Like most acts that eventually take over the world, Coldplay had simple beginnings - just four guys, getting together at uni to make music together. Now, they marry celebrities, champion political and social causes, play in the biggest stadiums around the world and have sold more than 50 million albums globally.

Their latest record, the ridiculously named Mylo Xyloto, came out a few weeks ago to positive reviews and chart-topping debuts. Here's a look back at their journey from wide-eyed teens to mega-stars.

Parachutes (2000)

AFTER ditching the horrible names Pectoralz and Starfish, Coldplay released their first EP in 1998, titled Safety (which now sells for about $800 on eBay). An indie label released their next single Brothers & Sisters (which almost cracked the UK top 100) and by the time they got around to their next EP - The Blue Room - major label Parlophone had signed them. The album that followed was a shy and unassuming debut that hinted at their dreams of stadium-sized fame but held an intimacy lacking from their later records. Combining a love of Radiohead's quieter Bends moments (see High Speed), the guitars of U2 (Don't Panic), and Jeff Buckley's falsetto-laden melodies (Shiver, We Never Change), Coldplay (along with Travis) helped spawn the British soft-rock movement of the '00s, but never was it done better than here. Chris Martin's plain-speaking love odes are beautiful in their straight-forwardness, even if his future penchant for nonsensical couplets can be heard on Yellow, while Jonny Buckland's Edge-like guitar flourishes are pure precision even when they're outrageous and noisy, such as on Yellow. Drummer Will Champion is an unsung hero here, making Parachutes work through the common-sense approach of knowing when to play and when not to play, yet still coming up with some inventive simplicity (see Spies or the harried waltz of Shiver). That's part of the album's appeal as a whole - everything is simple, restrained, balanced, well-paced and refreshingly lacking in excess. And while the ambition and desire for a stadium to play their anthems in (you can picture the lighters in the air for the outro of Everything's Not Lost) is clearly evident, Parachutes is packed with honesty, timidity and intimacy. At the time, Travis was probably seen as the bigger band but Parachutes' legacy (and Coldplay's) has outlived that band's The Man Who - Parachutes spent more than six years in the UK charts, sold nearly nine million copies worldwide, and regularly pops up on best album lists (including Musicology's best albums of the '00s list).

Here's the simple-but-effective clip for Yellow. The night-to-day effect was achieved with some neat little post-production trickery, but you wouldn't know it:

A Rush Of Blood To The Head (2002)

THE ambition of Parachutes came to fruition on its follow-up, which is packed with arena-ready material. The melodies are bigger, the dynamics are greater, the pallette of sounds is fuller, Martin's voice is reverbed and more confident, and the whole thing adds up to "epic". Opener Politik is a good example - a string section adds some extra colour, the quieter moments are quieter, the loud moments are a cacophony of stomping piano and snare on every beat, and that "open up your eyes" chorus was made for stadium singalongs. Even the likes of first single In My Place, which shares a similar vibe to the material on Parachutes, is more prepared for the big stage - delicate ringing guitars are more prominent, the organ and strings add depth, and that "yeah" was written to be sung back at the band. Recorded in the wake of September 11, there is a pleasantly hopeful air to the album, even when its chords and melodies sound their saddest - The Scientist is a beautiful example and perhaps the penultimate early-career Coldplay song, with its heart-hitting chord progression, Martin's lilting melodies and his oblique lyrics that hint at an upside beyond the downsides. Side A (in the old vinyl sense) is a masterclass in powerful pop-rock - simple chord progressions, passionate melodies, lots of oohs, ahs and yeahs at the start of lines, snare drum following the piano rhythm, big dynamics, and make sure it rhymes. It may seem clinical but the songs are great - most fame-seeking pop-rock bands would sell their mothers for half a record that boasts songs as good as Politik, In My Place, God Put A Smile Upon Your Face, The Scientist and Clocks. Side B ain't bad either, with the swooning Daylight, the country-ballad simplicity of Green Eyes, the shuffle-and-crash of A Whisper, and the Johnny Cash-inspired title track. Rolling Stone included A Rush Of Blood To The Head in their best 500 albums of all time, Q put it in their top 100, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame put it in their 200, and it's one of the biggest selling albums in the UK ever.

