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| Leisure
Aug '91
FOODCD6
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Often
remembered as a false start before Blur's
eventual ascension to the position of Britpop
spokesmen, 1991's Leisure belongs to a very
different age. Much of it is fairly lightweight:
a naive dance-rock hybrid, and not a million
miles away from EMF. Leisure certainly has its
moments, though, and when they come, they're
quietly stunning: "Sing" (later revived
for the Trainspotting soundtrack) is a
crystalline clatter, guided through huge
psychedelic rain clouds by Alex James' wandering
bass; even today, it sounds one of Blur's most
beautiful moments. "There's No Other
Way" is equally deserving of note; powered
by a titanic baggy beat, it stands as one of the
greatest indie disco floor-fillers of the 1990s.
Despite its faults, Leisure is an occasionally
great album; it's questionable, though, that many
of Blur's "Song 2" converts would even
recognise it as the same band. --Louis Pattison |
Modern
Life Is Rubbish
May '93
FOODCD9
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Blur's second album saw them
finding their feet just before they suddenly went
supernova. In songs like "Chemical
World", they started developing the themes
of everyday British life that would follow them
to their Parklife era. "Sunday Sunday"
provided its own blueprint for the Britpop scene,
showing the traditional Sunday dinner with the
family for what it really is ("You gather
the family round the table and eat enough to
sleep"), while "Advert" follows in
the spirit of Blur's musical ancestors (art
school punks and mods). "Blue Jeans",
meanwhile, demonstrates that Damon Albarn has
always had a talent for writing delicate, sad
ballads. Modern Life Is Rubbish deserves to be
heard, not only to show how much Blur changed
over the years, but because it still stands up
and holds its own against anything they came up
with later in their career. --Emma Johnston |
Parklife
April '94
FOODCD10
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Although Blur had long been
recognised as one of the premier bands
responsible for the reinvigoration of Britpop in
the 1990s, it's 1994's Parklife that truly
provided the template for the entire movement. At
a time when Oasis were aping the sounds of their
pub-rock heroes on Definitely Maybe, Blur drew
from the legacy of the Kinks and Small Faces to
create an album that's as English as a rainy
Sunday in front of the gas fire. Parklife is full
of songs that, quite frankly, don't make much
sense outside of the British Isles, songs that
find joy in the mundane, like "Girls &
Boys" (a song about working-class
holidaymakers in the sun) and
"Parklife" (a day in the life of a
cheeky, unemployed bench-sitter). Witty, ironic
and irreverent, Parklife remains one of those
rare albums that sum up a specific place and time
(Britain in the mid-1990s). For that reason
alone, it can be considered one of Blur's finest
albums. -- Robert Burrow |
The
Great Escape
Sept '95
FOODCD14
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Perhaps when they made this album, it wasn't what
Blur's collective hearts were in. They didn't want to make
another album of joyous Mockney Britpop for the masses, they were
becoming frustrated with their commercial image,
hated the feuding with Oasis, and were keen to
explore the kind of US rock that has inspired
their later albums. This perhaps is why this
album sounds relatively uninspiring when compared
to otehr classic guitar albums of the era, such
as Different Class and The Bends. \par Mockery of
the public image of corporate life rather
dominates the show, with It Could Be You laying
into the Lottery and Ernold Same, Country House
and Fade Away into those dull middle class Home
Counties businessman types, precisely the type of
culture they went into music to avoid. The
melodies don't flow as fast as on Parklife, and
Damon almost sounds bored. I wouldn't bother with
this unless you're a completist, although tracks
like Stereotypes, Best Days and He Thought Of
Cars are pretty respectable. |
Blur
Feb '97
FOODCD19
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Having
found himself at a creative cul-de-sac with
1995's The Great Escape Damon Albarn bought a
flat in Iceland and set about re-evaluating his
role in Blur. What emerged was a more soulful,
democratised sound. Gone were the
Kinks-influenced vignettes about life in suburban
England, to be replaced by a more cathartic
approach. Grunge influences, for so long
off-limits, were now detectable in the loose,
angularity of tracks like "Country Sad
Ballad Man" and "Song 2". Sensing
that this might just be his moment, Blur's
resident hard-core fan Graham Coxon is the
driving momentum behind much of the band's fifth
album. And yet, accidentally or not, some sense
of Englishness lingers--be it the Specials
"Ghost Town" on "Theme from
Retro", early David Bowie on the desolate
"Strange News from Another Star" or the
Beatles on "Beetlebum". Ambitious it
might have been, but the sheer quality of these
songs made Blur their biggest seller to date.
