Graham Coxon - Happiness In Magazines (Can)

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Track List: Happiness In Magazines (Can)

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Album Details: Happiness In Magazines (Can)

Release Date:: 05/25/2004
Label:: Emi Int'l
UPC:: 724357751926

Pro Reviews: Happiness In Magazines (Can)

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From AMG Reviews

It's suitably perverse that Graham Coxon released his first fullfledged pop album Happiness in Magazines in 2004, the year after his former bandmates in Blur tipped the scale in favor of the indie artrock he championed while he was in the band. Coxon always functioned as a passiveaggressive 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, 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 Americanindie pastiche of Blur and 13. On the latter two, he began singing his own compositions, soon stretching out to a series of dogmatically lofi 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 Coxon's own contrarian instincts set in when he cut his fifth solo album in 2003: he turned back to guitarpop. He reunited with Stephen Street, who produced Blur's best albums, but retained much of the roughhewn, 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 isn't 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 they're married to catchy, memorable songs that are delivered in an immediate, imaginative fashion. This return to guitarpop doesn't feel like a retreat, it feels like a warm acceptance of Coxon's strengths, particularly because he hasn't completely abandoned the guitar squalls and unpolished production of his other four efforts. And that's why Happiness in Magazines feels like Graham Coxon's first true solo album it's the first to present a complex, robust portrait of Coxon as an artist, and the first that holds its own next to what he accomplished in Blur.

- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

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Graham Coxon Biography

He's the guitarist of one of London's most delightful Brit-pop bands, and Graham Coxon is the quiet one. As the chief guitarist of Blur, his sheer and jointed guitar riffs made him a distinctive piece in leading the four-piece into alternative creati...Full Graham Coxon Biography