 |
|
 |
| • Discography • Lyrics • History • Archive • Links • Damon • Graham • Alex • Dave • Media • Random page |
Back to: Archive · 1998 'The Sky Is Too High' reviewed From the BBC website, 9 August 1998. Review by Chris Charles. Anyone expecting to be hit with a barrage of Song 2 clones should not even bother getting out of bed, let alone hot-footing it down to HMV to snap up a copy of this, the Blur boy's first solo venture. If, on the other hand, you are brave enough to enter the complex world of Graham Coxon - guitarist and songwriter with one of Britain's best-loved bands - but firmly cemented in his role as the reluctant hero, then it could just be a gamble worth taking. At first, 'The Sky Is Too High' sounds as if it was recorded in one of the notorious Glasto toilets, in the spare half an hour he had before Blur took their place on the main stage. The sound quality is reminiscent of Björk's 'There's More To Life Than This' (which actually WAS recorded in a toilet) and some of the guitar playing is more akin to an eight-year-old experimenting with his first Fisher Price axe than one of our most accomplished musicians. But when you gaze deeper into the abyss, you realise he is actually having a little joke at his own expense. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tries, our Graham cannot get away from the fact that he was born to write tunes us mere mortals could only dream about and there is more than enough here to bear that out. The opening song 'That's All I Wanna Do' is classic Les Dawson stuff - deliberately out of tune and lulling the listener into an immediate sense of false insecurity. It is swiftly followed by 'Where'd You Go?' a soothing hippie-like lament - badly produced, yet one of the most heart-warming lullabies you will hear. The same can be said of 'A Day Is Far Too Long', another acousticly-driven ballad that is as far removed from Britpop as Alanis Morisette's 'Ironic' is from irony. You see our Graham (as Cilla would say) would take a country pub over a Country House any day of the week - or at the very least a dimly-lit hostelry in Camden - and this is his way of finally laying the old ghosts to rest. The spadework was evident on Blur's last album with the remarkable 'You're So Great' and at last he has given himself the chance to make the record HE wants to listen to - without Damon getting his oar in. 'RU Lonely?' sees him have a dig at his desire to write songs after being spurned by his lover. "I wish the music would play by itself - shredded fingers, no ideas..." and the Morrissey brand of maudlin humour is further encapsulated by the lines "Could the world end? What a Godsend" and "I wish I could live for a thousand years, then I'd be clever..." - brilliant. The harmonious 'I Wish' is another beauty, while the charmingly-entitled 'Who The F***' is a punky parody of 'Park Life'. Graham's baby is finally put to bed with the ear-splittingly awful 'Mornin Blues', which suddenly makes you wonder whether you really did enjoy what had gone before or if you are simply going mad. It is how he would have wanted it. |