Graham Coxon | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Thanks to his passion for experimental and indie music, Graham Coxon helped Blur explore other sounds once the Brit-pop craze faded. That adventurousness also propelled his solo career, which ranged from folk and Krautrock-inspired albums to soundtrack work. Born in Germany to a clarinet player and bandleader in the British Army, Coxon moved around England as a boy. He eventually settled in Colchester, Essex, in South East England, where he met future Blur bandmate Damon Albarn at age 11. In 1989, Coxon, Albarn, and Alex James -- who Coxon met at Londons Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College -- formed the band Seymour, which later became Blur at the behest of their record label. As Blurs Brit-pop-fueled success began to wane in the late 90s, Coxons fondness for American indie acts like Pavement and Sonic Youth began to surface in singles such as "Song 2" -- which earned the band mainstream success in America -- and albums like 1997s Blur and 1999s 13. Around this time, Coxon began his solo career. His debut album, 1998s The Sky Is Too High, mixed folk and garage rock and was released on his own Transcopic label in the U.K. He followed it with 2000s noisy The Golden D and 2001s introspective, acoustic Crow Sit on Blood Tree. In 2002, Coxon left Blur during sessions for their seventh album, Think Tank, and issued The Kiss of Morning, a relatively poppy set of songs. For the following years Happiness in Magazines, he worked with longtime Blur producer Stephen Street, and reunited with him on 2006s Love Travels at Illegal Speeds. That year also saw the release of the double live album Burnt to Bitz: At the Astoria. In 2007, Coxon collaborated with Paul Weller on the single "This Old Town," which reached 39 on the U.K. singles chart. Two years later, Coxon recruited Street once more for The Spinning Top, a largely acoustic album that followed the entire life story of a man in its songs. Also in 2009, Coxon worked with Pete Doherty on his album Grace/Wastelands, and reunited with Blur for a U.K. tour. For the next few years, he balanced his solo work and band duties, releasing his Krautrock-tinged album A+E in 2012 and working with Street on unused Blur songs that became the bands 2015 album, The Magic Whip. Coxon had a busy year in 2017: he (and Albarn) appeared on Rat Boys debut album, Scum, and he released the single "Falling" as a fundraiser for the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). He also scored the acclaimed Netflix and Channel 4 television series The End of the F***king World, which was based on Charles S. Forsmans graphic novel. Coxons moody music for the show was released early in 2018. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 10 Title: The Sky Is Too High Released: 1998-08-08 Tracks: 11 Duration: 36:25 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Thats All I Wanna Do (04:29) 2 Whered You Go? (03:36) 3 In a Salty Sea (02:46) 4 A Day Is Far Too Long (04:27) 5 R U Lonely? (02:52) 6 I Wish (04:47) 7 Hard & Slow (02:26) 8 Me, You, We Two (02:38) 9 Waiting (02:45) 10 Who the Fuck? (03:16) 11 Morning Blues (02:18) |
| The Sky Is Too High : Allmusic album Review : Graham Coxon had often said he felt the loose, jagged, American-indie sound of Blurs self-titled album was "his" more so than the bands other members -- The Sky Is Too High, released between Blur and its follow-up, 13, lends credence to this statement. Most of the record is drum-less, consisting of oddly slanted constructions of electric and acoustic guitars in Coxons trademark style (quirky, sloppy riffs and arpeggios shooting all over the fretboard) -- the real magic is the way this approach works so perfectly on strange minimal ballads like "In a Salty Sea" and "Waiting," the sorts of constructions Blur shied away from until their self-titled release. The resulting songs are reminiscent of certain pre-Blur tracks (Modern Life Is Rubbishs "Miss America," most notably), but Coxons low-fi, personal and decidedly non-pop approach makes this sound work as a little world unto itself, rather than a brief excursion on a thoroughly pop record. On the rare tracks where Coxon switches to a driving, noisy full-band arrangement, things are equally slanted and interesting -- since The Sky Is Too High is essentially a side project, and therefore tends to restrict itself to a small, bedroom quality, one has to wonder what a proper solo release from Coxon would sound like. