Graham Coxon
The Spinning Top
Release Date: May 11, 2009
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Transgressive
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Album Review: The Spinning Top by Graham Coxon
Fairly Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Known almost exclusively as the former guitarist for Blur to North American audiences, Graham Coxon has now released seven complete solo records, with four of those coming while he was still an active member of Oasis’ nemesis. They portrayed Coxon in a lo-fi bedroom producer light, often playing all of the instruments himself. While battling alcoholism in 2002, his time with Blur ended as the band sought to have Fatboy Slim produce what would be their last album, Think Tank, and he didn’t like the direction.
Based on rating 3/5
Coxon was always Blur's indie adult escent but here, on an album concerned with one man's life, he has metamorphosed into Nick Drake. And though the guitarist has flirted with folk before (notably on 2001's Crow Sit on Blood Tree) never has he done so with such inventiveness or, as Look Into the Light and In the Morning illustrate, such charm. .
Based on rating 4.7/10
"It was just like college, only it was a nicer guitar and a nicer lunch," Blur bassist Alex James writes at the end of his 2007 memoir. James is describing his first meeting "in a couple of years" with Graham Coxon, the woohooing Britpop survivors' then-estranged guitarist. That passage was yet another reason for dedicated followers of the band to keep betting on a full Blur reunion, now official.