Tom Cox
Tom Cox (pictured with feline friends) was born in Nottingham in 1975, and then again, in the same place, in 1988, after watching the US Masters golf championship on television. For the following five years, he proceeded to crap up his exam results by spending every waking hour thinking about his backswing, eventually reaching a handicap of two and getting suspended from his home club for hitting a ball very gently into someone's trolley.
In 1992, after golf had stopped interfering with his education, music took over, as Tom began to write his own underground fanzine, Words I Might Have Ate, in the process gaining the respect of an assortment of Radio One Disc Jockeys, music press editors and indie rock sociopaths. As a result of this, he was briefly employed by the New Musical Express, until 1997, when he finally got tired of ending every review with the phrase "Which was nice!".
From 1997 until 2000, Tom wrote about pop music for The Guardian, becoming the paper's Rock Critic in 1999. Since then, his writing has appeared in The Sunday Times, The Times, Esquire, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, Uncut, Mojo, The Mail On Sunday, Word, Jack and Golf International, and on Radio Four's Front Row.
In 2002, Bantam Press published Nice Jumper, a memoir of his time as a teenage golf rebel. In early 2003 the book was shortlisted for the National Sporting Club/Ladbrokes' Best Newcomer award.
It was followed in August 2003 by Educating Peter (also published by Bantam). Tom's attempt to understand the modern teenage psyche by way of a road trip with a melancholy fourteen year-old Slipknot fan.
Tom's next book, Lost Tribes Of Pop, was published by Piatkus. He lives in Norfolk with his wife and four duplicitous cats. In 2022 he published Villager, his debut novel.
92 articles
List of articles in the library
Live Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, June 1997
THE END of the millennium is nigh! Most men will perish and the rest will get extremely stressed out and have to take lots of ...
Wilco: Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton
Live Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, June 1997
"WE SAW all those teenage girls outside and we assumed they were here for us. Hey, man, what gives?" ...
Yo La Tengo: I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, June 1997
AS OFT-used tags go, "The New Velvet Underground" is so wide-ranging, it's almost become a genre in itself. Got a penchant for dark clobber and ...
Live Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, July 1997
GAZ COOMBES inadvertently summed the whole thing up himself earlier this year. Speaking of his newly-shedded hair, the Supergrass singer professed his absolute astonishment at ...
Cheap Trick: Light of the Trick
Interview by Tom Cox, Uncut, August 1997
The return of the pioneering power-pop band. ...
The Go-Betweens: The Fleadh, Finsbury Park, London
Live Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, August 1997
SOME BANDS just seem to outgrow their natural life through sheer influence. Something profound dictates that as their reputation accumulates people remember them as a ...
The Zombies: Zombies: Baroque'N'Roll Music
Interview by Tom Cox, Uncut, November 1997
Zombie Heaven claims to include 99.5 per cent of everything you ever recorded. There must be a few unheard demos that slipped through the net. ...
The Kinks, Ray Davies: Kinks: The Singles Collection/Waterloo Sunset — The Songs Of Ray Davies
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, December 1997
It's a shame about Ray: Classic chartbreakers and their creator's solo furrow ...
Interview by Tom Cox, Uncut, January 1998
How do you feel about this so-called line of classic quintessentially English songwriters starting with you, continuing with Paul Weller and ending with Damon Albarn? ...
Roger McGuinn: Born To Rock And Roll
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, January 1998
The former Byrd's mid-Seventies solo years ...
The Beastie Boys, Money Mark: Money Mark: On the money
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 13 February 1998
There he was, fixing a gate — when along came a Beastie Boy. Tom Cox on the keyboard capers of the man who was nearly ...
The Nazz: Nazz: From Philadelphia
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, March 1998
Odds'n'sods collection from Todd Rundgren's power poppers ...
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, March 1998
Come On PilgrimSurferrosaBossanovaTrompelemonde Boston scree party: incredible back catalogue from the precursors of grunge ...
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, April 1998
Four-CD set from Oklahoma experimentalists, requiring four stereos for playback ...
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 3 April 1998
A new tribute CD confirms folk singer Pete Seeger as the patron saint of hippy radicals — and he still hasn't lost hope. ...
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, May 1998
Back to skool: Tom Cox pays attention at the back as hip-hop gets a lesson in positivity ...
Willard Grant Conspiracy: Rustic Grunge
Interview by Tom Cox, Uncut, May 1998
LOG CABINS. Big coats. A stroppy Tindersticks undercut with ghostly suspense. Damp, misty woodland. Autumn. These are the things Flying Low, the second album by ...
Super Furry Animals: A furry good year
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 22 May 1998
The marauding Welsh techno-popsters are touring with a Spinal Tap-scale set and making records like there's no tomorrow. Tom Cox meets the Super Furry Animals. ...