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 10 Title: The Golden D Released: 2000-06-12 Tracks: 12 Duration: 44:22 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Jamie Thomas (02:32) 2 The Fear (03:02) 3 Satan i Gatan (03:18) 4 Fame and Fortune (03:35) 5 My Idea of Hell (02:14) 6 Lake (07:34) 7 Fags and Failure (01:54) 8 Leave Me Alone (03:10) 9 Keep Hope Alive (03:56) 10 Oochy Woochy (04:24) 11 Thats When I Reach for My Revolver (03:57) 12 Dont Think About Always (04:43) |
| The Golden D : Allmusic album Review : What with Blur frontman Damon Albarn stealing much of the attention for his loud-mouth antics, it seemed only natural that Graham Coxon, Blurs lead guitarist, would break out on his own for a side project. His debut solo release, 1998s The Sky Is Too High, was sort of like a collection of journal entries featuring acoustic melancholy, off-key guitar explosions and country crooning. Like The Sky, the second album reveals Coxons appreciation for American indie rock. Whereas the first solo effort was somewhat lo-fi and reminiscent of Lou Barlow, Golden D, which is named after the musical chord, focuses on rock -- the hard and fast variety -- and suggests Sonic Youth and Sex Pistols. Standouts include "Jamie Thomas," a trashy punk thrasher that tributes his favorite skateboarder; atmospheric noodlings on "Lake"; the quirky horn-driven "Oochy Woochy"; and two Mission Of Burma covers ("Fame and Fortune" and "Thats When I Reach for My Revolver." Whereas Blur hired producer William Orbit (of Madonna fame) to bring out the bands delightfully sloppy side on its last album, 13, Coxon, who produced Golden D himself, masters messiness the au natural way -- by making the album sound almost exactly as it would live. This, in fact, leads to the most impressive element of Golden D -- that Coxon is solely responsible for everything you hear -- and see -- on the dozen-track album. He provided all the vocal and instrumental work (guitar and drums, mainly). He also released the album on his own label, Transcopic, and created the cover-art work -- a mess of colorful, cartoonish-looking albeit violent scribbles. | ||
 | Album: 3 of 10 Title: Crow Sit on Blood Tree Released: 2001-08-06 Tracks: 12 Duration: 50:32 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Empty Word (05:36) 2 Im Goin Away (03:17) 3 All Has Gone (04:22) 4 Burn It Down (03:29) 5 Too Uptight (04:10) 6 Big Bird (05:11) 1 Tired (02:20) 2 Hurt Prone (04:15) 3 Bonfires (03:41) 4 Thank God for the Rain (03:58) 5 You Never Will Be (04:36) 6 A Place for Grief (05:32) |
 | Album: 4 of 10 Title: The Kiss of Morning Released: 2002-10-21 Tracks: 13 Duration: 46:26 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Bitter Tears (05:18) 2 Escape Song (02:26) 3 Locked Doors (03:45) 4 Baby, Youre Out of My Mind (01:56) 5 It Aint No Lie (02:55) 6 Live Line (03:37) 7 Just Be Mine (04:43) 8 Do What Youre Told To (04:34) 9 Mountain of Regret (04:49) 10 Latte (01:19) 11 Walking Down the Highway (03:09) 12 Song for the Sick (01:55) 13 Good Times (05:55) |
 | Album: 5 of 10 Title: Happiness in Magazines Released: 2004-05-04 Tracks: 13 Duration: 47:29 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Spectacular (02:48) 2 No Good Time (03:21) 3 Girl Done Gone (03:57) 4 Bittersweet Bundle of Misery (04:53) 5 All Over Me (04:16) 6 Freakin’ Out (03:41) 7 People of the Earth (03:04) 8 Hopeless Friend (03:21) 9 Are You Ready? (04:42) 10 Bottom Bunk (03:16) 11 Dont Be a Stranger (03:29) 12 Ribbons and Leaves (04:11) 13 Right to Pop! (02:24) |
