Blur: Classic Or Dud

While they have produced some great pop songs, I would argue that they have failed to created one consistently great album (even the Best Of fell short of the mark). You could probably make a good cd-r worth of their music, but considering the number of albums they have put out that's hardly a glowing endorsement. Modern Life is Rubbish *probably* comes closest, but even that's far too problematic to warrant classic status. Parklife, which is the one that normally gets bandied about when talking about classic albums, is killed by too many little england-isms.

And just like the little girl from nursery rhymes: when they are bad...they are *horrid*. So, so bad that they cancel out the good:

Everything Damon has ever said.

The smug and irritating character songs.

The Country House video.

Bang.

The sad "take us seriously indie kids! We were never serious about wanting fame and fortune!" noodling of the last couple albums.

They *do* change from album to album, trying to anticipate what trends will catch on with the kids like any good marketing student would. This is not a crime; Bowie was great at it during the 70's, Madonna in the 80's and they were both classics. But with Blur it always reeked of desperation a bit too much.

And yet despite all this I do own some of their albums. Go figure.

Not living in the UK, I'm not exposed much to Damon Albarn's alleged bad personality, but his easy-target songs do grate - we get it Damon, you're SO superior to Americans, people who like the US, and middle-class normals. Jerk.

It's also the case that he's obviously quite good at doing pop (cf the Greatest Hits), so when he doesn't do pop but does other things worse you get annoyed.

If that's the case, I think I need some explanation... I mean, I don't dislike the song, in the context of the album it's a cute diversion, but it's SO not a single - just some dork babbling about getting an enormous sense of well-being from something or other, with a blah undistinctive chorus. It's not even silly enough to be a real novelty song. What is the appeal of it ?

If Bowie is taken at all seriously it's because of the startling, inventive things he did with pop in the 70's, not because he's rich - after all Rod Stewart is also rich. BTW what *are* Damon Albarn's extra-pop aspirations (other than sub-Sting do-gooding)?

re 'Parklife':

I can't stand the song, but its mass appeal does boil down to it having a very strong chorus (admittedly a very retro-British one), plus the novelty of Phil Daniels' voiceover.

re Blur in general:

The thing I've always disliked most about them is the air of smugness that seems to pervade everything they do. That and the fact that the chord sequences they use generally don't move me.

"Dear Damon, Please stop with the "la la la" thing. It gets on my last damn nerve. Thanks a bunch.

Sincerely, K"

The Great Escape includes some of their most execrable songs ever along with, frustratingly, two of their best: "The Universal" and "Yuko and Hiro" move me no end. But in retrospect it quite amazes me that that album was hailed at the time as a great leap forward from the parochialism of Parklife; what were all those cheesy little character sketches about, then?

They're essentially a singles band and therefore the Greatest Hits is their best album. At best, they've given us "For Tomorrow", "To The End", "End Of A Century", "The Universal" and, at a pinch, "Beetlebum". I love all the above, though "Tender" always did make me sick. I adore "This Is A Low", and I think "Trouble In The Message Centre" is OK as far as tongue-in-cheek cod-Numan goes, as well. But, in the final analysis, DUD.

Parklife may sound a bit twee now after Britpop exploded everywhere, but the fact that it was SO different in 1994 made it a hit (only #10 though - the biggest hit off the album was Girls & Boys at #5).

I was 14 when Parklife came out. I remember so clearly what the common room stereo was playing beforehand - Nirvana, Lemonheads, Smashing Pumpkins, even Guns 'n' Roses, NOTHING that had any relevance to what was going on with me or anyone I knew.

Parklife is the first new album I really remember having an impact on me; at last, you didn't have to sit in your room and slash your wrists to be cool, you could just go to the park with your mates and feed the pigeons (and sometimes feed the sparrows too). I also believe Girls and Boys is responsible for kickstarting Britpop, as without that disco beat no song had a chance of hitting in 1994, although I suspect something else would have come along anyway (Common People maybe?)

