The First Review

(Note: Welcome to my terrible blog! Let's start off with an uppity, ass-kissing review, shall we? Excuse the appearance for a while, by the way, i'm going to start off with some previously written reviews from which my upcoming piece in The Lancer Spirit will be modeled after...those two will be coming soon. But for the time being...Enjoy!)

Graham Coxon-“Happiness in Magazines”

(Transcopic/Astralwerks)

10 out of 10

Photo links to Graham Coxon's website and was nicked off Astralwerks' website

Graham Coxon was the guitarist in Blur. For some, this means an awful lot. It means that Graham Coxon was the guitar technician who flaunted his gear-geekish skills through 6 great albums from 1991 to 1999. Sadly though, for most, this daunting credential doesn’t mean much at all, specifically to about 95% of Americans. So, on “Happiness In Magazines”, Graham’s first solo effort to be widely released in the States thanks to indie ultra-label Astralwerks, Graham Coxon has a clean sheet to write on and a reputation that puts him back to square one in the U.S. of A. Things were not always so easy on the solo front for Graham. On four previous solo albums ranging from 1998 to 2002, Graham created a gritty low-fi sound that was loved by few other than himself. He had been viewed as an exclusively DIY artist, who may have stripped down his music in spite of Blur, who, in recording 2003’s Think Tank without him, were utilizing celebrity producers like Fatboy Slim and William Orbit. For “Happiness”, however, Graham brought back long-time Blur producer Stephen Street and created an effort on par with some of Blur’s most brilliant recordings. Coxon sheds his shy-guy image and plays pool-hustling axe master on tunes like the delightfully socialite “Don’t Be A Stranger”, the lady-killing “Spectacular” and “No Good Time”, and bouncy turn-it-up-to-11 punk anthems “Freakin’ Out”, “People Of The Earth”, and “Right To Pop” On the album, however, you still get the vulnerable, wallflower Graham, a role he also plays very well. He laments the loss of a woman he depends on heavily on the bluesy “Girl Done Gone”, daydreams on the serene tracks “All Over Me” and “Are You Ready”, and demonstrates exhaustion with his aggressive peers on the lighthearted “Bottom Bunk”. Coxon covers the full spectrum of his personality and creates an album full of clever songwriting and timeless melodies on “Happiness in Magazines”, an album that, in a perfect world, would be a rock classic. If you haven’t heard of Coxon, I would strongly recommend discovering him.

Key Tracks: "Freakin' Out", "Don't Be A Stranger", "People Of The Earth", "Right To Pop!"