netherlands; twenty-four in New Zealand; twenty-three in Australia; seventeen in Norway; and number two in Canada, Ireland, and the UK. It won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
"The Scientist" hit number forty in Australia, twenty-six in Germany, twenty in the Netherlands, fifteen in Ireland, ten in the UK, and six in Canada.
Martin: "And there was a sort of feeling that it was I reckon we thought it was alright and then I don't know what you were doing, maybe you were doing guitar tracks. I was sitting at the piano, this really old battered piano that was really out of tune. And I'd just heard 'All Things Must Pass' by George Harrison , there's a song called 'Isn't it a Pity' and there's like a circular chord sequence. This is all very anal, but I was thinking I'd really like to have a chord sequence that goes round and round and you don't know where it ends and then this chord sequence just arrived and I thought this is really lovely. And then the whole song just came out and I don't know where from and we recorded it then and there and that was, the piano and vocal is from the day it was written and just that's it that's what made and the best moment of the entire record for me was when after Johnny had heard it. This was about three weeks later when we'd come back to this song. I just heard through this wall, l I heard this riff this like and it was what he does at the end and that's my favourite bit of music on the record even thought I probably wouldn't ever listen to it again, probably, but that was a great moment because he you know he's brilliant."
"Clocks" reached sixty-five in France, fifty in Germany, twenty-nine in the US, twenty-eight in Australia, fifteen in Ireland, thirteen in New Zealand, nine in the UK, seven in Canada, two in the Netherlands. It won a Grammy for Record of the Year.
Martin: We were just about to hand the record in but it was sounding rubbish, but we thought oh, we have to do it because we wanted to release it then and some of our record company guys came in and basically everyone decided we'd got to put it back, take a bit of pressure off and Phil, our figurehead or fifth member, he said, ‘Listen you should record that song ‘Clocks', because I was just ‘Oh, no, we're going to save this one', which is a real mistake to do I reckon because you know I might be shot tomorrow and so quite rightly he said, ‘Put that song on because it's good' and that was the newest to go on, ‘Clocks'. It goes ‘Ding,dong, ning, nong'. That just arrived. I don't know where that came from but I do know where the good bit came from because I was showing it to Johnny. This is the amazing thing about our band. You play something, you think, that's all right, I like that like this. I'll keep it going, and then to Johnny he'll sort of lollop in in his elephantine, not elephantine, what's the word? gazelle-like way. He does, quite slowly but with incredible grace come in like that. You say, ‘Come on. Listen to this song and you get him in there and if he picks up a guitar then he likes it and it's good, that's a good sign if you're playing something and he picks up a guitar. And then he put on these brilliant chords and then the chorus came out and it all sparked off and then Guy came in and put on his bass line and that sparked off another bit like a big chemical reaction our song- writing process and it's really exciting and that was the last one to happen and that was mega, that was really good fun, you know, because there was no pressure on that song. We thought you don't have to do it but we finished it and we thought no, that's got to go on."
"God Put a Smile upon Your Face" made it to one hundred in the UK, forty-three in Australia, thirty-eight in the Netherlands, and thirty-five in New Zealand.
Berryman: "When we came to record it in the studio we struggled because there was something just not quite right about it and I wasn't happy about where we'd left it and where we were happy to leave it and we couldn't put our finger on what it was and so it was a really nice day one day, me and Chris were just trying, I was actually just trying to record bass at the time and me and Chris were just sitting down trying to brainstorm it and work out what was wrong and so I started trying to just do a few different bass lines and stuff. Between the two of us we came up with just this kind of groove, which stays on the same note as opposed to change, it's quite technical but it kind of added a bit of bounce to the song and it made it roll along in a much more fluid way. It was a bit mechanical before and it's just interesting how something small like that can really change the whole vibe of a song. It was just nice because from there on it was one of our favourite tracks and it almost didn't get on the record but it's now one of our favourite tracks."
'A Rush of Blood to the Head'
full album:
All songs written and composed by Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman, and Will Champion.
1. "Politik" 5:18
2. "In My Place" 3:48
3. "God Put a Smile upon Your Face" 4:57
4. "The Scientist" 5:09
5. "Clocks" 5:07
6. "Daylight" 5:27
7. "Green Eyes" 3:43
8. "Warning Sign" 5:31
9. "A Whisper" 3:58
10. "A Rush of Blood to the Head" 5:51
11. "Amsterdam" 5:19
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