Happiness in Magazines by Graham Coxon

Happiness in Magazines, Graham Coxon's fifth solo album, came out on Transcopic and Parlophone on 17 May 2004, and it's the moment the Blur guitarist's side career came roaring out into the daylight. He brought in Stephen Street, the man behind the desk for Blur's first five albums, and Street's clean, punchy touch gives Coxon's scrappy songs real muscle.

It's a fizzing, loud guitar record, full of the jittery slides and runs that made Coxon's playing so distinctive, and "Freakin' Out" is the pick, a wound-up blast of punky pop. It reached 19 on the UK Albums Chart, went gold and remains the best seller of his solo run. As on all his solo records, Coxon designed the cover art himself.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.