ahhhhh what happened to bling?!?!?!

wtf are CP credits?!

^I'm wondering the same thing... :huh:

:rolleyes:

you need to rename the thread :P

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

yea you do need to rename now..............

Bling 2 Coldplay Credits

 

KEN NELSON • RECORDING COLDPLAY'S PARACHUTES

 

Ken Nelson favours the old school of recording, based around clean signal paths, live playing and analogue tape — but that hasn't stopped him working with some of the hottest new bands in Britain. Among them are Coldplay, whose debut Parachutes album crashed straight into the charts at number one. Sam Inglis finds out how it was recorded.

 

"I like bands who can play live," insists Ken Nelson. "That's what I've done more or less all my recording life: I try to get bands to play together. That's the way they rehearse, that's the way they play live, so why change anything when you go to the studio?"

 

It's an old-fashioned approach, but one that has brought Nelson considerable success, along with the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting new bands around. He made his name as engineer on Gomez's remarkable debut album Bring It On, which won the 1998 Mercury Prize, and its follow-up Liquid Skin. And if favourites Coldplay should fall foul of the notoriously fickle judging process this year, there's always the possibility that Badly Drawn Boy Damon Gough — whose Hour Of The Bewilderbeast album Nelson also worked on — might walk off with the gong. (By the time you read this, the result will already be public knowledge...)

 

In The Beginning

 

"I've been a musician since I was 11," says Nelson. "I always wanted to be a pop star, and so I went down that route of being in bands. When I decided that I wasn't going to make it — I must have been about 26, I think — I packed in the band and decided that I wanted to be an engineer. I'd done a little bit of recording, I had a four-track, and I'd quite enjoyed it — and I'd done a lot of recording in the different bands I was in."

 

Most of Ken Nelson's work as an engineer, including the bulk of the Coldplay album, was done at Liverpool's Parr Street Studios, a recording venue he's known since his band-playing days. He spent several years there as a house engineer, and though now freelance, still treats it as home from home: "This studio used to be called Amazon, and the band I was in recorded at Amazon, so I came up to see the boss, because he kind of knew me — we were actually signed to his label at one time, the same label that China Crisis were signed to. I came and asked him for a job, and he said if anything came up he'd give me a ring. But he didn't, so I ended up running my own studio for a couple of years with a friend, just up the road. It was kind of in at the deep end, because I knew very little apart from what I was reading in magazines. I was doing all the engineering and my mate was running the place, and then I had a little family and I just couldn't afford to do it any more. It was great experience but we weren't ever going to make any money from it.

 

"I did little bits and bobs around the studios in Liverpool, and then the owner of Amazon heard some stuff I'd done, and said 'Come and work for me.' And I worked there for quite a number of years. You're always waiting for a band to come in who's going to give you your big break, and Gomez were that band. They just booked into the little room upstairs. It's basically a demo room, but it's a good studio — they call it the project studio. I've done a lot of records there. The first Gomez album was done in there completely, on 16-track. They had some demos, they'd recorded a little bit of it in the garage, and then we transferred it to the 16-track and added bits and bobs. It was just lucky that I got that job, and we got on so well. It's quite hard, 'cause it can be very poorly paid — we're all self-employed, and you don't know where your next job's coming from. You always just sort of scrape by, but since Gomez, I can charge a bit more."

 

A Ken Nelson Co-production

 

The success of Gomez's debut album naturally raised Ken Nelson's profile as an engineer, and the job offers began to flow. One of them came from new band Coldplay, who had previously released only an EP and a single on indie label Fierce Panda. "Pete [Ken's manager] said 'Oh, there's this band Coldplay, they're going to be good, have a listen to this.' There's a track called 'Bigger Stronger' that's on the Blue Room EP that they did, and as soon as I heard Chris Martin's voice, I realised that he was something special, and I really loved the songs. They're probably some of the best songwriters around at the moment, Coldplay.

 

Precise Placement

Ken Nelson's fondness for classic recording techniques leads him to place great emphasis on proper mic placement. He explains some of the techniques used on Coldplay's album: "I tend to use quite a lot of mics on drums, although we may just use the overheads and a bass drum mic in the mix. But I'm the kind of person who'll try to cover every eventuality. I'll mic toms top and bottom, for example — obviously this causes you more problems with phase and the phase relationship between the mics, but with a little bit of time and a patient drummer, it works. For snares, it'll be an SM57 top and bottom. They have some little Sennheiser mics at Parr Street that you can actually clip on to the drum, which are handy. I can't remember the model number, but they're quite good for, say, underneath the snare drum. On hi-hats I'll use a Sennheiser 451, or we have Neumann KM84s here, which I like. Generally I'll use AKG C414s over the kit, or Neumann U87s, depending on what's around, and AKG D12 or D112, or Neumann U47 on bass drum. For toms I tend to use Sennheiser 421s, top and bottom if I've got them, and if I've got a room like the big one at Parr Street I'll have a couple of room mics — U87s, or I like B&K omnis. Also, here they have Beyerdynamic pressure-zone mics — big wooden boxes. They're really good, you just put them on the floor.

 

"I don't like the sound of DI'd acoustic guitar. I'll usually use KM84s, again, or a U87. They're all good mics, it's just a case of placing them. What I tend to do sometimes is have something like a KM84 cardioid mic, and I'll have say a 414 set on figure-of-eight as a room mic, that way you get a bit of the room sound.

 

"I like to record piano with two mics as a crossed pair of cardioids, one to pick up the high end and one the low. But on 'Trouble' I just had two microphones. One was a brighter-sounding microphone, one was a fuller sound. I just wanted to keep it quite simple, and we ended up using the fuller sound in the mix. It depends on the situation — when we were recording in one room I'd possibly only use one mic, just to keep the spillage down a little, but if you're recording a piano properly you need to get the mics away from it, that's always the best way.

 

"Coldplay also had this little pump organ, and you had to mic it up at the back. The sound comes out at the back, but you've got to be careful because he's pumping away like mad with his feet, and there's this noise going on — but it's all part of the instrument."

 

"The night they offered me the job, they were actually playing a gig in Liverpool with Gomez. They were being beamed out live to Radio 1, and I think they were very very uptight about it, and they rushed through the set and it was quite difficult to listen to. To me, it didn't come over very well, so I was thinking to myself 'They just need to calm down.' And in the studio, that's basically what we did. We'd go through each song and get them to learn how to play it live, get them to learn what tempo to play the song at, and so on — and I think that's why the album sounds so organic. There's a lot of life in it, and what I call 'soul'. It just has something. Because it was a co-production, we were all learning how to get along with each other, and I think that was a very important thing."

 

Unusually for a new band, Gomez had insisted on being their own producers, so Ken was credited as engineer; and it is central to his philosophy that even when he takes a production role, he is assisting the band in realising their own ideas, rather than imposing his own views about how the project should sound. This clearly made him an attractive choice for Coldplay: "What happened was that the band had started to record the album last year, and did an EP with another producer [Chris Allison], and it went a certain way that wasn't exactly the way they wanted it to go. They wanted a bit more control over what they were doing, and they decided to stop what they were doing and look around for somebody they could work with, rather than somebody 'producing' them. I think that was important to them. And my philosophy is that I'm not producing the band, it was a co-production. It says that on the sleeve and we talked about that early on and, to be honest, I think that's possibly what got me the job, because they could have worked with anybody.

 

"I've been very lucky with who I've worked with. I like the idea of working with bands who are 'green', if you like — but you do find that with magazines like SOS, people know a lot about recording, which is why the co-production thing is important. I'm not telling people what to do: they have their own ideas, I just like the idea of guiding them down the road. If somebody wants to have a tweak on the EQ, that's fine by me, and sometimes something good will come of it, even if they don't know what they're doing. Even if they don't understand how a parametric EQ works, they'll just have a go — as long as I know where it was so I can put it back! Or I might say 'I know another way you can get that and there'll be slightly less noise.' I don't keep any secrets.

 

"I do believe that co-production is the best way. I think it's actually harder in a lot of respects to co-produce than to be telling someone — to have this vision of how it should be. Trying to manage a group of four or five people can be quite difficult. There tends to be one person who is the leader, if you like. I always try to stick up for the underdog and get everyone's views across. There tends to be one person in the band who likes to push, but that's great, that inspires you. In Coldplay I'd say that person's Chris [the singer]; the others are a little more laid-back."

 

Parachutes Track By Track

• 'DON'T PANIC': "One of my favourite tracks on the album. I love the way it's been arranged. This was a live take — acoustic guitar, vocal, drums and bass. Johnny did two takes of overdubbed guitar and we used a little bit of one, a little bit of the other. And they have this little pump organ, they don't use it live, it's a two-and-a-half octave keyboard where you have to pump with your feet — Chris plays it, and he can sing at the same time. It's on quite a few of the tracks, though it's very subtle."

 

• 'SHIVER': "This was one where Chris's vocals were done in one take. He recorded more than one take, but the one we picked was one take, warts and all."