This truly is the great escape. -- Peter Paphides
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13
Mar '99
FOODCD29
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It all begins with a music box
noise, not entirely unlike the beginning of
Trumpton (you know, the kids programme with the
firemen and Windy Miller). Welcome to yet another
new identity for Blur. Gone are the charicatures
of bed-and-breakfast owners and bankers, the
cockernee knees-ups, football and pubs laddisms.
13 is the starkest, most personal Blur album
ever, going further in the direction the previous
self-titled album hinted at. Dealing, for the
most part, with frontman Damon Albarn's broken
relationship with Elastica's Justine Frischmann,
it's as if Blur have ripped their heart out and
left the bloody mess for all to see.
"Tender", with its repetitive cycle of
a tune and gorgeous gospel choir, must surely
remind you of someone special, while "No
Distance Left To Run" is pure, unashamed
heartbeak. Relief comes in the form of the sweet,
Graham Coxon-penned "Coffee And TV" and
"B.L.U.R.E.M.I", which recalls their
punkier days. Oh, and "Bugman" appears
to have utilised the previously untapped musical
properties of a vacuum cleaner. "Country
House", this is not. --Emma Johnston |
Blur:The
Best Of
Oct '00
FOODCD33
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Scanning
the tracklisting of Blur's greatest hits album
it's hard not to reach the conclusion that the
band are a little embarrassed by their earlier
and even mid-career work. Opening with the chart
one-two of "Beetlebum" and "Song
2" (from their eponymous creative watershed
album of 1997) rather than the baggy groove of
debut single "She's So High", the
band's desire to accentuate their more recent
efforts is obvious. Running order aside, it's
hard to fault the 18 tracks which chart the life
and times of one of the country's smartest, most
inventive bands. From the tuxedoed ballad
"The Universal", through cartoon
Britpoppery of numbers like "Parklife"
and "Country House" to the freshly
recorded indie-isms of single "Music Is My
Radar", their searching intelligence, deft
hooks and willingness to sweep the board are
never less than admirable. --Mike Pattenden |
Think
Tank
May'03
5829972
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Think Tank was an emotional
experience for Blur, with reports of
problems--not least the exit of founding member
Graham Coxon half way through recording. With
that in mind you might expect the end product to
be a mess. In the event, although Think Tank ,
like its predecessor, is a hotchpotch of ideas,
it is a cohesive album. After the brash pop of
Damon Albarn's Gorillaz side-project and the
overtly emotional 13 this is a soulful and subtle
affair. There are a couple of classic Blur rock
moments here: "Crazy Beat" is cut from
the same cloth as the pogo-ing classic "Song
2", while the painfully short but brilliant
"We've Got a File on You" sounds like
agitprop punkers Crass in a fight with a Moroccan
snake charmer. But while Damon Albarn still has
an ear for a melody, Blur sound like a different
band without Coxon's guitars to subvert them.
Morocco and Damon's Mali Music have changed Blur.
"Caravan" uses a sleepy rhythm that
plods at a camel's pace, while "Gene by
Gene" employs cross rhythms evoking images
of the desert and sound textures from unorthodox
sources. Blur are now using sounds to create
their music rather than the standard rock line
up. For some fans it may be one evolution too
far, but for fans who appreciate them as they
are--a band that refuses to stay still--Think
Tank should be an interesting listen. --Caroline
Butler |
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