| Happiness in Magazines : Allmusic album Review : Its suitably perverse that Graham Coxon released his first full-fledged pop album, Happiness in Magazines, in 2004, the year after his former bandmates in Blur tipped the scale in favor of the indie art rock he championed while he was in the band. Coxon always functioned as a passive-aggressive catalyst in the band, pushing songs forward and twisting them inside out with his thrilling, fluid guitar. He was raised on the same British punk and pop as his former collaborator Damon Albarn -- the same stack records by the Smiths, the Specials, and the Jam -- but he had an instinct to pursue a different path than prevailing pop culture, leading Albarn down the path to the Britpop of Parklife and the American-indie pastiche of Blur and 13. On the latter two, he began singing his own compositions, soon stretching out to a series of dogmatically lo-fi solo records before leaving the band during the sessions for their seventh album. Blur continued down the willfully messy indie path with Think Tank, obscuring their songs with meandering arrangements, but Coxons own contrarian instincts set in when he cut his fifth solo album in 2003: he turned back to guitar pop. He reunited with Stephen Street, who produced Blurs best albums, but retained much of the rough-hewn, D.I.Y. feel of his solo projects for Happiness in Magazines, and the result is a wonderful fusion of ragged invention and sharp, tuneful songwriting. While the basic sound of the record isnt quite a surprise -- since Coxon still plays the bulk of the instruments, it does sound like a homemade record, but the songwriting recalls vintage Blur, so it does sound familiar -- what is a shock is that Coxon has the confidence and will to not hide behind the noise and obscurist tendencies that made his previous solo efforts a bit laborious. Here, his emotions are pushed to the surface and theyre married to catchy, memorable songs that are delivered in an immediate, imaginative fashion. This return to guitar pop doesnt feel like a retreat, it feels like a warm acceptance of Coxons strengths, particularly because he hasnt completely abandoned the guitar squalls and unpolished production of his other four efforts. And thats why Happiness in Magazines feels like Coxons first true solo album -- its the first to present a complex, robust portrait of him as an artist, and the first that holds its own next to what he accomplished in Blur. | ||
 | Album: 6 of 10 Title: Love Travels at Illegal Speeds Released: 2006-03-13 Tracks: 13 Duration: 50:43 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Standing on My Own Again (04:30) 2 I Cant Look at Your Skin (03:35) 3 Dont Let Your Man Know (02:54) 4 Just a State of Mind (04:36) 5 You & I (03:43) 6 Gimme Some Love (02:32) 7 I Dont Wanna Go Out (04:17) 8 Dont Believe Anything I Say (05:26) 9 Tell It Like It Is (04:02) 10 Flights to the Sea (Lovely Rain) (03:25) 11 Whats He Got? (03:42) 12 You Always Let Me Down (02:49) 13 See a Better Day (05:10) |
| Love Travels at Illegal Speeds : Allmusic album Review : Since Graham Coxon began his solo career with deliberate obscurist, alienating indie rock, it was easy to miss his transition back to the pop skills that he extravagantly displayed as the guitarist for Blur, but 2004s Happiness in Magazines was a full-bodied, full-throttle pronouncement that he had returned to the music that made his mark -- and it was damn good too, filled with tight pop songwriting and barbed-wire guitar. Its 2006 follow-up Love Travels at Illegal Speeds betters it in every respect, upping the ante in both its sound and songs. Coxons writing is taut and precise. Where his earlier solo records felt a little haphazard, as if he was trying to rein in his natural talent for hooks, he lets them accumulate here and lets them build; consequently, this is music that has a bright immediate impact in its tunefulness, but repetition reveals how well-constructed it is. And those repeated listens dont dull the appeal of Love Travels at Illegal Speeds. Much of this is taut, tantalizing pop -- grounded in the melodicism of British Invasion but played with the nervy precision of art-punk -- and while Coxon doesnt work with much more than guitars, bass, drums and harmonies, he finds a variety of lively rhythms and unpredictable textures that not only make this sound fresh, but reveals new sounds upon repeated place. Coxons ambitions on Love Travels at Illegal Speeds may not be grand -- he has simply made a punky pop album (which is different than punk-pop) -- but his execution is exceptional, which makes this a very appealing album. | ||
 | Album: 7 of 10 Title: The Spinning Top Released: 2009-05-11 Tracks: 15 Duration: 1:08:17 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Look Into the Light (03:18) 2 This House (02:53) 3 In the Morning (08:17) 4 If You Want Me (05:42) 5 Perfect Love (02:51) 6 Brave the Storm (05:19) 7 Dead Bees (03:24) 8 Sorrows Army (04:19) 9 Caspian Sea (04:54) 10 Home (04:21) 11 Humble Man (03:43) 12 Feel Alright (04:36) 13 Far From Everything (04:08) 14 Tripping Over (04:52) 15 November (05:40) |
