| Leisure | 1991 |
| Modern Life Is Rubbish | 1993 |
| Parklife | review #2 | 1994 |
| The Great Escape | 1995 |
| Blur | 1997 |
| 13 | 1999 |
Blur over the past decade have shown themselves as one of the most downright interesting bands of the '90s. Not interesting because they're original, no, far from it-- lead singer and principal songwriter Damon Albarn doesn't seem to have an original bone in his songwriting body, choosing to base most of the band's music on a sound primarily reminiscent of the Kinks. What makes the band interesting is simply the way all of these influences are implemented. Built around loud, crunching guitars and Damon Albarn's very distinctive This-Is-Britpop voice, Blur have made quite a name for themselves in Britain, though here in America they're only known for "Song 2," most famous for having a "Whoo hoo!" refrain and its inclusion in the commercials for the Starship Troopers movie. And it's not even a representative song of their style! Though they've certainly gotten their share of criticism for being derivative, one could argue that all rock music is derivative of Chuck Berry and Little Richard-- sure, a lame argument on my part but at least it looks fine as I'm typing it right here! All in all, Blur is a fun band, and though you can pinpoint most of their songs to some part of Ray Davies' songwriting (at least, up until their 1997 eponymous album), it really doesn't matter at all.
--Rich Bunnell
COMMENTS
Hey,
I'm a 13 year old girl from America that is sick of everyone here thinking Blur's only song is "Song 2"! People in America need to learn Blur has other great songs! Like "Coping" and "Trouble in the Message Centre".AMERICA!!!! LISTEN UP!!!! BLUR IS ONE OF THE GREATEST BANDS IN THE WORLD! BUY AN ALBUM!!
Thank you.
-Crow
Their later releases have got a bit more experimental....for a pop/rock band anyway so there is a bit of a creative bone in Damon's body
Also the Kinks influence has been dropped since The Great Escape....or at least it wasn't as obnoxious as before
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
It's pretty funny that even though Blur didn't start leeching off of the Kinks's clever Britpop style until the following album, their debut is in a way similar to their You Really Got Me. Like that album, this one contains a couple of superb singles surrounded by a bunch of hastily-recorded, trend-hopping filler, and compared to what would come later the album is incredibly mannered and mediocre. Stylistically, at this point Blur were just another boring Manchester baggy-beats dance band, supposedly putting on awful live performances and trying to fit in with similar but more successful bands like Suede and the Stone Roses. This album actually managed to score the band a couple of hits, and they're both superb - "She's So High" is a flowing rocker with really cool-sounding droning lead guitar, and the incredibly catchy almost-American-hit "There's No Other Way" mixes a clever, slinky riff with perky dancebeats to good effect.
Most of the other album is incredibly disposable, the kind of music that probably got played as background music in "hip" BBC TV programs that are now justly and thankfully cancelled and long-gone. Usually, the songs are either mind-numbingly plodding and boring guitar dirges ("Slow Down" and the aptly-titled six-minute "Repetition") or straightfoward Manchester pop songs ("Fool," "Come Together") which sound good to the ears while playing, but after they end...waitaminute, how did that song go? "Bang" and "Bad Day" are relatively catchy, even if they're completely disposable and have almost the exact same backing dancebeat (though to its credit, the former has a really catchy chorus).
The only other really good song on the album besides the two singles is "Sing," a hypnotic piano dirge with a melody so subtle that it's hard to tell that it's even there. It doesn't sound that great when measured up against Blur's in-your-face poppy stuff that would come into full bloom on Parklife a few years later, but after a few listens it's hard to deny that it's a considerably more accomplished song than most of the rest of the crap on this album. For whatever reason, the song was taken off of the album's tracklisting for its release in America, possibly by studio suits who thought that Americans cared about this boring-as-hell baggy-beat music. Thankfully, Blur improved significantly for their next studio outing.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
After shaky start with Leisure, Blur decided to stop being derivative of the dying Manchester dance scene and be derivative of the Kinks instead—but since the Kinks were very, very far from bad, the transition actually worked. A Britpop album at the very core, this album is filled with crunching guitars and singalong, stomping melodies; not as diverse as the next couple of albums but still quite the satisfying listen. The album's first half is undoubtedly better than the second one, mainly because it opens with three Blur classics, the mid-tempo stomping "la la la" singalong of "For Tomorrow," the quickly-paced "Advert," and the uneasy "Colin Zeal," which has a great transition at the end of each verse of a quiet distorted voice stating "and then he," leading into an anthemic chorus. "Blue Jeans," though not as catchy as the Bowie song of a similar name, is harmonically beautiful, "Sunday Sunday" rides a wonderful Britpop-meets-Vaudeville stomp, and "Chemical World" is almost the literal personification of the band's sound.
