The band began to work on their fourth studio album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, as early as December 2006, with Brian Eno and Markus Dravs as their producers. In addition, music producer Timbaland was rumoured to be collaborating.

Coldplay took a break from recording and toured Latin America in early 2007, including shows in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The band revealed that the album seemed to be shaping up with Hispanic influences, after having recorded in churches and other areas in Latin America and Spain during their tour. The group spent the rest of the year recording, mainly with Brian Eno.

Chris Martin described Viva la Vida as a new direction for Coldplay: a change from their past three albums, which they have referred to as a 'trilogy'. Martin has also revealed that this album features much less of his falsetto, and he has allowed his voice's lower register to take precedence.

Some songs, such as "Violet Hill", contain distorted guitar riffs and bluesy undertones. "Violet Hill" was confirmed as the first single, with a radio release date of 29 April 2008. After the first play, it was freely obtainable from Coldplay's website from 12:15 pm (GMT +0) for one week (achieving two million downloads), until it became commercially available to download on 6 May.

"Violet Hill" entered the UK Top 10, US Top 40 (entering the Top 10 in the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart) and charted well in the rest of the world. The title track, "Viva la Vida", was also released exclusively on iTunes; it has since become the band's first #1 on the Hot 100[51] and also their first UK #1, based on download sales alone.

On 16 June, Coldplay began their Viva la Vida Tour with a free concert at Brixton Academy in London. This was followed two days later by a 45-minute performance that was broadcast live from outside BBC Television Centre.

On 15 June 2008, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends topped the UK album chart, despite having been on sale for only three days. In that time, it sold 302,000 copies - making it "one of the fastest-selling records in UK history". By the end of June, it had set a new record for most-downloaded album ever.

Coldplay were briefly accused of copying portions of "The Songs I Didn't Write" by American alternative band Creaky Boards, for the melody of "Viva la Vida".

Creaky Boards' band member Andrew Hoepfner claimed that Chris Martin had heard the track at one of their shows. Coldplay denied the claims; band spokesman Murray Chambers said "Chris was working in AIR Studios in London" at that time. Creaky Boards later retracted the accusations and now speculate that both songs may have been inspired by the video game The Legend of Zelda.