Blur are also really the only band who managed to be political and say it in a popular way (you could perhaps say Pulp and Manics, but I would say Blur are better known outside of the indie scene than those two). It's no surprise that Damon hid himself away during the height of Britpop, seeing as everything he was saying ironically on Parklife had been embraced and celebrated.

It's a shame that they went inside themselves for Blur and 13 and stopped writing about what was going on in the world. We need more bands like early Blur, who write about not only what's happening, but also how to deal with it. My biggest disappointment about Kid A was that Thom doesn't seem to have progressed at all from OK Computer; in fact, he's just withdrawn even more. It feels like we're right back in 1993 again.

I nave nothing good to say about their career up to Parklife, which I half like, but can rarely sit through. 'The Great Escape' sounds oddly clean and dated, yet apart from the whiff of self parody mixed with ripping off the Kinks TOO much ('Charmless Man', for example), it's an album that I still enjoy.

For me it got interesting round about 'Blur' and '13' is, apart from 'Tender is the Night', magnificent. Sure, there's nothing here that hasn't been done before, but the run of tracks 7-13 from 'Battle' to 'Optigan 1' is just plain classic.

So classic it is.

Anyway...reasons for being classic: "For Tomorrow". "Boys & Girls". "This is a Low". "Parklife". "Country House". "To The End". "Tender". Alex James's looks. "Pop Scene". The video for "Song 2", which features Damon being satisfyingly hurled against a wall repeated.

Reasons for being a dud: Damon Albarn.

Hrm.

I stick to my belief that _The Great Escape_ is actually their best album, because they looked like Japan circa 81 or so on the back cover. That's reason enough, really. Then they had to go and record a bad Pixies/Bush rip-off. Dear god in heaven!

As for all the purported greatness of _Modern_/_Parklife_ and its 'trenchant' observations, etc. -- hm. It's just a bunch of XTC songs with "Girls and Boys" standing out as the exception to the rule. And I *love* XTC and all that, I'm just noting that I can't feel too attached to what Blur did with it per se. _English Settlement_ feels younger than _Parklife_ ever will.

Blur's May 1992 show at the Palace in LA was fantastic and the best of the three times I ever saw them; they seem to have gotten steadily worse on that front over the moons. The funniest thing, though, was that when Damon ambled out on stage, his gait, open shirt and haircut made me think of Morrissey. And right after I thought that, about half the people around me started calling out, "Morrissey!" He looked annoyed.

No doubt everyone else spotted this ages ago.

But don't you think that had more to do with Oasis overtaking them in terms of sales and as a cultural phenomena? I sincerely doubt that that Damon would have hid himself away had the Great Escape sold more records than What's the Story (Morning Glory). That's part of what makes Damon so annoying, he tries to cover up Blur's failings with talk of high-minded ideals that don't really exist.*

*I don't really believe that Blur selling less records than Oasis is a failing, but I will bet a dollar to a donut that Damon did at that time.

in 1990 i was nine years old. i haven't ever been to reading, and i don't know who nick grant is. do i look like him, or something?

You're right; I didn't make my point very well. It just seems to me that Parklife has been misinterpreted over the years. Damon's ambiguous criticisms were taken as celebrations, which perhaps explains The Great Escape's more direct approach on songs like He Thought Of Cars, Best Days and The Universal. But who wanted to hear any miserable shit like that in the autumn of '95?

This doesn't make The Great Escape a good album or What's The Story a bad one. I just appreciate Blur's attempt to say a little with their 60s/70s influences, rather than just celebrate them as Oasis do. If they fail to achieve their ambitions, so be it, but I think there's enough worthwhile and enjoyable songs here and there over their albums to justify their existence. The fact that Damon's an idiot doesn't really bother me.

Most of the discussion has centred on 'Parklife'/'Great Escape'. What does anybody else think of 'Blur' and especially '13'?

