Back in 2020, I celebrated the album anniversary of an album I adore by I band I came to love during my adolescence.

Though reluctant and subdued, Coldplay’s enduring optimism shines through the melancholic tones of the band’s stunning 2000 debut.

After the decline of mid-’90s Britpop and Radiohead’s sonic departure from its The Bends era, Parachutes landed just in time for the new millennium, seeping into souls and establishing Coldplay as a powerful, yet unassuming force in music.

“All told, it’s incredible this is a debut album,” NME wrote in a September 2005 review. “Accomplished, yet subtle, it works perfectly as a whole in a way all the production skills in the world couldn’t replicate.”

Despite its glowing reviews, double platinum sales, and Grammy win, Parachutes also drew the band its first of many criticisms, which would characterize the foursome as dull, derivative, mawkish, and in need of its own identity. In the years ahead, Coldplay would take residence with Nickelback, the Internet’s other most-hated band, despite filling stadiums and touching hearts like few other rock acts could.