The album's second half doesn't fare as well despite some great riff-rockers like "Turn It Up" and "Villa Rosie," largely due to drawn-out dirges like "Miss America" or fairly nondescript tracks like "Coping" and "Resigned." Still, the easily-available American version appends the wonderful, fast-paced British single "Pop Scene" and two great slightly-hidden bonus tracks in "When The Cows Come Home" and "Peach," leaving the album with nineteen songs, a good deal of them excellent. Blur still hadn't hit their "style" by this point, yet the album did a good job in reinventing the band into Jam-style mods as opposed to trend-riding baggy-beat-crafting wannabes. An interesting bit of trivia: Andy Partridge of XTC (a.k.a. Gods) was originally slated to produce this album, but quit because he didn't like the material and he wasn't getting along with Damon Albarn. There's the Partridge attitude for you—luckily, basically every one of XTC's albums are amazing in every sense of the word.
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(Rich Bunnell's review)
Diverse, poppy, and as usual derivative to the extreme, critics hail this album as Blur's masterpiece and many other folks slam it for its unoriginality. I take a middle ground here, stating that it is indeed Blur's most likable and accomplished album, yet it does take elements from more styles than ever before (the most obvious being the still-great Kinks pastiche of "Tracy Jacks"). The only bad thing I can say about the album myself is that too many stupid filler pieces clog up the tracklisting, namely the over-energized punk of "Bank Holiday," the retarded accordion instrumental "The Debt Collector," and the insignificant list of moons of "Far Out." The three songs would actually not seem that annoying, but they're concentrated into tracks 5, 7, and 8 respectively, when they'd work much, much more well sprinkled around the album as opposed to shoved right together into a single half-side. As it is, the second quarter of the album just seems sort of weak.
However, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else rules—and that's thirteen songs! Thirteen perfect, cool songs! The hit was the catchy dance-pop of "Girls And Boys" (which contains one of the most ear-grabbing choruses known to man), and in Britain the distinctly-British monologue of the title track, the '60s soul of "To The End," and the bouncy "End Of A Century" also managed to become hits. Great harmonies abound in "Badhead," driving synth-pop reminiscent of a harder version of the Cars shows its face in the amazing "Trouble At The Message Centre," and both "London Loves" and "Jubilee" are wonderfully-syrupy Britpop in the style of the previous album. Finally, "This Is A Low," the last major song on the album (the last being the hilarious church-organ instrumental "Lot 105") provides a five-minute "epic" arrangement with a soaring chorus. To enjoy this album, it's better to think of it as a style workout than a songwriter's album (the type of album the band would later attempt with weaker results) and with that in mind, topped off with some amazingly catchy melodies, it'll really work. Don't view it with a "This is derivative, therefore it sucks!!!" ear or you'll just be putting yourself into the masses of cliché-driven cynical net critics the world round.
I must first confess to being a bit of an Anglophile at times...Brit-pop appeals a great deal to me, and it seems like very many of my favorite bands come from jolly ole England (though jolly ole England prefers being called Clarisse Codpiece-on-Backwards-upon-Buttocks). And I do simply love Blur. Well, ok maybe "love" isn't the right word since all I've done is go on one dinner date with Damon Albarn (dirty jerk tried to feel me up when he dropped me off at home)..........RESTART.
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OK, on their third album, Blur created a Brit-pop masterpiece. I got this one up nawth in Maryland (state motto---We are more than just filler between Virginia and Pennsylvania, dangit!) in July 2001, and I feel in love with it then. Now, on January 2nd 2002, I still love it and think it's great and catchy as all get out and a great pop album. While I have the utmost respect for my fellow Blur reviewer and friend Dick Buttsmell (if you don't get that, you're obviously not involved with Music Babble), I do have to disagree about the filler in the 2nd quarter. I actually find Far Out to be amusing, nor am I offended at all by either Bank Holiday or The Debt Collector. At least they're short, and Far Out DOES have a cool melody.