 

• 'SPIES': "The backing track for this was recorded at Rockfield. It took a few days to get a backing track that we were all happy with, but once it was there, it was fairly easy from then on. But the difficulty is actually getting the backing track! We had Chris in one room, it was like a little cubby hole, and he was in there for about three days while we were trying to get a decent take of this. And we had Will the drummer in another room, and Guy the bass player was playing in the control room. So they were quite separate, but that was the way we decided to do it, and it just took a long time to get a really good take of it. You get to a point where each take they do will be quite good, and you know you're close to it, and you've just got to keep going. It's quite frustrating. The final take of that track is fantastic — the guitar you hear is the guide guitar that he did, and he redid the vocals. So there'll be things like spillage of the vocal onto the guitar track, but it doesn't matter. Trying to redo that guitar would've been very, very difficult — and why do it? That was part of the philosophy. Keep as much live as you can."

 

• 'SPARKS': "This was another one that was recorded at the same time as 'We Never Change' — basically a live take again, and then Johnny added his guitars later."

 

• 'YELLOW': "We started recording that one upstairs in the project studio. The problem we had with 'Yellow' was getting the tempo just right, because a beat either side of the tempo we picked didn't have the same groove. It lost the feel of it. So we got it live and then Johnny overdubbed his guitars and we did the vocals. We did the backing vocals, the falsetto 'Oohs' and 'Aahs' in the control room as we worked them out. It all sounds very easy, but it was quite intense because we recorded it two or three times until we were happy with what we got. You can imagine that if you've recorded something and put quite a lot into it, then to decide that you're going to do it again can be quite depressing.

 

"'Yellow' was written at Rockfield when we were there. The studio we were in is called the Quadrangle Studio — the studio is along one side of an open courtyard about 50 yards square, and we went out one night, and because there were so few lights, the stars were just amazing. And Guy just came up with the line 'Look at the stars'. And then they went away, they had some time off at Christmas, and they'd been gigging it and it was ready to record."

 

• 'TROUBLE': "This was recorded four times before we got the take that we wanted. The backing track was recorded, and then each time we'd add to it to see if it was working. But we decided on the first three versions that it wasn't really happening. For the last one, we got Pro Tools in, and it was recorded into Pro Tools with a shaker providing the rhythm. Will played drums and Chris played piano in the little wooden room, and that was the backing track. The bass went down quite quickly and then Johnny did his guitars."

 

• 'PARACHUTES': "This is just a 50-second acoustic guitar and vocal track, which again took quite a few takes to get right."

 

• 'HIGH SPEED': "This wasn't done by me, it was done by the other producer [Chris Allison] last summer."

 

• 'WE NEVER CHANGE': "One of the proudest things on the Coldplay album for me. It was actually done live, the whole track, including the vocal, upstairs. It was basically straight into the mic amps, straight to tape. I remember when we got the take of it I was just sitting there thinking 'This is fantastic'. They were saying 'Let's try another', and we tried different takes of it, but I knew that take of it was great. And that track was sent off to Michael Brauer to be mixed, just to give him something to do, 'cause he was waiting, 'cause we went a little bit over time. And that mix came back, and when we put it on I was simply blown away by it."

 

• 'EVERYTHING'S NOT LOST': "We did a take of this at Rockfield, and it didn't quite work out, so we did it again here. And we ended up recording it in the last week of recording, it was the last thing we did.

 

"There's an extra hidden track on the album called 'Life Is For Living', which is a little 3/4 thing they had. It's mainly pump organ — you hear the pump organ quite clearly on that one — which was recorded upstairs, live again."

 

 

Straight To Tape

 

Parachutes was begun at Rockfield in Wales and at Matrix Wessex, but the bulk of it was recorded at Parr Street. The facilities at Parr Street consist of two large studios — one SSL-based and one Neve-based — and the smaller project/demo studio upstairs, which Gomez had used. Nelson and Coldplay worked in all three, and quite a lot of the album was actually tracked in the project studio.

 

Dealing With Guitar Effects

One challenge facing recording engineers working with guitarists can be persuading the guitarist that it might be more useful to record clean than via their elaborate effects rig, so as to keep more options open at the mixing stage. Ken Nelson explains how he got around this problem: "Johnny has a Fender Twin Reverb, and he has all these delays going into it, and it was quite a delayed sort of sound, and I was thinking 'How am I going to get around that?' I just wanted to have the option of a bit more dryness. They had another Twin Reverb, a slightly different version, and I said 'What would be great would be if you could use both amps, one having all your delays going into it, and one that's completely dry,' because I'm not a great one for effects. I'd rather hear a guitarist who plugs straight into his amp and gets his sound. But Johnny's quite good, he has a little Rat distortion pedal, but he uses it very subtly just to change his sound live and add a little bit of grit to it, so he'll have a fairly clean sound on the amp and then a little bit of grit from this box.

 

"All his effected sounds would come out of one amp, so we'd mic that up, and mic the dry one as well, so every time, we'd record both amps. I think that worked really well — both were used in the mix, and we just balanced it, and then reverb was added, 'cause his sound is fairly reverb-heavy, he likes it to be towards the back of the soundscape. There was no reverb on the amp itself; we used proper digital reverb.

 

"It'd go through quite a few delays. He's got a WEM Copicat, which kept sort of slowing down — the tape loop would sometimes stick, because it's quite old, and it would produce strange choruses and delays, it wasn't perfectly in time. And he has a Lexicon effects processing unit which he uses for the delays again, and the only other effects that he uses are tremelo and wah-wah."

 

Ken Nelson's approach to the recording process is best described as 'classic'. He prefers to record to analogue 2-inch tape, if possible bypassing the desk's mic amps and using high-quality stand-alone preamps instead. "I like different mic amps. If I haven't got any I'll hire some. The project studio at Parr Street has only got an A&H desk; the mic amps are OK, but they're not as good as some of the mic amps that I have myself. So it's quite a lot of trouble and it means a lot of leads, but I'll plug into the mic amps, and then go straight through a compressor to tape, or straight to tape. I use whatever's available in whatever studio I work in, but there has to be a certain amount of gear, like compressors, to make sure that the session's going to go smoothly.

 

"On the Coldplay album a lot of the stuff just went straight to tape, as clean as I could — the shorter the signal path, the better — and a lot of it wasn't compressed. It's not something I've really concentrated on before, but because we had the time, we decided that that would be a good way to do it, to get it so that what goes down on tape is what was played. When you haven't got the time, it is quicker just to compress things to make sure that you're not peaking. But we were recording to analogue anyway, so we could go a bit hot, especially as we were doing it without noise reduction. Obviously you can always compress later. I did compress the bass, and some of Johnny's guitars, but there's no compression on the drums, and the acoustic guitars were all put down without compression, and any keyboards as well. It adds more life to the track.

 

"As the album went on there were a couple of songs that we couldn't quite get on analogue. 'Yellow' was one of them: we tried it a few different ways, and a few different recordings of it, and we were never really happy. We ended up using Pro Tools; we got Pro Tools in to get the feel of it just right. We enjoyed using it, and once we'd got all the takes into the computer, we then put it down to the 2-inch, which I found was a great way to do it. In the future I'll work with a hard disk recorder, whether it's Pro Tools or whatever, because that suits — not so much for the editing side of it, just to get perhaps three takes, and if one bit's good from one, you can just cross over between them. And trying to maintain the live feel of the track, which I love. I'm not into sitting in front of the computer, chopping everything up and saying 'Does it look like it sounds good?' I'd rather just listen."

 

Healthy & Organic

 

Maintaining the feel of a live performance is, in Ken's eyes, crucial; a couple of the tracks on Parachutes were actually recorded completely live in the studio (see the 'Track By Track' box on page 200), and the most important backing parts on all the songs tended to be recorded live: "Most of the tracks would be laid down with an acoustic guitar or piano, depending on the song, drums, and bass. We'd tend to redo the bass, but if we could, we'd keep as much of that original first take as possible. That was the plan when we first got together: they wanted it to be as organic as possible, and I think that's a good policy.

 

"We tried click tracks on all of the songs, but on very few of them — I think about three of the tracks on the album — a click track was used in the end. We didn't make things easy for ourselves. You can play to a click, but if you were to listen to them playing without a click and then to a click, it would sound completely different. If you listened closely you'd hear that it ebbs and flows without the click, but obviously with one, it can't do that. So I'm not the biggest fan of clicks, I like a song to ebb and flow, and the band are the same."

 

You might expect that such a straightforward approach to recording would allow the album to be done quickly, but the total recording period lasted over six months. "We started in the middle of November, and it was finished towards the beginning of May, but they had two tours in the middle of that, one was for about a month, and the other about three weeks — so there were probably about nine or 10 weeks of recording."