Gomez: Grim North Meets Crazy South
Interview by Tom Cox, Uncut, June 1998
THE INITIAL sensation sits somewhere between inspecting the tonsils of a vast, mythical reptile from The Land That Time Forgot and stepping around the mouth ...
Neal Casal: Out-duding the early James Taylor
Profile and Interview by Tom Cox, Uncut, July 1998
NEAL CASAL grins craftily — he's been careful to bring his electric guitar to Uncut's photo session and not his acoustic. "No Nick Drake shots ...
Mark Lanegan: Scraps At Midnight (Beggars Banquet)
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 3 July 1998
Hard chimes: Tom Cox on a brooding, rumbling lone star ...
The Jungle Brothers: Jungle Brothers: Straight Out Of The Jungle (Gee Street)
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 17 July 1998
BROOKLYN'S JUNGLE Brothers release great albums which no one buys and mediocre remixes which sell by the skipfull. ...
Cheap Trick: Cheap Trick At Budokan: The Complete Concert
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, August 1998
NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED, full version of the candy-coated metal superheroes' finest hour ...
Rufus Wainwright: Raise the Rufus
Profile and Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 7 August 1998
The son of Loudon Wainwright III, this melodramatic young folk singer might be the next Jeff Buckley. Tom Cox meets him ...
Essay by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 7 August 1998
Pop is on sick leave because the nation's youth hasn't done its music homework. Tom Cox tells aspiring young bands to nab their parent's record ...
Baby Bird: There's Something Going On (Echo) **
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 28 August 1998
Toxic wasteland: the new Babybird has Tom Cox reaching for the sickbag ...
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, October 1998
Divine stratospheric trip from sentimental gadgeteers ...
Overview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 16 October 1998
Tom Cox on the new bands that are making country music sexy ...
Report by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 20 October 1998
In one of the most startling comebacks in music history, Tom Cox is delighted to find that sales of turntables and crackly old vinyl records ...
Lucinda Williams: Small town fireworks
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 27 November 1998
Three parts honey, two parts bourbon — the road-movie songs of folk-rocker Lucinda Williams have been hugely influential over the past 20 years, and a ...
Guide by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 29 January 1999
1 Nick Drake Bryter Layter (Island, 1970) ...
Kurt Cobain, Nirvana: Kurt's Gone. So What?
Comment by Tom Cox, Guardian Unlimited, 5 April 1999
ROCK KILLS. The list of victims is too long and depressing to print here. We still raise an eyebrow when another tortured Narcissus bites the ...
Tom Waits: Mule Variations (Epitaph)
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 16 April 1999
I'D HATE TO be the neighbourhood psycho on Tom Waits's street. You'd never quite feel safe, terrorised by those all-seeing, scarecrow eyes, observing your every ...
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, The Sugarhill Gang: Good Boys Of Rap
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 30 April 1999
Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five And Melle Mel: 'Adventures On The Wheels Of Steel' (Sequel)The Sugarhill Gang: Rapper's Delights (Sequel)Various Artists: Sugarhill Club Classics ...
Rufus Wainwright: Embassy Rooms, London ****
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 21 May 1999
And mother came too ...
Brandy: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 1 June 1999
Icy cool, but no fizz ...
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 14 June 1999
Tom Cox finds the Head brothers of Shack in Liverpool — but spiritually, they're in Los Angeles, circa 1967 ...
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 25 June 1999
Gomez may have won the Mercury Music Prize, but they're not your typical hard-living rock stars. Tom Cox meets the broadest minds in the business ...
Macy Gray: Irresistible sister — Macy Gray: Macy Gray On How Life Is (Epic) ****
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 9 July 1999
Sweat, toil, grit and sex (the real kind)... Macy Gray's debut album has the Guardian's new pop critic, Tom Cox, champing at the bit. ...
Morphine, Mark Sandman: Morphine: Mark Sandman — Exponent of low rock and low life
Obituary by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 13 July 1999
MARK SANDMAN, who has died aged 46 after collapsing on stage at a gig outside Rome, was the central figure in Morphine, America's premier exponents ...
Elaine Paige, Cliff Richard: Cliff Richard, Elaine Paige: Hyde Park, London
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 19 July 1999
Only for the converted ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis: He's Alive!
Guide by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 30 July 1999
It's 22 years since the King was found dead at Gracelands, but some people still refuse to believe he has gone. Tom Cox sifts through ...
Dr. John: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 7 August 1999
If it wasn't for the beard and white suit, you might mistake Dr John for the warm-up act. Tom Cox waits in vain for something ...
Aretha Franklin: Jerry Wexler: Aretha And Me
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 13 August 1999
JERRY WEXLER, co-founder of Atlantic Records and in-house producer, was picking himself up off the floor of Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama when he received ...