Onto better songs, though. Everything is good here, but End Of A Centruy just towers above the rest in my eye....ok, it towers above them in the same way a treefort towers above a reasonably large doghouse, which is to say not by all that much. However, End Of A Century just seems boasts an excellent melody, a sense of sincerity, and very good arrangement. Now, most of the rest of the songs seem to be of similarly great quality. Girls and Boys is crazy dance pop with words about Lord alone knows what, Tracy Jacks is catchy semi-social commentary, Parklife is an amusing little romp through cockney-accented glasses (yes, I know that made no sense), Badhead's got a fabulous melody, To The End is GREAT 60s-ish whiteboy soul, London Loves is ultra-hooky Britishy stuff, Troube In the Message Center is dark and synthy, Clover Over Dover has a nifty title and that harpsichord sounding bit, Magic America boasts a nice melody and a nice crucnhy guitar part, Jubilee's a tight little rawker, and This Is A Low is not at all a low. And Lot 105 is entertaining. I cannot think of a single less-than-really catchy moment on this dang thing, nor can I think of a real slumper. I also like giving out 10s. So this gets one.
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COMMENTS
[in response to the second review:]
actually, the state motto of Maryland is "manly deeds, womanly words", not that that's much better.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Blur's most bizarre, jumbled album was mainly released to try to compete with Oasis, the band's newly-discovered rival, and in an attempt to be deeper than usual the album is literally filled with strange Ray Davies-styled character studies. The band lost the war, with the talentless load of hacks Oasis becoming a huge band in both Britain and America due to their What's The Story (Morning Glory)? album's massive success, yet this album easily sums up everything the band stood for in their Britpop days. It's also both the encapsulation and the end of the same Britpop period, as from here there was absolutely nowhere the band could go in this particular style without becoming dangerously weird or repeating themselves. Still, if I were to bet my money on it (which isn't that much at the moment), this is easily the band's greatest album. The jarring, ugly chords of "Stereotypes," which opens the album, immediately bring an opposing viewpoint to my last statement, yet the song reveals itself as one of Albarn's wonderful distorted character studies of two strangely-perverted lovers.
The British #1 hit "Country House" and "Charmless Man" both follow in a similarly-catchy vein (especially the later, one of Blur's best songs, with extraordinary harmonies) and "The Universal," "Best Days," and "Yuko & Hiro" are three very accomplished string-laced ballads. "Mr. Robinson's Quango" and "Dan Abnormal" are both wonderfully overarranged, while jerky rockers like the punky "Globe Alone," the gripping "Entertain Me," and the XTC-styled "It Could Be You" lie among the best British tunes ever (though not as amazing as several singles by the Beatles and the Jam, but what is?). There isn't a weak moment on the entire album. It takes quite some time to digest it all, because right at first the album feels schizophrenic, messy, weird, and uninviting, yet it's also a strangely-rewarding experience once you've heard it several times. Sure, Albarn's basically imitating the Kinks again, but this is like a strange, warped, hilarious version of the Kinks, and the album is both Blur's most coherent and incoherent album at the same time. Parklife is more easily accessible, and I liked it more for quite a while, but this one has ultimately won the battle.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
The band slips a bit. I stated earlier that The Great Escape was as far as the band could possibly go with Britpop, and apparently they realized that too because all of a sudden Damon Albarn decided to make an album based instead on American indie rock. This is a confusing change to me, since a lot of indie rock is tuneless crap that people in the review world choose to gobble up anyway so it doesn't seem like they like pop music (which they do), but I guess Albarn felt that a radical change in style was necessary to keep the band fresh and achieve some American success. American success came through the Starship Troopers and beer commercials "Song 2," a very simplistic tune based around one very obvious melody and the line "Whoo hoo!" yet since the song only goes on for two minutes it lets it just make its very small point (whatever that may be—"Let's make fun of metal!" perhaps?) and get out as quickly as possible. The British hit was "Beetlebum," a very strange and uninspired-sounding song yet a slinkily-fun one too.
The Bowie-inspired "M.O.R." and the amazingly-catchy "On The Run" and "Movin' On" are also amazing, but there's also considerably more filler than any other Blur album—Blur ain't no Pavement and they mostly just don't know how to play this genre. "Country Sad Ballad Man," "I'm Just A Killer For Your Love" and "Theme From Retro" show this shortcoming prominently, all of which are completely moronic and tuneless dirges. Also, "Chinese Bombs" is pathetic hardcore and the too-long "Essex Dogs" doesn't live up to its fan reputation. Definitely the worst of the critically-hailed albums (which are all of them except the debut and the following one), Blur still manages to work a good deal of the time, additionally on the crackly ballad "You're So Great" and the non-indie string ballad "Look Inside America." Still, I really wish that the band hadn't dabbled in an area which they had no knowledge of (and an area which has barely a hint of musical merit anyway)—the songs on here are certainly indie, but they're indie in a very self-conscious manner which seems to be trying to yell out "Hey, we're Blur! Look at us! We used to make Britpop, but nuh uh, not anymore!!! We're experimental now! Honest, fellas!"
