YOU SHOULD COCO

After a few gigs and a couple of singles as The Jennifers, seventeen year old Gaz Coombes and a couple of mates formed Supergrass in 1993. Their first single was released in  October 1994 and generated enough interest for the band to be signed to the prestigious Parlophone label, home to The Beatles. I Should Coco followed in May 1995 and became Parlophone’s biggest selling debut album since the Beatles Please Please Me, ultimately surging to the top of the UK album charts. No less than five singles were lifted from I Should Coco, resulting in Supergrass becoming one of the stars of the Britpop era.

From the range of influences—The Who, Small Faces, early Bowie—to the tight thirteen song set and forty-minute running time, I Should Coco shouts "Sixties!" in an updated and ridiculously confident way. Scruffy rascals these lads were, but they knew their pop history and were determined to inject some Nineties energy into the mix. That partly comes from the other bands who were without doubt an inspiration: The Jam and Buzzcocks. In fact, it’s like they plundered the record collection of some cool Boomer parents and gave the loot a quick burst in the blender. Big juicy lumps of the influences remain, but the whole thing rollicks along so fast you are three "Who’s-that-like?" challenges behind before a song is half-way through.

"I’d like to know" opens proceedings with a bellowed count-in and a bounce that gets your feet tapping right from the off. Gaz Coombes wants to know where all the strange ones go. You know he’ll be there and you want to be there too. The first ever Supergrass single is next, the tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale "Caught by the Fuzz". Sparky, catchy, fast: it rocks.

There’s another leap of style with the jaunty "Mansize Rooster", an unholy alliance between Madness and Hunky Dory era Bowie, before the teen anthem "Alright" has everyone waving lighters in the air and singing along. The Supertramp-ish piano backbeat and infectious melody are still utterly seductive, reminding you that despite the angst and confusion, being young is actually quite fun, at least some of the time.

The ideas fly out of the grooves with such furious abandon that it sometimes seems as if you are listening to a high quality Battle of the Bands contest. With ten of the thirteen songs clocking in at around three minutes, nothing sticks around too long. Production is clean and entirely un-fancy, the vocals and guitars dancing on their own carrier wave of energy. There is a sense of larrikin mischief and rambunctious fun all across the album, from the confronting caricature portrait on the cover to the lovely two-minute closing song "Time to Go".

Terrific tunes, manic energy, devil-may-care eclecticism; I Should Coco deserves to be higher up the league ladder of Britpop classics. It also deserves to be heard afresh thirty years on. There’s no doubt about it, we all should coco.

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Note: The photo of Supergrass glimpsed behind the album is from a feature in MOJO: The Music Magazine, published in July 1995.

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© Bruce Jenkins — December 2022