Wondermints: Bali (Big Deal/EMI America) *****
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 13 August 1999
Bloody good vibrations — They use seaflutes and palm fronds and write sun-drenched melodies. Oh, and they tour with Brian Wilson. Tom Cox is in ...
Elastica: Six Track EP (Deceptive) *
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 27 August 1999
FOR ALL THE TREMORS, speculation and mystique you might generate by disappearing off the face of the earth after a classic debut album, there's always ...
Guided By Voices: The Garage, London
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 27 August 1999
Pithy, his psychedelia ...
The Sugarhill Gang: The Jazz Cafe, London **
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 28 August 1999
Caught in a rap trap ...
Os Mutantes: Everything Is Possible! (Luaka Bop)
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 3 September 1999
OS MUTANTES are the sort of dreamers you might have found on a wayward acid trip in 1969, sitting around a campfire in a Brazilian ...
Comment by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 17 September 1999
HERE'S A JOKE. Last night, I met an alien outside a pub in north London. We got chatting about hobbies and stuff, and he ended ...
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 24 September 1999
Macy Gray's unearthly voice was once the butt of everyone's jokes. But after a hit album, that voice is having the last laugh. Tom Cox ...
Shelby Lynne: I Am Shelby Lynne (Mercury)
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 24 September 1999
Her father shot her mother then killed himself, she has a problem with using 'g' in song titles and she's set herself up as the ...
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 22 October 1999
THE AURAL equivalent of icing desperately missing a cake, High Llamas records are all arrangement and no song, taking the legacy of the Beach Boys ...
Beck: Arty like it's 1999 — Beck: Midnite Vultures (Geffen)
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 12 November 1999
Tom Cox picks over the latest from a surreal, scrambled brain ...
Guided by Voices: Ale to the King
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 19 November 1999
He's 42, his main influences are The Beatles and Genesis, and he's still putting self-proclaimed rock'n'roll animals to shame. Tom Cox shared more than a ...
The Isley Brothers: It's Your Thing: The Story of the Isley Brothers (Epic) *****
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 19 November 1999
THE MOST DEFINITIVE summation of The Isley Brothers' career so far begins not with a song but a real, live shriek. ...
Prince: Pop stars as you'll never see them
Report by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 20 November 1999
I HAVE A certain contingent of friends who want to protect me from the music business because they think it's riddled with merciless charlatans and ...
Luscious Jackson, Pavement: A rocky place for friendships
Comment by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 27 November 1999
THIS SUMMER, I interviewed Luscious Jackson, the funky, friendly New York girl group, in a hotel suite de-renovated to resemble an adolescent bedroom on the ...
Pete Townshend, The Who: Pete Townshend: Peter Rabbits
Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 3 December 1999
I'M LAUGHING, BUT Pete Townshend is frightening me. "Yes!!!!!" he shouts, and bangs hard on the table in his Richmond studio, for the second time ...
Comment by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 11 December 1999
ONE OF the best Christmas presents you could buy for the 80s obsessive in your life this year is The Mullet: Hairstyle of the Gods, ...
Oasis: Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (Big Brother) **
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 4 February 2000
FOR HAS-BEENS APPARENT, Oasis still possess remarkable powers of intimidation, but in the build-up to Standing on the Shoulder of Giants they've cunningly switched tactics. ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Machina/Machines of God (Hut) *
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 18 February 2000
FOR THE DIZZY hippy posing as disaffected slacker, Smashing Pumpkins were the perfect band to help you dream your way through the grunge era. ...
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 3 March 2000
AC/DC MAY OR may not currently be writing the best lyrics in rock. It's hard to tell, since they don't print them on their album ...
Prefab Sprout: Going for a Song
Profile and Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 21 March 2000
Paddy McAloon made Prefab Sprout one of Britain's favourite bands. Now you can buy the albums for just 10p. Tom Cox asks him how he ...
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 24 March 2000
IT BEGINS WITH a grumble: not Lou himself, but a bass guitar attempting to clone the sound of an OAP getting on a downtown bus, ...
Beck: Wembley Arena, London ****
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 25 March 2000
Chameleon colours ...
The Mighty Imperials: Mighty Imperials: I can't dance to this modern racket
Essay by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 25 March 2000
I'M SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING the debut UK gig by New York's Mighty Imperials, but, off to stage right, three black men are turning themselves ...
Phil Collins: This man must be stopped
Comment by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 30 March 2000
Stop up your ears. Unplug the radio. Phil Collins is back, with an Oscar-winning song, a tribute album, even a high-profile lawsuit. Tom Cox prays ...
Julian Cope: Royal Festival Hall, London ****
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 4 April 2000
IT HAS BEEN a long time since Julian Cope could be described merely as a singing psychedelic mystic eco-warrior. ...
