Coldplay A Rush of Blood to the Head LP early issue

	£		32
	$		42

A Rush of Blood to the Head is the second studio album by British rock band Coldplay. It was released on 26 August 2002 by Parlophone in the United Kingdom, and a day later by Capitol Records in the United States. The album was produced by the band and producer Ken Nelson. Recording started after the band became popular worldwide with the release of their debut album Parachutes (2000), and one of its singles in particular, "Yellow". The album makes greater use of the electric guitar and piano than its predecessor. A Rush of Blood to the Head Studio album by  Coldplay Released 26 August 2002 Recorded 17 September 2001 – June 2002 Studio Various

• • Mayfair Studios(London, England)
  • AIR Studios (London, England)
  • Parr Street Studios (Liverpool, England)

• Alternative rock
 
• post-Britpop

• Parlophone
 
• Capitol

• Coldplay
 
• Ken Nelson

1. "In My Place"
   Released: 5 August 2002
2. "The Scientist"
   Released: 4 November 2002
3. "Clocks"
   Released: 24 March 2003
4. "God Put a Smile upon Your Face"
   Released: 14 July 2003

The album topped the UK Albums Chart upon its first week of release in the United Kingdom, and became the eighth biggest-selling album of the 21st century in the UK. The British Phonographic Industry has since certified the album 9× Platinum for its accumulated sales of over 2.9 million units in the UK and the album has sold 12 million copies worldwide. The album spawned the hit singles "In My Place", "The Scientist", and "Clocks". "God Put A Smile Upon Your Face" was also released, but was significantly less successful.

A Rush of Blood to the Head has been critically acclaimed, and the band received three Grammy Awards for the album; The 2003 Grammy for Best Alternative Album, which was the second year in a row, the 2003 Grammy for Best Rock Performance with the song “In My Place”, and the 2004 Grammy for Record of the Year with the song "Clocks". In 2012, it was ranked number 466 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was also voted the best album of all time by the listeners of BBC Radio 2 in a poll conducted in 2013.

Contents

RecordingEdit

The band started recording the album in London during September 2001, though found they were distracted so relocated to Liverpool, where they had recorded some of the songs on Parachutes. Lead singer Chris Martin said that once there they "became obsessed with recording". "In My Place" was the first song recorded for the album and the one that the band released as the album's lead single "because it was the song that made us want to do a second album. It kept us going and made us think we could still write songs", following "a strange period of not really knowing what we were doing" three months after the success of Parachutes.

The band wrote more than twenty songs for the album and some of those, including "In My Place" and "Animals", were performed live during the tours promoting Parachutes.The album's title was revealed through a post on the band's official website.

During initial recording sessions in Liverpool, lead singer Chris Martin and guitarist Jonny Buckland worked alone, and only on weekends. Each Monday, they would present the song ideas that they had developed to their bandmates. With A Rush of Blood to the Head nearly completed, Martin went into the studio late one night and wrote a piano riffthat he has stated "just came out". The band recognised that this early version of the song, that would become "Clocks", was special the first time Martin played it to them. Reasoning that it was too late to include the song on the album, they recorded a demo version and included it on a CD marked "Songs for #3", featuring unfinished tracks they intended to work on for their third studio album.

By June 2002, the band had completed A Rush of Blood to the Head, but thought their output sounded "rubbish" and reached an agreement with the label to postpone the release of the album until they were completely satisfied. Subsequently, many songs were discarded because they sounded like they could have been on Parachutes. Martin has claimed that it would have been uninteresting: "It would have shown that we're happy to sit back on what we'd done, and we're not. For us, it was important to progress and try to improve upon our abilities as musicians." Such ambitions put the band under strain: "sometimes practice sessions ended abruptly with one or more members of Coldplay threatening to quit".

After headlining the 2002 Glastonbury Festival, Coldplay returned to the studio and worked on some tracks from the "Songs for #3" CD they had produced earlier. Phil Harvey, the band's manager, heard "Clocks" and urged them to rework it immediately: "No, you must do that song now 'cause you're going on [in the lyrics] about urgency, and you're talking about keeping this song back. That doesn't make sense."