 

Whereas some bands would spend this studio time recording thousands of overdubs, applying Auto-Tune to every note, or editing individual drum beats in Pro Tools, Coldplay and Ken Nelson simply took their time trying to get that elusive 'right' performance: "We recorded tracks again and again. If it wasn't exactly the way we wanted it we'd just do it again. We were just determined that we were going to get it to be a certain way.

 

Mixing Parachutes

Parachutes was mixed by American mix engineer Michael Brauer in New York. "Originally, what the record company wanted to do was pick the singles and just have those mixed by a mix engineer," explains Ken. "The mix engineer they wanted to use wasn't around, so they picked Michael Brauer, and I think he's done a great job. And it was a big relief for me, really, because it was such a long process recording it, to have mixed it as well — I would have lost the perspective, and also I would have been absolutely shattered.

 

"Some of the mixes had to be redone — a lot of the time Michael Brauer was working on his own, because we were still recording, and some of the mixes came back and they weren't quite as we wanted them. For instance, on the first mix of 'Trouble' the vocal was overcompressed and the piano was too bright — but it wasn't really his fault, it was because we weren't there to tell him."

 

"From the outset, we decided that we weren't going to use lots of trickery. Most of the vocals were one take. Chris has got that attitude of 'It's a great take; it's got that line there that's not great, but let's keep it as one take.' It's a brave thing to do, but it seems to have worked. There's probably one word that was Auto-Tuned on the album, where it was a great line, and there was just one word out of tune.

 

"I just like that way of working, and I'd like to try and stick to it. But working with a hard disk recorder actually makes that easier. You'd think 'Oh, yeah, hard disk recording — all the editing and stuff' — but I don't really see it like that. I just like the idea of using the equipment to my advantage, the main thing being preserving the live take. I like singers who can sing a whole track rather than piecing it together. It does very little for me. I find I get lost in it. If you've patched it together, how do you know if it's any good? Whereas if someone's singing in there, you know whether he's singing well, you know whether it's a good take as it goes down. It's a gut instinct.

 

"I'm very proud of the Coldplay album, because I think it's got quite a lot of that energy and soul, and I can actually listen to it. Not a lot of the work I do I can sit down and listen to, but I love that album. I love listening to it as a fan of the band, which is fantastic, considering I've been working on it for six months."

 

Firm Plans

 

At the time of writing, Ken Nelson has just finished an album for Norwegian singer-songwriters the Kings Of Convenience, and is deciding which offer to take up next. Whoever he ends up working with, one thing's for sure: Ken's not about to change his working method. "There are hundreds of producers and engineers who are prepared to sit in front of a computer screen getting it to look like it sounds good. And I'm not slagging them off, because I listen to a lot of music and I know it was done that way, but I still love it. I mean, if you listen to the David Gray album, it's been programmed to death, but the songs are great, and it's the songs that matter in the end. I like to work with a band, or a singer/songwriter who can sit there playing an acoustic guitar and singing. I like people to play together, and I know this is the way it was done in the past, and I want to keep it going as long as I can. My heroes are the old producers like Andy Johns, who produced Free and Led Zeppelin. They were limited as to the number of tracks they had, so they had to bounce things onto one track, and those limitations make you much more creative, I think. Obviously we don't have those limits any more, but you're going to be limited by something, whether it's time, or money. I'd like to be seen as that kind of engineer and producer. I like the idea of working with bands who I know can play live and just trying to get something extra out of them. And I think it worked with Coldplay."

If you wanted some bling all you needed to do was ask........ :P :P :P :P :P

so people still spam up here for some 'bling' ? do something usefull :P

Well isn't that a lot to read....but isn't there a limit of 50 bling :huh:

Bling

 

Geez, shoot me for being bored....I was waiting for 'Ode to Deodorant' to hopefully, finally being uploaded I thought I'd spam in the spam thread....Wow, what I am wondering is why anyone would be watching this thread in the 1st place....It is intended as a spam thread for 'bling' or should I say 'Coldplay Credit's' in the 1st place....or did I miss something?

 

....Check out the 'Ode To Deodorant' thread in multi-media....it's much more interesting then waiting for an intelligent post or response on this one! At least my post isn't quite spam for Coldplay fans who are interested particularly in Ken Nelson as a Producer and the amazingly informative info on the making of "Parachutes"....

 

....as for still spaming here and doing something useful....why don't you try stop reading the spam threads wondering why people are spaming?

 

Happy 2006....

Coldplay official & Unofficial Discography

 

Coldplay Official and Un-Official Discography (from 1998 to 10.1.2006) ( It’s all that every fan should have!)

 

Explanation: All these songs are all the downloadable material collected by me with huge efforts!

For the compilation of the List, I say a big “THANK YOU” to all the members that have shared the files (in particular, Corum, Gas Man and Victaniac)

 

1998 – Ode To Deodorant

 

1998 – Safety (EP)

1. Bigger Stronger

2. No More Keeping My Feet On The Ground

3. Such A Rush

 

1999 – Brothers And Sisters (EP)

1. Brothers And Sisters

2. Easy To Please

3. Only Superstition

 

1999 – The Blue Room (EP)

1. Bigger Stronger

2. Such A Rush

3. Don’t Panic (The Blue Room EP Version)

4. See You Soon

5. High Speed

 

2000 – Parachutes (Album)

1. Don’t Panic

2. Shiver

3. Spies

4. Sparks

5. Yellow

6. Trouble

7. Parachutes

8. High Speed

9. We Never Change

10. Everything’s Not Lost

11. Life Is For Living (Hidden Track)

12. Careful Where You Stand (Bonus Track Of Japan Version)

13. For You (Bonus Track Of Japan Version)

 

2001 – Trouble (Norwegian Live) (EP)

1. Trouble

2. Shiver

3. Sparks

4. Yellow

5. Everything’s Not Lost

 

2002 – A Rush Of Blood To The Head (Album)

1. Politik

2. In My Place

3. God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

4. The Scientist

5. Clocks

6. Daylight

7. Green Eyes

8. Warning Sign

9. A Whisper

10. A Rush Of Blood To The Head

11. Amsterdam

 

2003 – Live 2003 (DVD + Album)

1. Politik (Live 2003)

2. God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (Live 2003)

3. A Rush Of Blood To The Head (Live 2003)

4. Daylight (Live 2003)

5. Trouble (Live 2003)

6. One I Love (Live 2003)

7. Don’t Panic (Live 2003)

8. Shiver (Live 2003)

9. See You Soon (Live 2003)

10. Everything’s Not Lost (Live 2003)

11. Moses (Live 2003)

12. Yellow (Live 2003)

13. The Scientist (Live 2003)

14. Clocks (Live 2003)

15. In My Place (Live 2003)

16. Amsterdam (Live 2003)

17. Life Is For Living (Live 2003)

 

2005 – X&Y (Album)

1. Square One

2. What If

3. White Shadows

4. Fix You

5. Talk

6. X&Y

7. Speed Of Sound

8. A Message

9. Low

10. The Hardest Part

11. Swallowed In The Sea

12. Twisted Logic

13. ‘Till Kingdom Come (Hidden Track)

14. How You See The World (Bonus Track Of Japan Version)

 

And then…

 

Acoustics

 

A Message

Amsterdam

Clocks

Don’t Panic

Everything’s Not Lost (Semi-Acoustic)

God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

Green Eyes

In My Place

Moses

Politik

Proof

Shiver

Speed Of Sound

Spies

Swallowed In The Sea

The Scientist

‘Till Kingdom Come (Acoustic+Harmonic)

Trouble

Warning Sign

We Never Change

Yellow

 

 

Singles And B-Sides

 

2000 - Shiver

For You

Careful Where You Stand

 

2000 - Trouble

Brothers And Sisters (Second Version)

Shiver (Jo Whiley Lunchtime Social)

 

2000 - Yellow

Help Is Round The Corner

No More Keeping My Feet On The Ground

Yellow (Acoustic Version – Bonus Track Of Brazil Promo)

 

2001 – Don’t Panic

You Only Live Twice (Live from Norway)

Don’t Panic (Oui Fm 102.3 Session Acoustique)

 

2002 – In My Place

One I Love

I Bloom Blaum

 

2002 – The Scientist

1.36

I Ran Away

 

2003 – Clocks

Crest Of Waves

Animals

Murder

Yellow (Piano Version)

 

2003 – God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

Crest Of Waves

Animals

Murder

Yellow (Piano Version)

Lips Like Sugar (Echo And The Bunnymen Cover – Bonus Track Of Australian Version)

 

2005 – Speed Of Sound

Things I Don’t Understand

Proof

 

2005 – Fix You

The World Turned Upside Down

Pour Me (Live @ Hollywood Bowl)

 

2005 – Talk

Sleeping Sun

Gravity

 

 

Collaborations

All The Time (of Magne F feat. Coldplay)

Arthur (of Ian McCulloch feat. Chris Martin)

Do They Know It’s Christmas (Coldplay feat. Band Aid 20)

Dry Your Eyes (of The Streets feat. Chris Martin)

Dy-Na-Mi-Tee (feat. Mrs. Dynamite)

Everybody’s Happy Nowadays (of Ash feat. Chris Martin)

Gold In Them Hills (feat. Ron Sexsmith)

I’m Going Out With A Witch (Co-Written With Simon Pegg)

Kriptonyte (of Magne F feat. Coldplay)

Life’s An Ocean (of Richard Ashcroft feat. Coldplay)

Nothing Here To Hold You (of Magne F feat. Coldplay)

See It In A Boy’s Eyes (of Jamelia feat. Chris Martin)

Where Is My Boy? (of Faultline feat. Coldplay)

Wonderwall (Music by Coldplay, Voice by Oasis)

Your Love Means Everything (of Faultline feat. Coldplay)

You’re Killing Me Sometimes (of Mandarine feat. Coldplay)

 

Covers

2000 Miles (Pretenders Cover)

All The Things She Said (T.a.T.U. Cover)

America (Rammstein Cover)

Barbie Girl (Aqua Cover)

Bittersweet Symphony (The Verve Cover – feat. Richard Ashcroft)

Broken Wings (Mr. Mister Cover)

Candle In The Wind (Elton John “Special Different Lyrics” Cover)

Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Kylie Minogue Cover)

Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum) (Cheeky Girls Cover)

Christmas Time – Don’t Let The Bells End (Darkness Cover)

Dilemma (Nelly & Kelly Rowland Cover)

Do You Want To (Franz Ferdinand Cover)

Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode Cover)

Five Feet High And Rising (Johnny Cash Cover)

Georgia On My Mind (Ray Charles Cover)

Girl From Mars (Ash Cover)

Good Night (Beatles Cover)

Happy Days (Norman Gimblel & Charles Fox Cover)

Hard To Explain (The Strokes Cover)

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Cover)

Here Comes The Sun (Beatles Cover)

Hot In Here (Nelly Cover)

Hung Up (Madonna Cover – short version)

Hungry Heart (Bruce Springsteen Cover)

Hunting High And Low (A-Ha Cover)

In The Sun (Joseph Arthur Cover – performed by Coldplay feat. Michael Stipe)

Independent Women Part 2 (Destiny’s Child Cover)

Like I Love You (Justin Timberlake Cover)

Lips Like Sugar (Echo And The Bunnymen Cover)

Live Forever (Oasis Cover)

Lonesome Whistle (Hank Williams Cover)

Lost Highway (Hank Williams Cover)

Lucky Man (The Verve Cover)

Lyla (Oasis Cover)

Man On The Moon (R.E.M. Cover – feat. Michael Stipe)

Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs Cover)

My Happiness (Powderfinger Cover)

Nature Is The Law (Richard Ashcroft Cover)

Nightswimming (R.E.M. Cover – feat. Michael Stipe)

Ring Of Fire (Johnny Cash Cover – Long Acoustic Version)

Ring Of Fire (Johnny Cash Cover – Short Piano Version)

Rockin’ All Over The World (Status Quo Cover)

Seven Nation Army (White Stripes Cover)

Shining Light (Ash Cover)

Simple Twist Of Fate (Bob Dylan Cover)

Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding Cover)

Sk8er Boy (Avril Lavigne Cover)

Songbird (Oasis Cover)

Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before (The Smiths Cover)

Streets Of Baltimore (Cover)

That Don’t Impress Me Much (Shania Twain Cover)

We Can’t Work It Out (Beatles Cover)

What A Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong Cover)

What The World Needs Now (Jackie DeShannon Cover)

What’s Going On (Voice by Chris Martin and Bono, Music by Coldplay, U2 and Brian Eno)

White Christmas (Cover)

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Flaming Lips Cover)

You Only Live Twice (Cover)

 

 

Extras

A Ghost

A Rush Of Blood To The Head (First Version)

Animals (Second Version)

Away Day

Banjo & Guitar (“so titled by me” – from Live 2003 Tour Diary)

Christmas Medley

How You See The World No. 2

Politik (Philarmonic Orchestra Version)

Spies (First Version)

Talk (First Version)

Talk (Third Version)

The Nappies

Trouble (Electric Guitar Version – part)

Trouble (Instrumental Official Version)

 

Lives

Harmless (Full Version)

Idiot

Ik Hou Van Jou (Dutch Song)

In My Place (#G Guitar Different Version)

Ladder To The Sun

Marianna

Mooie Ellebogen

Solid Ground

Your World Turned Upside Down

Wow!! thats so much to take in just by looking at!! That's it i'm gonna spam!!

 

Coldplay - Clocks

 

Lights go out and I can’t be saved

Tides that I tried to swim against

Have bought me down upon my knees

Oh I beg, I beg and plead

Singing

Come out of things unsaid

Shoot an apple off my head

And a trouble that can’t be named

A tiger’s waiting to be tamed

Singing

You are

You are

Confusion that never stops

The closing walls and the ticking clocks

Gonna come back and take you home

I could not stop, that you now know

Singing come out upon my seas

Cursed missed opportunities

Am I part of the cure

Or am I part of the disease

Singing

You are,you are

You are,you are

You are,you are

You are,you are

And nothing else compares

And nothing else compares

And nothing else compares

And nothing else compares

You are,you are

Home, home, where I wanted to go

Home, home, where I wanted to go

Home, home, where I wanted to go (you are)

Home, home, where I wanted to go (you are)

 

Coldplay - We Never Change

 

I wanna live life, never be cruel,

I wanna live life, be good to you.

 

I wanna fly, never come down,

And live my life,

And have friends around.

 

We never change, do we?

We never learn to leave,

So I wanna live in a wooden house,

I wanna live life, always be true,

I wanna live life, and be good to you,

I wanna fly, and never come down,

And I live my life, and have friends around.

 

We never chang do we? no, no,

We never learn to bleed,

So I wanna live in a wooden house,

Making more friends would be easy.

 

Oh I don’t have a show to say,

Yes, and I sing every single day,

We never change do we?

We never learn to leave.

 

So, I wanna live life in a wooden house,

Making more friends would be easy,

I wanna live where the sun comes out.

 

Coldplay - Amsterdam

 

Come on, my star is fading

And I swerve out of control

If i, if I’d only waited

I’d not be stuck here in this hole

Come here my star is fading

And I swerve out of control

And I swear I waited and waited

I’ve got to get out of this hole

 

But time is on your side

Its on your side now

Not pushing you down and all around

It’s no cause for concern

 

Come on, oh my star is fading

And I see no chance of release

And I know I’m dead on the surface

But I am screaming underneath

 

And time is on your side

Its on your side now

Not pushing you down

And all around, no

It’s no cause for concern

 

Stuck on the end of this ball and chain

And I’m on my way back down again

Stood on a bridge, tied to the noose

Sick to the stomach

You can say what you mean

But it won’t change a thing

I’m sick of the secrets

Stood on the edge, tied to a noose

You came along and you cut me loose

You came along and you cut me loose

You came along and you cut me loose.

Covers

2000 Miles (Pretenders Cover)

All The Things She Said (T.a.T.U. Cover)

America (Rammstein Cover)

Barbie Girl (Aqua Cover)

Bittersweet Symphony (The Verve Cover – feat. Richard Ashcroft)

Broken Wings (Mr. Mister Cover)

Candle In The Wind (Elton John “Special Different Lyrics” Cover)

Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Kylie Minogue Cover)

Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum) (Cheeky Girls Cover)

Christmas Time – Don’t Let The Bells End (Darkness Cover)

Dilemma (Nelly & Kelly Rowland Cover)

Do You Want To (Franz Ferdinand Cover)

Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode Cover)

Five Feet High And Rising (Johnny Cash Cover)

Georgia On My Mind (Ray Charles Cover)

Girl From Mars (Ash Cover)

Good Night (Beatles Cover)

Happy Days (Norman Gimblel & Charles Fox Cover)

Hard To Explain (The Strokes Cover)

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Cover)

Here Comes The Sun (Beatles Cover)

Hot In Here (Nelly Cover)

Hung Up (Madonna Cover – short version)

Hungry Heart (Bruce Springsteen Cover)

Hunting High And Low (A-Ha Cover)

In The Sun (Joseph Arthur Cover – performed by Coldplay feat. Michael Stipe)

Independent Women Part 2 (Destiny’s Child Cover)

Like I Love You (Justin Timberlake Cover)

Lips Like Sugar (Echo And The Bunnymen Cover)

Live Forever (Oasis Cover)

Lonesome Whistle (Hank Williams Cover)

Lost Highway (Hank Williams Cover)

Lucky Man (The Verve Cover)

Lyla (Oasis Cover)

Man On The Moon (R.E.M. Cover – feat. Michael Stipe)

Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs Cover)

My Happiness (Powderfinger Cover)

Nature Is The Law (Richard Ashcroft Cover)

Nightswimming (R.E.M. Cover – feat. Michael Stipe)

Ring Of Fire (Johnny Cash Cover – Long Acoustic Version)

Ring Of Fire (Johnny Cash Cover – Short Piano Version)

Rockin’ All Over The World (Status Quo Cover)

Seven Nation Army (White Stripes Cover)

Shining Light (Ash Cover)

Simple Twist Of Fate (Bob Dylan Cover)

Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding Cover)

Sk8er Boy (Avril Lavigne Cover)

Songbird (Oasis Cover)

Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before (The Smiths Cover)

Streets Of Baltimore (Cover)

That Don’t Impress Me Much (Shania Twain Cover)

We Can’t Work It Out (Beatles Cover)

What A Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong Cover)

What The World Needs Now (Jackie DeShannon Cover)

What’s Going On (Voice by Chris Martin and Bono, Music by Coldplay, U2 and Brian Eno)

White Christmas (Cover)

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Flaming Lips Cover)

You Only Live Twice (Cover)

 

I never knew any of these songs were covers :stunned:

SPAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it is the bling thread :P

:P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P I have lot's of bling

A lot more than i could ever have..

