10 Perfect Songs From Terrible Bands

10. In My Place - Coldplay

In the grand scheme of things, the only crime that Coldplay have really committed is just becoming stale. They might like to claim they're holding up the flag for rock music for the past few years, but the sounds of albums like Music of the Spheres have much more in common with pop music than anything that you're going to hear out of rock stations. Before the post Viva La Vida mess though, Coldplay could be a damn good pop rock band when they wanted to.

Coming off of their overnight success after Yellow, In My Place was originally written by Chris Martin to make sure he could still write a hit song, bringing it into the band almost fully finished. Though it might not have the same overarching sound of something like Clocks, the main guitar hook works beautifully over Chris' vocal melody, almost reaching the same heights that U2 were aiming for in their prime. Rather than Bono's overt politics though, we instead get Chris writing some of the most heartfelt lyrics of his career, feeling lost in his own mind and asking himself how long he has to deal with his own internal issues.

Compared to the eternal optimism that happens throughout the majority of their back catalog, it's surprising to see them get a lot more introspective here, sounding like they are actually concerned whether this whole thing is a fluke or if it's something they can make a career out of. That's what real emotion sounds like, and not something that's the musical equivalent of a Hallmark movie.