The film clip for The Scientist is quite ingenius - Chris Martin learnt to sing the song backwards for the video:

X&Y (2005)

THE finished X&Y was allegedly the third version of the album, with more than 60 songs recorded (and mostly rejected) over 18 months. It's evident from opener Square One that Coldplay were keen to continue expanding their sound - those Pink Floyd synths, the clattering yet dancey beat, the soaring post-punk guitars and driving bass, the acoustic outro. The elements of experimentation creep in throughout, but realistically they're minor touches - a half-hearted attempt to separate this divisive record from its predecessor. The Clocks-ish Speed Of Sound was a great lead single, balancing those anthemic dynamics with the addition of synths - the same but a little different. Second single Fix You - one of the best tracks of X&Y - is an organ-driven slowburn before Buckland's frantic guitars signal the beginning of a magical last two minutes, and showed a willingness to stretch-out while displaying all the Coldplay touchstones. It was the Kraftwerk-borrowing Talk that seemed the most intriguing, as was the prospect of soundscape techno-genius Brian Eno playing keys on Low (which also features a bit of coffee-cup percussion), but really this isn't quite the big leap many expected. What If was still fairly straightforward, with a little Beatles-esque orchestra cresendo as a final touch, while White Shadows switches from ricocheting guitars, tom-heavy drums and upstroke bass to keys and disco-rock drums. When they hit a great moment - a little melody in the title track, the last minute and a half of Low, the latter segment of Fix You, Buckland's guitarwork in Twisted Logic, their other Johnny Cash ode Til Kingdom Come - X&Y is fantastic, even if overall it feels like a weak attempt to step forward.

Ok, I'm seeing a pattern here - every Coldplay film clip features Chris Martin walking and singing. Here's Fix You, which kicks in awesomely towards the end of the clip:

Viva La Vida Or Death & All His Friends (2008)

PERHAPS realising that they hadn't dabbled in new ideas as much as they could have with X&Y and its predecessors (in fact, Martin now tends to refer to the first three albums as a trilogy), Viva La Vida was a bold attempt at change that almost throws the baby out with the bathwater. Gone is the immediacy and direct simplicity of their songs, and in their place is new producer Brian Eno steering the band towards strange new places, with an emphasis on each song sounding different. So we get an instrumental opener (Life In Technicolour) that sounds like MGMT in India, Spanish rhythms that sound Celtic in Coldplay's hands (Cemeteries Of London), a hip-hop groove (Lost!) that spawned a version featuring Jay-Z (Lost+ from the Prospekt's March mini-album), a part-ballad/part-Krautrock/part-g uitar-pop mini-opus (42), a U2-style epic with honkytonk piano (Lovers In Japan), Martin singing baritone (Yes), My Bloody Valentine-style guitar walls (Chinese Sleep Chant), a pop anthem driven by '80s-style staccato strings (Viva La Vida), a piano stomper with splashes of heavy metal (Violet Hill), a hint of the Scottish Highlands (Strawberry Swing), and the unconventional arrangements/rhythms of the closer Death & All His Friends (plus another instrumental called The Escapist). The traditional choruses and structures are gone, and most of the love songs have been replaced with ruminations of death and war, but that aforementioned immediacy has been replaced by an album that reveals more over time, slowly unravelling like the best records do. Perversely, it gave the band their first number one in the US and the UK (for Viva La Vida). A Rush Of Blood To The Head is currently seen as their magnum opus, but it's possible in years to come that it will be this album that is heralded as their best.

Here's Coldplay filming on Mt Etna - because they can - for Violet Hill:

Mylo Xyloto (2011)

THE fifth album from Coldplay was their fifth album to debut at number one in the UK (they're only the third group to do so with their first five albums after Oasis and The Beatles). It's also their third to debut at top spot in the US and their fourth in Australia, which goes some way to demonstrating their standing on a global scale. The record was intended to be a stripped-back, mostly acoustic affair as a perhaps premature response to the divergences of Viva La Vida... and some of that initial idea remains on tracks such as the airy folk of Us Against The World and the dainty but formulaic U.F.O.. Mostly though, Mylo Xyloto is a synth-heavy, almost dancey effort, with Eno's fingerprints again on the album for his "Enoxification" (but not his production). In fact a lot of it sounds one step away from a dance remix, particularly the pacy indie number Hurts Like Heaven, the anthemic Charlie Brown, the disappointing Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall, and the Rihanna duet Princess Of China. It means it's a progression again from Viva La Vida..., even if that progression is a more narrowed viewpoint. The highlights include the processed drums and piano of Up In Flames, the neatly arranged acoustic-rocker Major Minus, openers Hurts Like Heaven and Paradise, and the U2-meets-Flaming Lips closer Up With The Birds. Thematically the record is apparently a concept album about a couple named Mylo and Xyloto who fall in love and it seems to be an album that will reveal more over time. On the downside, the duet with Rihanna is possibly the worst thing they've ever done.

Here's the best song from Mylo Xyloto - Minus Major being performed on Letterman: