Graham Coxon - Freakin' Out/All Over Me (Parlophone)
UK release date: 25 October 2004
Blur fans in the know always realised Graham Coxon was a superb songwriter in his own right, and now he's beginning to prove it. This is what used to be a 'Double A-side', although whether that's still relevant in these days of CDs and iPods is debatable.
Freakin' Out just explodes out of the speakers with a guitar riff that is surely indebted to new wave classic Into The Valley by The Skids. It's Coxon at his angry, vicious best ("Got on your aviators shades, yeah man you're looking really ace" runs one particular sarcastic line) and is possibly the best thing he's ever done. All Over Me is the more mellow side of Coxon, a woozy, dreamy ballad where Coxon's voice recalls John Lennon.
They're both wonderful songs and should go some way towards pulling Coxon out of the shadow inevitably cast by his former band.
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