Hedley lyrics

 

Villian

 

I'm so cold and far away from home

You're so tired and so damn alone

It's darker and much harder to be me

So far away from my reality

 

I hate the way you look, I'm looking back

I hate the way I look, you're looking too

I think maybe I'm just falling, falling, falling

 

And you kiss me like you know inside of me

Let me lead you, let me follow

And you watch me fight my own insanity

Let me lead you, let me follow

And I feel like I'm a villain Jesus

Said would never ever leave us

And I'm stronger now than I ever was before

 

You think I never could have seen it all

You seem to want me just to watch me fall

Your fingers and your lips are beautiful

Your fingers and your lips are killing me

 

I hate the way you look, I'm looking back

I hate the way I look, you're looking too

I think maybe I'm just falling, falling, falling

 

And you kiss me like you know inside of me

Let me lead you, let me follow

And you watch me fight my own insanity

Let me lead you, let me follow

And I feel like I'm a villain Jesus

Said would never ever leave us

And I'm stronger now than I ever was before

Then I was before

 

I'm stronger than I've ever been

I'm stronger than before

But you kiss me like you know it all

You know it all, you know it all, you know it all, you know it all

You know it all, you know it all, you know it all

Know it all, you know it all, you know it all, you know it all

you know, oh you know it all, you know it all

 

And you kiss me like you know inside of me

And you watch me fight my own insanity

And I feel like I'm a villain Jesus

Said would never ever leave us

And I feel like I'm a villain Jesus

Said would never ever leave us

And I'm stronger now than I ever was before

And I'm stronger now than I ever was before

And I'm stronger now than I ever was before

Was before

Was before

Was before

 

Johnny Falls

 

Johnny Falls

He throws his hands

Into the air, into these walls

He's freakin out

He's got a gun

He'll get his way

He'll have his fun

You make a mess

You bruise my name

Try to cut me down with every word you say

If you wreck my day

If you wreck my day

You son of a bitch you're gonna get some

 

And I'm tired

Of this stupid game

Running in circles from you again

Don't blame me

For what I gotta do

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

Johnny runs

He shuts his eyes

He only sees

From nine to five

Don't let him down

He's got a gun

He'll get his way

He'll have his fun

All you wannabes

Don't have what it takes

To take a shot at me

To put me in my place

If you wreck my day

If you wreck my day

You son of a bitch you're gonna get some

 

And I'm tired

Of this stupid game

Running in circles from you again

Don't blame me

For what I gotta do

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

Don't push me

Don't blame me

Or you'll be sorry

Your not getting through

Im gonna back down

As of right now

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

Wo--ah, wo--ah, wo--ah

 

See me cry

See me smile

See me fall

See me fly yea

And I'm tired

Of this stupid game

Running in circles from you again

Don't blame me

For what I gotta do

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

Don't push me

Don't blame me

Or you'll be sorry

Your not getting through

I won't back down

As of right now

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

Wo--ah, wo--ah, wo--ah

 

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

Wo--ah, wo--ah, wo--ah

 

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

Wo--ah, wo--ah, wo--ah

 

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

Wo--ah, wo--ah, wo--ah

 

I won't hate myself to be loved by you

 

woa------h.

That's the spirit - Here's some more

 

 

 

Ode To Deoderant: The Saga

 

 

"Another Ode, Ode to Deodorant. It's my favourite hygiene, it keeps me through the day".

 

These are the lyrics of "Ode To Deodorant", the first song performed by Coldplay as an ensemble, in 1998. It was released as a double A-side demo cassette tape for local concert promoters by Phil Harvey, the band's original manager. The second A-side, "Brothers & Sisters" went on to become one of Coldplay's early staples.

 

Ode was recorded in the same sessions as the Safety EP. In total they had 8 songs recorded in that session, some of the others are High Speed, Don't Panic, and possibly Spies / Brothers & Sisters.

 

Will Champion: The first time we all played as a band, I think it was in January 1998, in Jonny's bedroom. We were all at university [university College London] together: Jonny and Chris lived together with two other guys up in Camden, in north London. The first song we ever played was called 'Ode to Deodorant.' It was one of the first songs we ever wrote together.It had a good ending and a good bass line, but it was a crappy song, and we played it for about two hours. I had the number of a local promoter. We phoned him up right after our first rehearsal and asked, 'Can we have a gig?' And he said, 'Yeah, but you have to bring 25 people.' So we just told everyone we knew. Two weeks later, we played our first concert and had 100 people there. It was pretty cool.

 

Interview with Ricky Gervais:

 

Chris Martin: Ricky, as entertainment manager at the UCL Union, would you have booked Coldplay?

 

Ricky Gervais: Yeah, of course. Actually, I think I lost your first demo tape.

 

Chris Martin: I'm sure you did. We certainly didn't hear it on your show. We used to drop it off at XFM every week. There was this thing called Demo Clash. Every week we'd be cleaning arid it would be, like, [excitable DJ voice] "Next up, a four-piece from North London," and we'd be like [panting], "It's us! It's us!" and they'd be: " .. .it's the Llama Farmers!" Every week we'd get beaten by the Llama Farmers.

 

Ricky Gervais: But you were too sophisticated. You came out ready ...

 

Chris Martin: Well, there was a song called Ode To Deodorant on our first demo. It was terrible.

 

From an article from The Observer:

 

Not long after he joined Parlophone one name being passed around was Coldplay, a group of students in their final year at University College, London. Keeling obtained a two-track demo tape, which included a song called 'Ode To Deodorant.' 'It was pretty mediocre really,' he remembers. 'Sounded like a lot of other bands - nothing that made it special.' He played the tape at one A&R meeting, and the others in the room were equally dubious. Keeling went to see Coldplay at a new talent night at Cairo Jack's in Soho. 'It was about 11 o'clock, and there were about 20 or 30 people there, mostly their friends. I stood at the back. Chris was bubbling away with the charisma that he's got, but they were a university band just trying to get it together.' Keeling left without getting a contact for their manager. 'I didn't even plan to keep an eye on them.'

 

Source: http://yevgeni.web-log.nl/ [Thanks yevgeni!]

(Japan Bonus Track)

 

COLDPLAY - How You See The World

 

 

Are you missing something?

Looking for something?

Tired of everything

Searching and struggling

Are you worried about it?

Do you wanna talk about it?

Oh, You're gonna get it right some time

 

There's so much to be scared of

And not much to make sense of

Are you running in a circle?

You can't be too careful

And you can't relate it

'Cos it's complicated

Oh, You're gonna get it right some time

You're gonna get it right some time

 

It's how you see the world

How many times can you see?

You can't believe what you learn

 

It's how you see the world

Don't you worry yourself

Your not gonna get hurt

 

Oooohhhhh...

 

Is there something missing?

There's nobody listening

Are you scared of what you don't know?

Dont wanna end up on your own?

You need conversation

And information

 

Ohhhhhhhhh...

 

Gonna get it right sometimes

You just wanna get it right sometimes

 

It's how you see the world

How many times have you heard?

You can't believe a word

 

It's how you see the world

Don't you worry yourself

'Cos nobody can learn

 

Oooooh

Oooooh

Ooooooooh

 

That's how you see the world

That's how you see the world

 

****HELP - WAR-CHILD **** version

 

 

They put the world in a tin can

Black market, contriband

And it hurt just a little bit,

when they sliced and packaged it

In a long black trench coat

Two hands around the throat

Ooh, you want to get it right sometimes

 

Theres so much to be scared of

And not much to make sense of

How did the clowns ever get control?

If your hear can you let me know

How can they invade it, when it's so complicated?

Ooh, you just want to get it right sometimes

You just want to get it right sometimes

 

That's how you see the world

How many times can you say, you can't believe what you learn

That's how you see the world, don't you worry yourself

You're not gonna give up

 

And there's something missing,

seems like theres nobody listening

If you're running in a circle,

how can you be too careful?

