Biography

Coldplay are a British rock band formed in London in 1996. Vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and pianist Chris Martin, lead guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, and drummer Will Champion met at University College London and began playing music together from 1996 to 1998, first calling themselves Pectoralz and then Starfish before finally changing their name to Coldplay. Their creative director and former manager Phil Harvey is often referred to as the fifth member by the band.

After changing their name to Coldplay, the band recorded and released two EPs: Safety in 1998 and The Blue Room in 1999. The latter was their first release on a major record label, after signing to Parlophone. Coldplay achieved worldwide fame with the release of the song “Yellow” in 2000, followed in the same year by their debut album Parachutes, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize. The band’s second album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, in 2002, was released to critical acclaim. Their next release, X&Y, was the best-selling album worldwide of 2005. Their Brian Eno-produced fourth studio album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, released in 2008 and the best-selling album worldwide of the year, earned three Grammy Awards. In 2011, Coldplay released their fifth studio album, Mylo Xyloto, which topped the charts in over thirty countries and was the best-selling rock album of 2011 in the UK. The band have since released Ghost Stories in 2014, A Head Full of Dreams in 2015 and Everyday Life in 2019.

Coldplay have sold more than one hundred million records worldwide, making them one of the world’s best-selling music artists. They have won numerous awards throughout their career, including nine Brit Awards, seven MTV Video Music Awards, seven MTV Europe Music Awards and seven Grammy Awards from twenty-nine nominations. The band’s first three albums — Parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head, and X&Y — are among the best-selling albums in UK chart history. In December 2009, Rolling Stone readers voted the group the fourth-best artist of the 2000s, and Q magazine included the group in their Artists Of The Century list.