by
Graham Coxon
- Record Label: Astralwerks / Parlophone
- Release Date: Jan 25, 2005
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Q MagazineThe best Graham Coxon imaginable. [Jun 2004, p.97]
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UncutHis most accessible work since Parklife. [Sep 2004, p.101]
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The defining characteristic of ‘Happiness In Magazines’ isn’t its full sound, nor its sharp reminder of what a great band Blur used to be; its in the sheer imaginative scope.
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An album which traverses exhilaration, desire, despair and loss and sees a songwriter finally completely on top of his game.
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Under The RadarBouncy punk, bluesy rock and boozy pop: this is the real Graham Coxon. [#7]
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Happiness In Magazines is one of the best garage rock hybrids to have been released since The Strokes hit it big.
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It's not original or slyly crafted enough - a couple of songs could definitely have benefited from a quick edit from Damon - to feel truly classic, but it has a charm and a vibrancy that's impossible to resist.
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Happiness in Magazines is riddled with glorious pop songs, and in a sane world would yield several hit singles. [Amazon UK]
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'Happiness In Magazines' is likely to make you smile, and may even have you remembering a bygone era when Blur provided the soundtrack.
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Exploring the vacated ghosts of stale forms, Coxon has breathed new life into some of rock's most bankable clichés.
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A great lost Blur album.
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Happiness in Magazines is the sound of a former sideman confidently flexing his muscles for anyone who's interested. More people should be.
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MojoAn album of straight-up, dazzlingly well-realised British pop. [May 2004 p.92]
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Entertainment Weekly[He] never abandons his knowing, witty sense of lyricism. [28 Jan 2005, p.83]
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Coxon undermines the record's momentum somewhat by filling Happiness in Magazines with too many Blur-light moments.
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This solo album isn't dramatically less low-fi than his last four, but it does incorporate legible, likable tunes into his ragged guitar rave-ups.
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Shouldn't he be trying something a bit more ambitious by now?
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Coxon's effortless cool comes to the fore, imbuing each song with a wiry, infectious energy.
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Alternative PressCoxon's solo career has long suffered from the Bob Pollard syndrome of self-indulgent quantity over quality--a setback that, unfortunately, also plagues much of Happiness In Magazines. [Mar 2005, p.132]
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UrbCoxon finally seems to be coming into his own. [Mar 2005, p.111]
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Happiness in Magazines is a huge stride forward for Coxon, who here seems to have jettisoned his scattershot aural experimentation in favor of meaty melodies that actually stick with you.
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Paste MagazineSounds more ambitious than Coxon's effortless riffs let on. [Apr/May 2005, p.131]
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Happiness in Magazines feels like Coxon's first true solo album -- it's 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.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 17 out of 19
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Mixed: 2 out of 19
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Negative: 0 out of 19
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TuskajMar 9, 2006the best artist rock of the year..... graham coxon is my all.
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[Anonymous]Apr 1, 2005
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OnionGravyMar 22, 2005