As for me, a benighted American youth with almost no knowledge of British pop culture beyond a typical obsession with Black Adder, Red Dwarf and Monty Python -- I really like Blur. Their songs sound good to me. I like their (metaphorical) love affair with Syd Barrett, with Pink Floyd or solo. I think all their albums, except for the first (which I've not heard) are quite good, verging on great. "Tender," "It Could Be You," and "Coffee & TV" are particularly sublime, in my estimation.

BTW, what's "pomo" or "po-mo" ?

apart from that: the debut is dog-food, the self-titled fifth is patchy, but with some good tunes. 13 was spoiled by orbit's over-elaborate production. the new one is a step back in the right direction, but not back to their best.

no i haven't just been listening to crap, thanks snarkers.

("13" >>>>>>>>>>>>> "Kid A", obv.)

i wish mr coxon would get back to some of the guitar work he was up to at that point...

Blur are probably the most consistent guitar band of the last decade (or fifteen years, whatever).

This one has got a similar mood. It's Great Escape meets 13

I like it but it’s a Damon album backed by Blur

I was thinking this, but then I started wondering how that might not apply to all Blur albums

Only just learnt that Sweet Song is about Graham, and in that context it's rocketed into my favourite Blur songs

it’s a Damon album backed by Blur with a bit of fan service thrown in…and that’s ok.

would be my hot take if I were reviewing.

There 's a good bit in the Apple Music interview for the album, where Alex and Damon are saying how the new record came together so easily, the old magic was there as soon as they started to play etc. It's undercut by Graham quietly saying "I've never done so many guitar takes for an album". He looks so vulnerable, you almost wonder if he's being exploited for forced labour.

Interesting to frame this new album against The Great Escape,

there's absolutely no question that it's better than the great escape

― ufo

There's nothing on here as good as The Universal, Best Days, He Thought Of Cars, Entertain Me or Yuko & Hiro. At the same time there's probably nothing as bad as Top Man or Mr Robinson's Quango.

Somehow The Great Escape is still one of the Blur albums I go back to the most.

Was thinking about Topman recently - could potentially have been great had they increased the BPM and lost that annoying low vocal that grates from the start

OK let's do this now

weakest opening track of their career. off to a good start here lads

Jesus, that encore. That's only their second time playing "Clover Over Dover" live, ever! Possibly my favorite Blur song (it was my #1 in the Blur tracks poll) -- I would've flipped out. Gotta shout out "All Your Life" too. That's a top-tier b-side.

Not really into Ballad of Darren. Aside from "St. Charles Square" (which rules), the best moments just remind me of recent Arctic Monkeys stuff. I'm thinking, like, "So turn the music up / I'm hitting the hard stuff" from "Russian Strings," and a few other bits. Which just makes me want to listen to the last couple Arctic Monkeys albums instead. Whereas "St. Charles Square" doesn't necessarily make me want to listen to Scary Monsters, it just makes me wish there were more songs like it on the album.

Goodbye Albert is the closest thing to a good song so far imo, this has been sentimental energyless dreck

there was something muted about St Charles Square, it never took off for me

comfortably slotting alongside the magic whip in their bottom two albums, not that it's particularly close

the bridges of she's so high and slow down alone would put leisure above their combined virtues, the others absolutely no contest

i mean leisure is pretty good, has loads of cool sounds and good songs, unlike this nonsense

ooh it got noisy for no reason! really earned that noise! really built up to it! just like that battle-mellow song-trailerpark-caramel-trimm trabb suite that culminates finally in two colossal and contrasting outpourings of musical catharsis, except without literally any of the music

i am the splash of cold water to the face that this thread hardly deserves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turrican_II:_The_Final_Fight

lol, turrican probably loves this album

At the same time there's probably nothing as bad as Top Man or Mr Robinson's Quango.

you know, Topman is the most TGE thing on TGE. it's like the sickly artifice underpinning the whole album extracted and enlarged under a microscope. they're not the highlights but if you take away those songs it starts to look a little more like "Parklife Part 2". whereas if you minus The Universal or He Thought of Cars it still has an identity.

idk the idea that albums would be better resequenced without the stage-setter tracks is all too prevalent on this board.

galaxy brain here, threatening to undermine all my good work being right about blur above: mr robinson's quango is undroppable from tge

i mean Blur's albums are mostly uneven and this is maybe the worst thread for making this case since e.g. Parklife prob *would* be better if you cut at least a third of the songs.

that this thread hardly deserves

agreed

don't worry imago we were planning to erect a statue of you itt. i have the top ascii artists in the country working on it as we speak.

