All 10 Coldplay albums, ranked!
Coldplay are set to close their Music of the Spheres World Tour, for now, with two dates in Hull before 10 shows at London’s Wembley Stadium.
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The band have been playing around the globe since 2022 on what has become the second-highest-grossing tour of all time, behind Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
Chris Martin and co. are playing in Hull’s Craven Park on August 18 and 19, and the 10 dates at Wembley will be August 22 to September 8.
Read also: Couples hide from 'Coldplay Cam' at music festival
Tickets have more or less sold out, but there may still be some on resale.
With the last of their 225 shows just around the corner, we are celebrating by ranking Coldplay’s ten studio albums from worst to best.
Coldplay’s albums ranked
10. Moon Music (2024)
To be fair to Moon Music, it’s not that it is worse than Music of the Spheres, but it is the Coldplay album that feels the least necessary.
With Zooropa, U2 proved that releasing an album while on tour can produce experimental and interesting results. But despite an all-star producer line-up and a venture into hip hop, this is as bland as the band have ever been.
Best song: Moon Music. Jon Hopkins has gone from Coldplay’s secret weapon to saving grace.
9. Music of the Spheres: From Earth With Love (2021)
Part one of a trilogy, From Earth With Love aimed for the stars, combining stadium pop rock and epic, sweeping symphonies, yet not enough killer material for one album.
People of the Pride is fun as a Muse pastiche, and My Universe might be a guilty pleasure for anyone not put off by its unflinching pop tones.
Best song: Nothing comes close to epic closer Coloratura, which achieves everything Coldplay wanted to do with Music of the Spheres but in one song (making three albums redundant, really)
8. Mylo Xyloto (2011)
The first glimpse of the colourful, love-filled, unironic message of wonderment that would go on to define the band’s second, and current, phase.
It’s comparable to the similarly bright and breezy A Head Full of Dreams, but while the latter effort ends triumphantly with Up&Up, this one peters out with Up with the Birds.
Best song: Charlie Brown. A blend of the old and new versions of the band in this ode to innocence.
7. A Head Full of Dreams (2015)
It contains Coldplay’s absolute worst song (X Marks the Spot, tacked onto the end of Army of One) but this far from the band’s worst album.
There is joy (Adventure of a Lifetime), sadness (Everglow), and finally hope (Up&Up) to combine in what was perhaps conceived by the band to be their final album.
Best song: Everglow is proof that Martin can always conjure up a piano ballad at will.
6. Parachutes (2000)
The placement of their debut album in the middle of this list shows that the band started strongly, but did also improve.
Yellow is an ever present setlist staple 25 years on, but Trouble and Don’t Panic showed the potential for a band who would go onto create Viva La Vida.
Best song: High Speed is one of the lowest-fi suggestions of an indie direction that Coldplay could have explored in a parallel universe
5. Everyday Life (2019)
The most underrated album must be X&Y, but spare a thought too for this one.
Just when it seemed that A Headful of Dreams would pave the way for utopian pop galore, Coldplay dropped their most daring and challenging of records, both musically and lyrically.
Best song: Champion of the World is as cheesy as it comes but after an album that tackles gun crime, this Spielberg-referencing escapism is blockbuster fun.
4. Ghost Stories (2014)
Don’t be told that Coldplay cannot downscale. Recorded on the back of Martin’s break-up with Gwynneth Paltrow, Ghost Stories channels pain with an honesty unseen elsewhere.
It was conceived as a bridge to the climactic Headful of Dreams, but it was this short, sorrowful and exquisitely produced album that lived longer in the memory.
Best song: Another’s Arms is expertly constructed musically and is lyrically minimal. It resists any pressure to complete any story arc - allowing for the album as a whole to tell a story.
3. X&Y (2005)
Upon release, the band’s third album sounded pissed off, whiney, and ramped up with a shameless eye on stadium heights on the back of a label dispute with EMI.
Fast forward 20 years and, especially if listened to after Moon Music, X&Y feels a driving tour de force. Coldplay’s most rock-oriented album is also unafraid of its vulnerabilities which makes it far more human than the somewhat reality-removed recent releases.
Best song: Square One has all the elements of an alt-rock classic.
2. A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
Leveling up from Parachutes, the sophomore album was superior on all fronts from the opening sucker punch of Politik to setlist staples Clocks, The Scientist, and In My Place.
There is no weakness on A Rush of Blood to the Head other than to say it is ‘merely’ 12 great tracks that show the breadth of the band’s abilities….
Best Song: The Scientist
1. Viva La Vida or Death and all his Friends (2008)
…Whereas Viva La Vida invites you into an immersive world. Created alongside Brian Eno in 2007, Coldplay’s fourth album is their very best and something totally original.
There is beauty in every bar of music, while Martin is also at his lyric-writing best, tackling love, hate, war, peace, and religion over 45 unforgettable minutes.
Best Song: Lovers in Japan / Reign of Love. As a double entity, it was inspired by Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, of all albums. It begins minimally and blossoms like the changing of seasons into a beautiful, textured love anthem.