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COMMENTS
Hey, I noticed that "make fun of" intent too----but it seems to me that the Blurs are making fun of Nirvana or maybe even punk, cause i don't think "Song 2" is remotely a metal song. Reminds me a whole lot of Kurt Cobain.If you watch the video, it pretty much leaves no doubt that ther are mocking some form of loud guitar music. But its hilarious. Especially when the guitarist slams on the distortion pedal and POOF! a cyclone promptly swirls throughout the room. Funny shit.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Even more self-conscious than the last album and twice as hard to get into, here Blur have ditched the indie rock and now they're concerned with really, really weird art rock. This shows up on pretty much the album's entire second side, where the songs don't resemble that much besides fairly minimalist sound collages, and I utterly hated this one the first few times I heard it, but my opinion of it has certainly gone up somewhat since that painful first listen. Starting with the pop, that all resides on the first half in tunes like the seven-minute rolling gospel of "Tender" and the wonderful "Coffee & TV," which contains Albarn's best harmonies since "Blue Jeans" and is driven by a beautiful simplistic acoustic riff. "Bugman" is somewhat pop as well for the first couple of minutes, taking a vibe very reminiscent of Bowie's "Suffragette City" (they even had to credit him for it) but charging up a load of metallic, buzzing guitars and quick hip-hop drumming which makes the song a bizarre, exhilarating experience. "1992" is a somewhat accessible acoustic ballad, and "B.L.U.R.E.M.I." is a hilarious short rocker with a Donald Duck chorus of "Who am who am who am I?" That's the pop.
The album's second half throws song structure out the window for the most part, with the exception of the slightly bouncy "Trimm Trabb" and the still-not-accessible ballad "No Distance Left To Run," in favor of strange, intriguing dirges like "Mellow Song," "Trailerpark," "Battle," and "Caramel." I didn't like them at all at first, but eventually repeated listens really revealed the hypnotic power of the songs, which really work if you're not paying attention to them—if you do, you spend all of your time trying to find a concise, solid melody and your time is wasted and the songs simply don't work. A couple of songs suck, like the pointlessly-artsy muzak of the closer "Optigan 1," and the irritating, repetitive "Swamp Song," but overall this is a very rewarding album if you give it enough listens to let it take over your mind, as much of a cliché as that is. Many people despise this album in spite of this, and let me just say this stuff is not for anyone, and especially not anyone that's fond only of Parklife-style tunes. But I, for one, enjoy this stuff!
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COMMENTS
Wow... This one really took me by surprise. I saw the cute little Milk-Carton-Man video for 'Coffee and TV' on M2, and liked it enough to want to go buy the album, thinking it might be a return to catchier, poppier songs like they'd been doing before the self-titled one. (Though I don't think I'm quite as down on Blur as Rich is; even if it's a little dodgy, I still like it quite a lot.) Boy, was I caught off guard when I got into the rest of this disc!
Pretentious as it may be for a very "pop" group like Blur to make an artsy, claustrophobic sort of disc after a career thusfar spent traficking in infectious hooks and smarmy comedic character studies, Damon and company really pulled it off quite well. Allow me to go track by track and extoll the virtues of one of the most atmospheric and deeply merited discs ever to come from our neighbors across the pond.
1.) Tender - This may sound odd for me to say, but skip it when listening to the album as a whole; the rest of the disc creates a mood that this one doesn't fit into, and starting with it usually doesn't do much for me. Odd sequencing choice for my tastes, putting a gospel song right before such a dark and strange album. Don't get me wrong, it is catchy in sort of a plodding, "Stones-if-they-weren't-spotty-miscreants" sort of way, but it's just too long and too straight-forward to introduce all of the weirdness later to come.
2.) Bugman - Mixed like a beehive, fast and catchy as who knows what, this one's punk filtered through studio trickery. Well, I say punk, but Blur are far to upper-class to make anything that would actually qualify. But whew! Those Chords! That thick-ass, distorted vocal tone! Uh, what's a Bugman?