Dwight Twilley: Magical Mystery Man
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 21 April 2000
The name Dwight Twilley probably doesn't ring a bell, but to the cognoscenti he's a rock'n'roll legend blessed with pop sensibility and irresistible animal magnetism. ...
The Jayhawks: Smile (Columbia)
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 5 May 2000
"THESE SONGS ACT like country-tinged rock and roll with an intellectual attitude and shit-kicking ambiance, but they're smarter than they act... they aren't as simple ...
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, June 2000
MAMMOTH BOX set from Green Pajamas frontman, covering "lost years". ...
Richard Ashcroft: Alone With Everybody (Hut) **
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 16 June 2000
KINDRED TO THE hippie but more English, less articulate, less political, more self-serving and better at fighting, the dippie is a breed of musician that ...
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, July 2000
THEY'RE FRENCH, they're pals with Air – and they sound like Steely Dan. ...
Retrospective by Tom Cox, Uncut, August 2000
BASED ON the bittersweet songcraft of Big Star's "lost" classic debut, No 1 Record, Chris Bell is often referred to as the McCartney to Alex ...
The Fall: Mark E. Smith: Just Who Does Mr. Grumpy Think He Is?
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Cox, The Times, 24 November 2000
Mark E. Smith, leader of the Fall, is captain of the awkward squad. That didn't deter Tom Cox. ...
Interview by Tom Cox, Daily Telegraph, 10 February 2001
IMAGINE IF YOU made the best record of your career, in collaboration with one of your heroes, and it was released only abroad, leaving such ...
Syd Barrett: Disappearances Can Be Deceptive
Report by Tom Cox, The Observer, 22 April 2001
THERE ARE PROBABLY better places in the world to go to become invisible than Cambridge, but perhaps not if you are an ex-rock star with ...
Comment by Tom Cox, The Observer, 20 May 2001
IN AN ERA WHEN pop carries scant mystery and every 'best ever' list imaginable seems to have been compiled, the term 'lost classic' has so ...
Overview by Tom Cox, The Observer, 21 October 2001
Country has gone way beyond Nashville, says Tom Cox. It's the new rebel music. ...
The Hives: The Junction, Cambridge
Live Review by Tom Cox, The Observer, 10 February 2002
The Hives put on a fine imitation of garage rock. And the garage is where it would be best appreciated ...
Alanis Morissette: Under Rug Swept
Review by Tom Cox, Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2002
RUMOURS HAVE been circulating that the latest album from Alanis Morissette is a more "musical" and "refined" effort than its two predecessors. The truth of ...
Jools Holland: A little man goes a long way
Comment by Tom Cox, The Observer, 7 April 2002
Jools Holland can't sing and he isn't funny, so why exactly is he so successful and compelling? ...
Report and Interview by Tom Cox, Observer Music Monthly, 14 December 2003
"IT'S GOING TO BE a bit like having sex in front of your parents – you know, that moment when you're a teenager and you've ...
Dazed and Confused: The ultimate hang-out movie
Retrospective by Tom Cox, Daily Telegraph, 2004
Richard Linklater's 1993 high-school hit Dazed and Confused is available on Netflix from today. In this feature, originally published in 2004, Tom Cox explains why ...
Digital Magic Makes A Musician Of Me
Comment by Tom Cox, Daily Telegraph, 4 May 2004
I THINK IT'S SAFE to say I'm never going to learn to play a musical instrument properly now. The realisation first came to me about ...
Circulus: If You Go Down to the Woods Today
Profile and Interview by Tom Cox, Observer Music Monthly, 19 June 2005
If you go down to the woods today... then you're sure to meet Britain's finest neo-medieval psychedelic folk-rock band. Or you are if you're author ...
Tunng: Comments of the Inner Chorus
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 21 May 2006
Their sinister, retro-modern folk is Tom Cox's idea of bucolic bliss. Even if it scares the bejesus out of him. ...
Tunng: Comments of the Inner Chorus
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 21 May 2006
Their sinister, retro-modern folk is Tom Cox's idea of bucolic bliss. Even if it scares the bejesus out of him ...
Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel: Going for a song: Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush's 'Don't Give Up'
Retrospective by Tom Cox, The Sunday Times, 19 November 2006
I'D HAD WAITING jobs before, and could deal with the £2.56 hourly wage, the slave-driving supervisor who wouldn't stop talking about his masturbation habits, and ...
Sloan: Happy 20th Birthday Sloan: The Band That Most Made Me Want To Write For A Living
Report and Interview by Tom Cox, tom-cox.com, 11 May 2011
ALL WRITERS HAVE an early turning point or moment of encouragement that kicks off their career in earnest, gives them that little extra push to ...
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