Coldplay

Coldplay would be the first to admit they never believed they’d become superstars when they started out in the late 90s. After all, in their early days, they were merely an idealistic young quartet plying their trade around London’s small-venue circuit and issuing their first proper single through the stalwart UK indie imprint Fierce Panda.

Everything changed for the group after they signed with Parlophone and recorded their Mercury Prize-winning 2000 debut album, Parachutes. Stuffed with tough yet tender anthems sung with feeling by frontman Chris Martin, the record soared to the top of the UK charts, swept the boards at the following year’s BRIT Awards and welcomed Coldplay onto the global stage they still command today.

The band initially maintained their appeal by super-sizing their trademark widescreen pop on massive-selling albums such as 2002’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head and 2005’s hotly-anticipated X&Y, and then discovered they could branch out and still bring their fans with them on 2008’s notably more left-field, Grammy-winning Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends. More recent releases have continued to explore different genres (2021’s Music Of The Spheres flirts with space-rock and ambient flavours), but the boldness of the sonic experiments has never dwarfed Coldplay’s inherent accessibility, nor has it threatened to relieve them of their status as the 21st century’s biggest-selling band.