3.) Coffee & TV - I mentioned this one already, but let me go into greater detail. This one was actually sung (and mostly written, I believe) by the band's recently departed lead guitarist, Graham Coxon, and I hate that his voice is mostly too low in register for me to sing along. This has very nice, understated accoustic guitar strumming, a sort of Moog-y keyboard line, wonderful melody (even if I can't sing it), and a bizzare solo that manages to be really tuneful but really noisy at the same time, without destroying the otherwise rather restrained mood of the piece. And Rich was right, Damon's harmony's are f%#$ing gravy-great. Possible candidate for best single of Blur's career, because apparently they weren't bright enough to make 'Badhead' a single from Parklife. (Or were they? Blur doesn't get much radio play in Mississippi. Actually, none.)
4.) Swamp Song - Another one that is a couple minutes of loud but catchy guitar noise, it's wonderful as a part of the whole, but all in all not one you'd want to listen to just by itself. (This is not in any way to insinuate it's not the shit, however, because it pretty much is.)
5.) 1992 - Slow, droning, rather abstract. All in a good way. Clean electric guitar strumming, melody and harmony writhing over top of each other throughout, great static-noise buildup at the end. A winner.
6.) B.L.U.R.E.M.I. - Rich was wrong about the chorus in this one. Donald Duck is not saying "who am I, who am I, who am I", he's saying "E.M.I., E.M.I., E.M.I." and it's not Donald Duck. It's four or five digitally altered Damons ranting about how much the bands label was hacking him off, treating them like just another disposable pop group. Very high energy and intriguing.
7.) Battle - A personal favorite, even with no drugs whatsoever in my system. (Although they probably wouldn't hurt for the rest of the album from this point on...) This one showcases producer William Orbit's talent for creating atmospheric tension, using processed drum loops and crazy digitally warped noises to frame a vocal which is utterly incomprehensible save the repetitive chant of "Battle, Battle, Battle -- [something something thing] -- Overcome". Words can't really describe this one to any representative degree; it just needs to be heard. RIGHT NOW!
8.) Mellow Song - Sounds like Ministry. Not at all. Just like the name says, this one is very, very laid-back. Like nine valliums laid-back. Not much percussion until the last bit either. Nice, but a bit slight. One of the only "sometimes-skip's", but I don't consider it at all to be an "always-skip".
9.) Trailer Park - I really like this one. It's got this great sort of trip-hoppy beat, joined up with a great Moog line and a weird but melodic guitar noise loop, and great if ever-so-slightly dippy lyrics. And I love that line "I lost my girl to the Rollin' Stones"! Great freakin' line!
10.) Caramel - Another slowed down one. Pretty darned good, but not much to say about it. Really like the "Gotta find genious, Gotta get better, Gotta stop smoking, Gotta get better" bit, though. Good melody for the chorus, and the instrumental breakdown at the end is nice.
11.) Trimm Trabb - Cool song. Great lead line. I'll take the time here to point out that even when some of these songs are not exactly masterpieces when it comes to pacing or construction, Graham Coxon's very idiosyncratic lead guitar bits really keep the average up. He's just able to get some really great tones, and on top of that his parts are very economical, but never lazy. I still haven't heard the newest album (the one without Graham), but I'm wondering whether Damon has been able to reign in his recent tendencies toward genre experimentation and make another album full of songs that comes off as coherent as this one without Graham.
12.) No Distance Left to Run - Achingly beautiful. I love this song. (Really good video as well; it's the band sleeping. Actually sleeping. In their beds at home. It might not sound like much, but it fits the song perfectly, and it's shot well.) This one is mostly just guitar, bass and vocals, with a few other flourishes here and there. Should have been the album close in my opinion but instead...
13.) Optigan 1 - we get an inoffensive but also inconsequential instrumental. Not bad by any means, I just would have gone out with 'No Distance'. I'm not Damon though. No I am not. I do like him and his band though.
So, me personally, I would give this one my '10' amongst all the other Blur albums. The rest rank like this in my opinion:
Leisure: eh... 4. Rich got it about right.
Modern Life is Rubbish: don't have it; need to get it.
Parklife: 9 -- really good, and I'm w/ Kevin Baker -- Graham's 'Far Out' is pretty keen.
Great Escape: 7 -- also quite good; too many horns. 'The Universal' rules. (PS: Dan Abnormal=Damon Albarn; it's an anagram)
Blur: 8 -- i obviously don't distain "indie" production as much as Rich, and I like most of the tracks on here - except 'Woo Hoo!' - god I hate that song. (It was funny on the SuperBowl Simpsons episode though.)
13 - TEN TEN TEN TEN TEN TEN TEN TEN TEN TEN
/ah
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