We don't wanna be man trapped,

we don't wanna be shrink wrapped

Ooh, we just want to get it right sometimes

Just want to get it right sometimes

 

That's how you see the world

How many times have you heard, but you can't believe a word

That's how you see the world, but don't you worry yourself

Cause nobody can hurt you

Youuuu

 

Oooohh

 

That's how you see the world

That's how you see the world

Nappies

 

Sometimes you're happy sometimes you're brown

with your hormones bouncing up and down

sometimes your happy sometimes your sad

its a weird nine months with you I've had

There is shit going down that you can't disguise

when you boobs gone up ten times in size

your cups gone up from an A to D,

its bad for you but its fun for me

Now just because a little rumpy pump

now you're walking round with a great big bump

You might think a bit of french and you should have said non

Or at least you would have made me put a condom on

I think you might find that its really fun

I know its no use unless you make it bun

its something to learn yeah it really is

now you know what that sticky stuff is

I'll be there with you bay through the thin and the thick

I'm gonna clean up all the poo and the sick

I'll be there to make you happy and keep everything clean

I'll change the nappies through the washing machine

cause I ain't no baddy I ain't no baddy

I ain't no baddy I am your baby's daddy

Oh!

Who!

Sometimes you think "what a fool i am

why did I marry this soulful man"

Now a baby's part of my family plan

can it kick me well yes it can

My name's Ken and I've got fleas

do you like being a daddy?

yeah defiantly.

Well I have to warn you although its fun

there are times when you wish you had been a nun

I'll be there with you baby through the thin and the thick

I'm gonna clean up all the poo and the sick

I'll be there to make you happy and I'll bring in the bread

I'll be the nanny you can go out instead

I know that you'll be grumpy that's what everyone says

and you're not going to hump me for 43 days

If you don't want more babies and you cannot disguise it

then I'll take my cock and vasectimize it

cause I ain't no baddy I ain't no baddy

sometimes I make you saddy I ain't no baddy

I ain't no baddy I ain't no baddy I am your baby's daddy

(beat box)

Mother!

Mother!

I ain't no baddy I ain't no baddy

I ain't no baddy I am you're baby's daddy

Ho!

break it down now,

she told me to crawl this way bawl this way

she told me to crawl this way bawl this way

she told me to crawl this way bawl this way

she told me to crawl this way bawl this way

Secrest of Parachutes.1 again

 

KEN NELSON • RECORDING COLDPLAY'S PARACHUTES

 

Ken Nelson favours the old school of recording, based around clean signal paths, live playing and analogue tape — but that hasn't stopped him working with some of the hottest new bands in Britain. Among them are Coldplay, whose debut Parachutes album crashed straight into the charts at number one. Sam Inglis finds out how it was recorded.

 

"I like bands who can play live," insists Ken Nelson. "That's what I've done more or less all my recording life: I try to get bands to play together. That's the way they rehearse, that's the way they play live, so why change anything when you go to the studio?"

 

It's an old-fashioned approach, but one that has brought Nelson considerable success, along with the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting new bands around. He made his name as engineer on Gomez's remarkable debut album Bring It On, which won the 1998 Mercury Prize, and its follow-up Liquid Skin. And if favourites Coldplay should fall foul of the notoriously fickle judging process this year, there's always the possibility that Badly Drawn Boy Damon Gough — whose Hour Of The Bewilderbeast album Nelson also worked on — might walk off with the gong. (By the time you read this, the result will already be public knowledge...)

 

In The Beginning

 

"I've been a musician since I was 11," says Nelson. "I always wanted to be a pop star, and so I went down that route of being in bands. When I decided that I wasn't going to make it — I must have been about 26, I think — I packed in the band and decided that I wanted to be an engineer. I'd done a little bit of recording, I had a four-track, and I'd quite enjoyed it — and I'd done a lot of recording in the different bands I was in."

 

Most of Ken Nelson's work as an engineer, including the bulk of the Coldplay album, was done at Liverpool's Parr Street Studios, a recording venue he's known since his band-playing days. He spent several years there as a house engineer, and though now freelance, still treats it as home from home: "This studio used to be called Amazon, and the band I was in recorded at Amazon, so I came up to see the boss, because he kind of knew me — we were actually signed to his label at one time, the same label that China Crisis were signed to. I came and asked him for a job, and he said if anything came up he'd give me a ring. But he didn't, so I ended up running my own studio for a couple of years with a friend, just up the road. It was kind of in at the deep end, because I knew very little apart from what I was reading in magazines. I was doing all the engineering and my mate was running the place, and then I had a little family and I just couldn't afford to do it any more. It was great experience but we weren't ever going to make any money from it.

 

"I did little bits and bobs around the studios in Liverpool, and then the owner of Amazon heard some stuff I'd done, and said 'Come and work for me.' And I worked there for quite a number of years. You're always waiting for a band to come in who's going to give you your big break, and Gomez were that band. They just booked into the little room upstairs. It's basically a demo room, but it's a good studio — they call it the project studio. I've done a lot of records there. The first Gomez album was done in there completely, on 16-track. They had some demos, they'd recorded a little bit of it in the garage, and then we transferred it to the 16-track and added bits and bobs. It was just lucky that I got that job, and we got on so well. It's quite hard, 'cause it can be very poorly paid — we're all self-employed, and you don't know where your next job's coming from. You always just sort of scrape by, but since Gomez, I can charge a bit more."

 

A Ken Nelson Co-production

 

The success of Gomez's debut album naturally raised Ken Nelson's profile as an engineer, and the job offers began to flow. One of them came from new band Coldplay, who had previously released only an EP and a single on indie label Fierce Panda. "Pete [Ken's manager] said 'Oh, there's this band Coldplay, they're going to be good, have a listen to this.' There's a track called 'Bigger Stronger' that's on the Blue Room EP that they did, and as soon as I heard Chris Martin's voice, I realised that he was something special, and I really loved the songs. They're probably some of the best songwriters around at the moment, Coldplay.

 

Precise Placement

Ken Nelson's fondness for classic recording techniques leads him to place great emphasis on proper mic placement. He explains some of the techniques used on Coldplay's album: "I tend to use quite a lot of mics on drums, although we may just use the overheads and a bass drum mic in the mix. But I'm the kind of person who'll try to cover every eventuality. I'll mic toms top and bottom, for example — obviously this causes you more problems with phase and the phase relationship between the mics, but with a little bit of time and a patient drummer, it works. For snares, it'll be an SM57 top and bottom. They have some little Sennheiser mics at Parr Street that you can actually clip on to the drum, which are handy. I can't remember the model number, but they're quite good for, say, underneath the snare drum. On hi-hats I'll use a Sennheiser 451, or we have Neumann KM84s here, which I like. Generally I'll use AKG C414s over the kit, or Neumann U87s, depending on what's around, and AKG D12 or D112, or Neumann U47 on bass drum. For toms I tend to use Sennheiser 421s, top and bottom if I've got them, and if I've got a room like the big one at Parr Street I'll have a couple of room mics — U87s, or I like B&K omnis. Also, here they have Beyerdynamic pressure-zone mics — big wooden boxes. They're really good, you just put them on the floor.

 

"I don't like the sound of DI'd acoustic guitar. I'll usually use KM84s, again, or a U87. They're all good mics, it's just a case of placing them. What I tend to do sometimes is have something like a KM84 cardioid mic, and I'll have say a 414 set on figure-of-eight as a room mic, that way you get a bit of the room sound.

 

"I like to record piano with two mics as a crossed pair of cardioids, one to pick up the high end and one the low. But on 'Trouble' I just had two microphones. One was a brighter-sounding microphone, one was a fuller sound. I just wanted to keep it quite simple, and we ended up using the fuller sound in the mix. It depends on the situation — when we were recording in one room I'd possibly only use one mic, just to keep the spillage down a little, but if you're recording a piano properly you need to get the mics away from it, that's always the best way.

 

"Coldplay also had this little pump organ, and you had to mic it up at the back. The sound comes out at the back, but you've got to be careful because he's pumping away like mad with his feet, and there's this noise going on — but it's all part of the instrument."

 

"The night they offered me the job, they were actually playing a gig in Liverpool with Gomez. They were being beamed out live to Radio 1, and I think they were very very uptight about it, and they rushed through the set and it was quite difficult to listen to. To me, it didn't come over very well, so I was thinking to myself 'They just need to calm down.' And in the studio, that's basically what we did. We'd go through each song and get them to learn how to play it live, get them to learn what tempo to play the song at, and so on — and I think that's why the album sounds so organic. There's a lot of life in it, and what I call 'soul'. It just has something. Because it was a co-production, we were all learning how to get along with each other, and I think that was a very important thing."

