Some of Coldplay’s rarest recordings are going up for auction, including their first stab at a James Bond theme.
They’re being sold by the producer Chris Allison, who worked with the band in their early days. They include the master tapes for their first Parlophone release, the Blue Room EP, which came out in autumn 1999, and alternate versions of some of the tracks that ended up on their debut album, Parachutes, including Shiver and We Never Change.
And yes: one of those tracks is Coldplay’s first attempt to write a James Bond theme – The World Is Not Enough. At the time (1999) they were just a group of hopefuls freshly signed to EMI and, not surprisingly, the gig went to a more established name: Garbage.
It seems that the band have tried to write a Bond theme several times. In a 2021 interview with NME, Chris Martin admitted “We kept trying to write one for 20 years, but never submitted them. We have Bond themes for about five movies, but they’re not very good, to be honest.”
“Also I don’t know if we’re spiritually on the same trip as James. As much as I like the films, I don’t know if us singing would do it for him. He’d be like, ‘That’s not what I’m into at all, fellas. I like guns and shit. All this hippie stuff just isn’t going to work’.”
Among the other Coldplay-related material Allison is auctioning is an early cassette, simply titled ‘Coldplay tracks’, which includes an early version of Shiver and a brilliantly-titled number called, er, Ode To Deodorant. There are also promo copies of The Blue Room on vinyl and CD, which can fetch up to three figure sums on Discogs.
Other items going under the hammer include rarities from other bands that Allison has recorded down the years, including The Beta Band and the Wedding Present. The producer is donating a portion of the proceeds from the auction to the music education initiative Restore the Music.
