Graham Coxon: ‘Britpop was really fucking dull for guitarists – mostly drongos there to back up a female vocalist’

"They’re all jolly nice and totally good on their instruments, but it became a thing and it was very, very boring"

Graham Coxon has said that the Britpop era was “really fucking dull” for guitarists – and that he found musicians from America more interesting and “expressive” at the time.

The Blur guitarist turned solo artist was speaking to The Guardian about the release of his soundtrack for the hit series The End Of The Fucking World, when he said that he found most guitarists from the UK in the ’90s to be quite monotonous.

“I was excited once I figured out where the good music was coming from,” said Coxon. “And it was from America and from Leftfield. Talking as a guitar player, Britpop for me was dull. It was fucking really dull.

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“No one was doing anything interesting with a guitar. Of course, Jonny Greenwood was, Radiohead, but for the majority of it, it was just drongos who were there to back up a female vocalist.”

Speaking of his peers at the time, Coxon continued: “They’re all jolly nice and totally good on their instruments, but it became a thing and it was very, very boring. For me, people like Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, Pavement and other small-label punk groups from America – these kids were teenagers, they were playing like they didn’t give a shit and like their life depended on it.”

Coxon went on to say that he admired how US guitarists were more ‘expressive’ at the time, and that any rivalry suggested between Britpop and grunge was “bullshit”/

“I didn’t understand that,” Coxon added. “That’s why I got so upset, because that should have been a time for me to be like, wow, brilliant. There was a particular kind of proto-grunge punk rock, with people like the Melvins and the Wipers, and these bands are brilliant unsung heroes, really.”

Blur live in 2015

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Earlier this summer, Coxon provided an update on his solo projects and explained why he doesn’t “see why there can’t be another Blur album.”

Coxon said that there were “no plans right now” for a new Blur record. However, he said he wanted to make another album with the band, but it was “impossible to say yes and when to because these things just come out of nowhere.”

“I really don’t see why not and why there can’t be another Blur album,” he continued. “We’re all still alive and in reasonable control of our faculties. It’s just the time when that notion comes upon us all and the stars align and we go, ‘Yeah, why not?’”

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