 

Unusually for a new band, Gomez had insisted on being their own producers, so Ken was credited as engineer; and it is central to his philosophy that even when he takes a production role, he is assisting the band in realising their own ideas, rather than imposing his own views about how the project should sound. This clearly made him an attractive choice for Coldplay: "What happened was that the band had started to record the album last year, and did an EP with another producer [Chris Allison], and it went a certain way that wasn't exactly the way they wanted it to go. They wanted a bit more control over what they were doing, and they decided to stop what they were doing and look around for somebody they could work with, rather than somebody 'producing' them. I think that was important to them. And my philosophy is that I'm not producing the band, it was a co-production. It says that on the sleeve and we talked about that early on and, to be honest, I think that's possibly what got me the job, because they could have worked with anybody.

 

"I've been very lucky with who I've worked with. I like the idea of working with bands who are 'green', if you like — but you do find that with magazines like SOS, people know a lot about recording, which is why the co-production thing is important. I'm not telling people what to do: they have their own ideas, I just like the idea of guiding them down the road. If somebody wants to have a tweak on the EQ, that's fine by me, and sometimes something good will come of it, even if they don't know what they're doing. Even if they don't understand how a parametric EQ works, they'll just have a go — as long as I know where it was so I can put it back! Or I might say 'I know another way you can get that and there'll be slightly less noise.' I don't keep any secrets.

 

"I do believe that co-production is the best way. I think it's actually harder in a lot of respects to co-produce than to be telling someone — to have this vision of how it should be. Trying to manage a group of four or five people can be quite difficult. There tends to be one person who is the leader, if you like. I always try to stick up for the underdog and get everyone's views across. There tends to be one person in the band who likes to push, but that's great, that inspires you. In Coldplay I'd say that person's Chris [the singer]; the others are a little more laid-back."

 

Parachutes Track By Track

• 'DON'T PANIC': "One of my favourite tracks on the album. I love the way it's been arranged. This was a live take — acoustic guitar, vocal, drums and bass. Johnny did two takes of overdubbed guitar and we used a little bit of one, a little bit of the other. And they have this little pump organ, they don't use it live, it's a two-and-a-half octave keyboard where you have to pump with your feet — Chris plays it, and he can sing at the same time. It's on quite a few of the tracks, though it's very subtle."

 

• 'SHIVER': "This was one where Chris's vocals were done in one take. He recorded more than one take, but the one we picked was one take, warts and all."

 

• 'SPIES': "The backing track for this was recorded at Rockfield. It took a few days to get a backing track that we were all happy with, but once it was there, it was fairly easy from then on. But the difficulty is actually getting the backing track! We had Chris in one room, it was like a little cubby hole, and he was in there for about three days while we were trying to get a decent take of this. And we had Will the drummer in another room, and Guy the bass player was playing in the control room. So they were quite separate, but that was the way we decided to do it, and it just took a long time to get a really good take of it. You get to a point where each take they do will be quite good, and you know you're close to it, and you've just got to keep going. It's quite frustrating. The final take of that track is fantastic — the guitar you hear is the guide guitar that he did, and he redid the vocals. So there'll be things like spillage of the vocal onto the guitar track, but it doesn't matter. Trying to redo that guitar would've been very, very difficult — and why do it? That was part of the philosophy. Keep as much live as you can."

 

• 'SPARKS': "This was another one that was recorded at the same time as 'We Never Change' — basically a live take again, and then Johnny added his guitars later."

 

• 'YELLOW': "We started recording that one upstairs in the project studio. The problem we had with 'Yellow' was getting the tempo just right, because a beat either side of the tempo we picked didn't have the same groove. It lost the feel of it. So we got it live and then Johnny overdubbed his guitars and we did the vocals. We did the backing vocals, the falsetto 'Oohs' and 'Aahs' in the control room as we worked them out. It all sounds very easy, but it was quite intense because we recorded it two or three times until we were happy with what we got. You can imagine that if you've recorded something and put quite a lot into it, then to decide that you're going to do it again can be quite depressing.

 

"'Yellow' was written at Rockfield when we were there. The studio we were in is called the Quadrangle Studio — the studio is along one side of an open courtyard about 50 yards square, and we went out one night, and because there were so few lights, the stars were just amazing. And Guy just came up with the line 'Look at the stars'. And then they went away, they had some time off at Christmas, and they'd been gigging it and it was ready to record."

 

• 'TROUBLE': "This was recorded four times before we got the take that we wanted. The backing track was recorded, and then each time we'd add to it to see if it was working. But we decided on the first three versions that it wasn't really happening. For the last one, we got Pro Tools in, and it was recorded into Pro Tools with a shaker providing the rhythm. Will played drums and Chris played piano in the little wooden room, and that was the backing track. The bass went down quite quickly and then Johnny did his guitars."

 

• 'PARACHUTES': "This is just a 50-second acoustic guitar and vocal track, which again took quite a few takes to get right."

 

• 'HIGH SPEED': "This wasn't done by me, it was done by the other producer [Chris Allison] last summer."

 

• 'WE NEVER CHANGE': "One of the proudest things on the Coldplay album for me. It was actually done live, the whole track, including the vocal, upstairs. It was basically straight into the mic amps, straight to tape. I remember when we got the take of it I was just sitting there thinking 'This is fantastic'. They were saying 'Let's try another', and we tried different takes of it, but I knew that take of it was great. And that track was sent off to Michael Brauer to be mixed, just to give him something to do, 'cause he was waiting, 'cause we went a little bit over time. And that mix came back, and when we put it on I was simply blown away by it."

 

• 'EVERYTHING'S NOT LOST': "We did a take of this at Rockfield, and it didn't quite work out, so we did it again here. And we ended up recording it in the last week of recording, it was the last thing we did.

 

"There's an extra hidden track on the album called 'Life Is For Living', which is a little 3/4 thing they had. It's mainly pump organ — you hear the pump organ quite clearly on that one — which was recorded upstairs, live again."

Ken Nelson part 2

 

Straight To Tape

 

Parachutes was begun at Rockfield in Wales and at Matrix Wessex, but the bulk of it was recorded at Parr Street. The facilities at Parr Street consist of two large studios — one SSL-based and one Neve-based — and the smaller project/demo studio upstairs, which Gomez had used. Nelson and Coldplay worked in all three, and quite a lot of the album was actually tracked in the project studio.

 

Dealing With Guitar Effects

One challenge facing recording engineers working with guitarists can be persuading the guitarist that it might be more useful to record clean than via their elaborate effects rig, so as to keep more options open at the mixing stage. Ken Nelson explains how he got around this problem: "Johnny has a Fender Twin Reverb, and he has all these delays going into it, and it was quite a delayed sort of sound, and I was thinking 'How am I going to get around that?' I just wanted to have the option of a bit more dryness. They had another Twin Reverb, a slightly different version, and I said 'What would be great would be if you could use both amps, one having all your delays going into it, and one that's completely dry,' because I'm not a great one for effects. I'd rather hear a guitarist who plugs straight into his amp and gets his sound. But Johnny's quite good, he has a little Rat distortion pedal, but he uses it very subtly just to change his sound live and add a little bit of grit to it, so he'll have a fairly clean sound on the amp and then a little bit of grit from this box.

 

"All his effected sounds would come out of one amp, so we'd mic that up, and mic the dry one as well, so every time, we'd record both amps. I think that worked really well — both were used in the mix, and we just balanced it, and then reverb was added, 'cause his sound is fairly reverb-heavy, he likes it to be towards the back of the soundscape. There was no reverb on the amp itself; we used proper digital reverb.

 

"It'd go through quite a few delays. He's got a WEM Copicat, which kept sort of slowing down — the tape loop would sometimes stick, because it's quite old, and it would produce strange choruses and delays, it wasn't perfectly in time. And he has a Lexicon effects processing unit which he uses for the delays again, and the only other effects that he uses are tremelo and wah-wah."

 

Ken Nelson's approach to the recording process is best described as 'classic'. He prefers to record to analogue 2-inch tape, if possible bypassing the desk's mic amps and using high-quality stand-alone preamps instead. "I like different mic amps. If I haven't got any I'll hire some. The project studio at Parr Street has only got an A&H desk; the mic amps are OK, but they're not as good as some of the mic amps that I have myself. So it's quite a lot of trouble and it means a lot of leads, but I'll plug into the mic amps, and then go straight through a compressor to tape, or straight to tape. I use whatever's available in whatever studio I work in, but there has to be a certain amount of gear, like compressors, to make sure that the session's going to go smoothly.

 

"On the Coldplay album a lot of the stuff just went straight to tape, as clean as I could — the shorter the signal path, the better — and a lot of it wasn't compressed. It's not something I've really concentrated on before, but because we had the time, we decided that that would be a good way to do it, to get it so that what goes down on tape is what was played. When you haven't got the time, it is quicker just to compress things to make sure that you're not peaking. But we were recording to analogue anyway, so we could go a bit hot, especially as we were doing it without noise reduction. Obviously you can always compress later. I did compress the bass, and some of Johnny's guitars, but there's no compression on the drums, and the acoustic guitars were all put down without compression, and any keyboards as well. It adds more life to the track.

