Graham Coxon
The End of the F***ing World 2 (Original Songs and Score)

Recently, I happened to see on YouTube some clips from one of the 10 stops of Graham's acoustic tour in America last year: a chair, an acoustic guitar, and his solo repertoire up to the first volume of “The End of the F***ing World”. It wasn't a concert, it was a group of friends listening to and singing songs around the classic bonfire on the beach: only the one playing guitar and singing is one of the UK's greatest musicians of the last 30 years (calling him just a guitarist is now limiting, since he plays all the instruments on his solo albums). Watching him play, chat, sing, and sometimes even go off-key and make mistakes at some points in the songs (and laugh and joke about it with the audience, by the way), in the most natural and human way possible, is extraordinary from many points of view and I am convinced that someone like Barrett (one of his major musical references) would have been proud.

Watching him made me think of the only time I had the opportunity to see him in person (I was in the front row) during the “Happiness in Magazines” tour in 2004: the impression was of witnessing the systematic destruction of the rock star image: he looked like an office worker who, having just finished a day at work, was suddenly thrust onto the stage; I will never forget his lanky and seemingly disoriented but amused attitude, with a face that kept making funny grimaces and embarrassed smiles at the audience and constantly ruffling his hair. The impression, in short, was of someone who had not the slightest intention of taking himself seriously, not even for a moment.

And it is precisely with that attitude that he continues to churn out, for twenty years now, one album better than the other: “The End of the F***ing World 2” is his tenth solo album and now buying his records for me is like meeting an old travel companion after some time who has new important things to share. This second volume (of the OST of the excellent Netflix TV series) is undoubtedly superior to the first (which was already excellent and varied) because it seems, literally, to explode with ideas: 20 tracks in 50 minutes (with so many ideas he could have easily doubled the length: it is his characteristic synthetic approach and straight to the point that did not allow it) that flow, literally, like water, despite the extreme variety of genres, styles, and atmospheres proposed. We navigate through psychedelia, garage, country rock, alternative, folk rock, rock blues, stoner rock, Morricone influences, jazz temptations, noise flashes, Spanish-like echoes, and early '60s nostalgia: what emerges is an album miraculously cohesive despite its extreme variety and an inspired Coxon (who literally enters the story and the characters, perfectly interpreting atmospheres and emotions), mature, cultured.

In short, this is someone who probably takes guitars and vinyls even under the blankets, otherwise, it wouldn't explain the insane amount of material (always of high level) that since 1991, with and without Blur, he continues to produce incessantly.