I hope the names of every Blur album actual sentient humans posting itt think this new one is better than are incorporated into said ascii statue

the great escape has a few great highlights but is mostly them running out of steam & at their most annoying, so i never want to listen to it

It’s one of the most depressing albums I’ve ever heard, can’t say I ever really enjoyed listening to it but that has nothing to do with its quality.

(the great escape)

Deflatormouse OTM about TOPMAN. It is absolutely that album's "eye of the duck"

The Great Escape always reminded me of something like Seven & the Ragged Tiger. Eye of the storm kind of records.
Very confident, but with more than a touch of hysteria beneath the surface, production tarted up to make up for the dip in song quality.
Overcooked... and interesting on occasion.

i like this album a lot! it's made me go back and listen to all of Blur's catalogue, which TBH I was not overly familiar with outside of the debut, s/t, and 13.

https://tapenotes.co.uk/project/tn119-blur-james-ford

^ Podcast about the making of the new rekkid.

i love the great escape :)

but i am a miserable person

blur discog run revealed to me yet again that i only really love s/t, 13, and think tank, but i do have some nostalgic affection for great escape bc it was my first blur record, also any album with “the universal” + a bunch of garbage would be significant, and it’s more than that

I'm in the same boat, Blur up to TGE is a little repertory, a little camp, a little cheeky. And then Graeme decided he'd like to be in Pavement and so the albums became chaotic, dissonant and melancholy in response, which is much more interesting for me, and makes the pop jewels shine brighter.
I'm loving The Ballad of Darren, those folks calling it "subdued" need their heads read. "Barbaric" is one of those chord progressions which feel timeless, as if written in the fabric of music.

Thanks for the podcast link - really enjoyed it. The amount of media work that the band has done to promote this record is phenomenal.

“ And then Graeme decided he'd like to be in Pavement and so the albums became chaotic, dissonant and melancholy in response, which is much more interesting for me, and makes the pop jewels shine brighter.”

This is when I started to care about Blur

After being initially nonplussed by it, Darren is now comfortably slotting into my #3 Blur spot behind s/t and 13. How many comeback records are as good as this?

Spotify Wrapped just reminded me that Blur released an album this year lol. It would be interesting to see how listening figures went for this because I must have played it so much in the week it came out that it pushed Blur into my top 2 most played artists, only to never be played again

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/blur-add-ca-headlining-show-with-jockstrap-ahead-of-coachella/

I might have to go to this.

My wife was looking at it…

I saw Blur with Pulp and they both were so good live, the 90s ruled.

Ugh, so jealous. One of my biggest regrets was missing out on a ticket to perhaps my best chance to see Blur. They did a one-off show at the relatively intimate Brooklyn Bowl, which was a 15 minute walk from my apartment. ARRRRGH.

I forgot tickets went on sale today, I checked in two hours later and it was sold out.

My wife got two pit tix. She plans to take our son, for his first concert experience…

The show more or less sold out in minutes. Pit tickets were priced at $125 plus fees but quickly shot up to $400, $550, and then $600 per ticket (plus fees) via "AXS Premium" (the equivalent of Ticketmaster's Platinum). Later some single loge seats popped up for around $550 each, plus fees.

Unreal.

Wow… sounds like she lucked out

That's awesome morrisp, they should have a blast.

Watched the entire Brit awards thinking they were perfoming ;/