 

"As the album went on there were a couple of songs that we couldn't quite get on analogue. 'Yellow' was one of them: we tried it a few different ways, and a few different recordings of it, and we were never really happy. We ended up using Pro Tools; we got Pro Tools in to get the feel of it just right. We enjoyed using it, and once we'd got all the takes into the computer, we then put it down to the 2-inch, which I found was a great way to do it. In the future I'll work with a hard disk recorder, whether it's Pro Tools or whatever, because that suits — not so much for the editing side of it, just to get perhaps three takes, and if one bit's good from one, you can just cross over between them. And trying to maintain the live feel of the track, which I love. I'm not into sitting in front of the computer, chopping everything up and saying 'Does it look like it sounds good?' I'd rather just listen."

 

Healthy & Organic

 

Maintaining the feel of a live performance is, in Ken's eyes, crucial; a couple of the tracks on Parachutes were actually recorded completely live in the studio (see the 'Track By Track' box on page 200), and the most important backing parts on all the songs tended to be recorded live: "Most of the tracks would be laid down with an acoustic guitar or piano, depending on the song, drums, and bass. We'd tend to redo the bass, but if we could, we'd keep as much of that original first take as possible. That was the plan when we first got together: they wanted it to be as organic as possible, and I think that's a good policy.

 

"We tried click tracks on all of the songs, but on very few of them — I think about three of the tracks on the album — a click track was used in the end. We didn't make things easy for ourselves. You can play to a click, but if you were to listen to them playing without a click and then to a click, it would sound completely different. If you listened closely you'd hear that it ebbs and flows without the click, but obviously with one, it can't do that. So I'm not the biggest fan of clicks, I like a song to ebb and flow, and the band are the same."

 

You might expect that such a straightforward approach to recording would allow the album to be done quickly, but the total recording period lasted over six months. "We started in the middle of November, and it was finished towards the beginning of May, but they had two tours in the middle of that, one was for about a month, and the other about three weeks — so there were probably about nine or 10 weeks of recording."

 

Whereas some bands would spend this studio time recording thousands of overdubs, applying Auto-Tune to every note, or editing individual drum beats in Pro Tools, Coldplay and Ken Nelson simply took their time trying to get that elusive 'right' performance: "We recorded tracks again and again. If it wasn't exactly the way we wanted it we'd just do it again. We were just determined that we were going to get it to be a certain way.

 

Mixing Parachutes

Parachutes was mixed by American mix engineer Michael Brauer in New York. "Originally, what the record company wanted to do was pick the singles and just have those mixed by a mix engineer," explains Ken. "The mix engineer they wanted to use wasn't around, so they picked Michael Brauer, and I think he's done a great job. And it was a big relief for me, really, because it was such a long process recording it, to have mixed it as well — I would have lost the perspective, and also I would have been absolutely shattered.

 

"Some of the mixes had to be redone — a lot of the time Michael Brauer was working on his own, because we were still recording, and some of the mixes came back and they weren't quite as we wanted them. For instance, on the first mix of 'Trouble' the vocal was overcompressed and the piano was too bright — but it wasn't really his fault, it was because we weren't there to tell him."

 

"From the outset, we decided that we weren't going to use lots of trickery. Most of the vocals were one take. Chris has got that attitude of 'It's a great take; it's got that line there that's not great, but let's keep it as one take.' It's a brave thing to do, but it seems to have worked. There's probably one word that was Auto-Tuned on the album, where it was a great line, and there was just one word out of tune.

 

"I just like that way of working, and I'd like to try and stick to it. But working with a hard disk recorder actually makes that easier. You'd think 'Oh, yeah, hard disk recording — all the editing and stuff' — but I don't really see it like that. I just like the idea of using the equipment to my advantage, the main thing being preserving the live take. I like singers who can sing a whole track rather than piecing it together. It does very little for me. I find I get lost in it. If you've patched it together, how do you know if it's any good? Whereas if someone's singing in there, you know whether he's singing well, you know whether it's a good take as it goes down. It's a gut instinct.

 

"I'm very proud of the Coldplay album, because I think it's got quite a lot of that energy and soul, and I can actually listen to it. Not a lot of the work I do I can sit down and listen to, but I love that album. I love listening to it as a fan of the band, which is fantastic, considering I've been working on it for six months."

 

Firm Plans

 

At the time of writing, Ken Nelson has just finished an album for Norwegian singer-songwriters the Kings Of Convenience, and is deciding which offer to take up next. Whoever he ends up working with, one thing's for sure: Ken's not about to change his working method. "There are hundreds of producers and engineers who are prepared to sit in front of a computer screen getting it to look like it sounds good. And I'm not slagging them off, because I listen to a lot of music and I know it was done that way, but I still love it. I mean, if you listen to the David Gray album, it's been programmed to death, but the songs are great, and it's the songs that matter in the end. I like to work with a band, or a singer/songwriter who can sit there playing an acoustic guitar and singing. I like people to play together, and I know this is the way it was done in the past, and I want to keep it going as long as I can. My heroes are the old producers like Andy Johns, who produced Free and Led Zeppelin. They were limited as to the number of tracks they had, so they had to bounce things onto one track, and those limitations make you much more creative, I think. Obviously we don't have those limits any more, but you're going to be limited by something, whether it's time, or money. I'd like to be seen as that kind of engineer and producer. I like the idea of working with bands who I know can play live and just trying to get something extra out of them. And I think it worked with Coldplay."

Family Christmas holy for Coldplay

Music: What is yet another world tour for Coldplay? It could be really boirng, or far, far to wonderful. Try splendid. But currently it’s Christmas celebrations with the family. It is holy, says Coldplay’s drummer Will Champion.

 

A suit-dressed and snuffled man around 40 is looking for a present. Not U2, not Lundell, not Springsteen. He blows his nose, puts down his hankerchief and steps up to the cd-desk (or something else…) in Drottninggatan in Stockholm.

 

“I heard Coldplay on the radio. How is he? Is he any good?”

 

An entitled question. “Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s husband, the singer Chris Martin, how is he really? Is he any good?”

 

“Yeah, he’s kind off good”, laughs drummer Will Champion without being slightly offended about the episode in the cd-store.

 

Because that’s how Coldplay works. Chris Martin gets all the attention. And we mean ALL the attention. Despite Coldplay’s sold out world tour, despite three Grammy-nominations, despite the fact that MTV named ‘Speed of Sound’ song of the year and despite that blogs & music magazines all over the world ranks X&Y as the album off the year - despite that the band has had their best year so far - all the lights are still on Chris Martin.

 

While he tries to avoid the tabloids can guitar player Jonny Buckland, bassplayer Guy Berryman and the sympathic drummer Will Champion be assholes in the pub, support the Worldbank, buy Brasilian steak on Lidl. Not that they would ever do that, we are talking about well brought up and politically aware guys, but still. No one would care.

 

I am tempted to snatch the passing-card of Will Champion, just to see what happens, how many minutes it takes for him to be forced out of Globens charmless underceiling. None of the guard recognise him, not the record-company people, or the fans either. He would be forced to go out into the cold, alone and abandonned, until Chris Martin misses his drummer and enquries for him on Globens intranet.

 

“It probablly wouldn’t go that far”, says Will Champion and drums on his card that hangs around his neck.

 

But he does share my analysis, in the amount off it being that.

 

“It’s Chris that talks and is seen from the outside, that’s how the groups dynamic has always been and it suits me perfectly. We know our parts in the band, we fit together like a puzzle. If I were the front man we would probablly still be in basements in London”.

 

But it’s a long time ago since arena-band Coldplay was that far down. It was a long time ago Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland shared dorm-halls in London, such a long time ago that Will Champion can shrug about the comparison to U2.

 

“Before we where compared with Travis and Radiohead, now we are being compared with U2. Of course it’s flattering but we’re doing our thing and U2 do their’s”, says Will Champion and signals that the subject feels talked out.

 

Well. Then let’s talk about Christmas instead, something that is a lot closer to his heart.

 

“I love Christmas! Three days of loud eating and drinking. and betting, everybody makes bet’s about when snow is coming. Often it doesn’t come at all”, laughs Will Champion and continues to tell.

 

“My family lives everywhere in England but as far as I can remember we meet in Southampton and celebrate Christmas together. With all siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins we are usually around 25-30 people”.

 

He says that the celebration is holy. His brother’s have moved to Australia and Will is trying to make his family go and celebrate Christmas ‘down under’.

 

“My dad want’s to be home but I think he also like the idea of leaving Southampton and try a real beach Christmas with a barbeque. We’ll see”.

 

What about presents? Does everybody expect cars and houses as gifts now that you’re rich as a troll.

 

- I’ve thought a lot about that, it isn’t very easy. But the more the band is on tour, the more I feel like the family more than anything validates me as a person. That we get to see each other is the most important thing for me & my family. Christmas isn’t about presents for us. My time is the most valuble gift I can give.

 

- …and a new car.

 

- (laughs) Okey. And a new car.