| The Spinning Top : Allmusic album Review : It would have been too easy for Graham Coxon to settle into the pop groove he established with his excellent albums Happiness in Magazines and Love Travels at Illegal Speeds, and Coxon has never been one for taking things easy. Ever since he pushed Blur away from Brit-pop and into indie, Coxon has eagerly, earnestly explored new directions, and so it is with his seventh album, The Spinning Top, a loose song cycle that finds the singer/songwriter indulging in a new desire to be a British folk singer in the vein of Bert Jansch. Coxon abandons the tightly controlled punk-pop of Happiness and Love for delicate fingerpicking thats occasionally punctuated by weird, churning art rock (witness the roiling "Caspian Sea"), detours that arrive just often enough to accentuate the fragility of the rest of the record, a fragility thats enhanced by Grahams quivering sincerity. In a manner not too far removed from his earliest solo albums, where he upped the lo-fi ante so far he wound up being harder to digest than his idols, Coxon almost goes too far in replicating the pastoral sweep of Jansch, Davy Graham, and Nick Drake, not so much succumbing to hero worship but rather making his blueprint too evident. Such skeptical thoughts wash away upon repeated listens, when it becomes easier to admire the subtle shifts in arrangements, Coxons always impeccable and imaginative fretwork and, most of all, his ever-increasing skill as a songwriter. Perhaps these songs arent as immediate as his pop tunes, but theyre finely crafted and rewarding, as is this quietly surprising album is as a whole. | ||
 | Album: 8 of 10 Title: A+E Released: 2012-04-02 Tracks: 10 Duration: 47:58 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Advice (02:34) 2 City Hall (04:19) 3 Whatll It Take? (04:29) 4 Meet and Drink and Pollinate (05:21) 5 The Truth (04:43) 6 Seven Naked Valleys (05:45) 7 Running for Your Life (04:56) 8 Bah Singer (04:00) 9 Knife in the Cast (06:35) 10 Ooh, Yeh Yeh (05:11) |
| A+E : Allmusic album Review : Snapping out of his folkie fixation, Graham Coxon returns to the fractious guitar skronk of his early solo career on A+E. Theres a world of difference between the honed propulsion of A+E and the unformed sketches of his early works: theres plenty of mess here but its purposeful, sometimes threaded into a steely stiletto, sometimes hanging off the song skeletons like shredded entrails. All the noise comprises sonic brush strokes; its part of the way Coxon paints his aural picture, and where he was delicately impressionistic on The Spinning Top, hes splattering paint on the canvas here, creating bright, messy, modernistic art. But A+E is not a willfully alienating record -- theres giddiness in its cacophony, in how the guitars grate against the Teutonic rhythms, and the album is hardly an exercise in raw, joyful noise. Beneath all the clatter, A+E has the pop punch of his pair of Stephen Street-produced mid-2000s masterworks Happiness in Magazines and Love Travels at Illegal Speeds, and the combination of precisely crafted pop and fiercely imaginative arrangements results in a thrilling listen. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 10 Title: Bankbusted Nuclear Detergent Blues Released: 2013-04-20 Tracks: 6 Duration: 41:45 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Soft Soap Flakes Kill (07:35) 2 Our Wonderful Culture (08:01) 3 It’s the Economy That’s Stupid (06:53) 4 Shock ’n’ Awe - What’s It For? (03:29) 5 Mutually Assured Destruction = MAD (08:25) 6 Talkin’ Bout Degeneration (07:22) |
 | Album: 10 of 10 Title: The End of the F***ing World (Original Songs and Score) Released: 2018-01-26 Tracks: 16 Duration: 42:27 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Walking All Day (03:27) 2 Angry Me (01:52) 3 Flashback (00:16) 4 In My Room (03:48) 5 Bus Stop (04:57) 6 The Beach (01:52) 7 Saturday Night (02:04) 8 On the Prowl (01:41) 9 It’s All Blue (02:41) 1 The Snare (04:44) 2 Lucifers Behind Me (03:04) 3 Field (01:29) 4 She Left the Light On (02:18) 5 Roaming Star (02:28) 6 Sleuth (02:15) 7 There’s Something in the Way That You Cry (03:24) |