I Like Blur

When I think about the bands I love and listen to the most, one name always comes up - Blur. I remember checking them out for the first time over four years ago, listening to them on the 90s radio station and slowly becoming obsessed. And they played a lot of Blur, obviously. One of the biggest bands of the 90s, with two number one hits, as well as countless other singles most people would recognise. Damon Albarn on vocals and Graham Coxon on guitar leading the band, and boy, could they play. Alex James on bass and Dave Rowntree on drums rounds out a pretty solid lineup as well, can't forget about them!

Blur at Hyde Park in 2009. Source: Martin Pettitt from Bury St Edmunds, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

You probably know Parklife, Girls and Boys, maybe even Song 2. Those are probably their biggest hits; the truth is, I don't really like them much. They're not interesting, that's my issue with them, and I think they went on to create far better, more creative stuff. My fave of theirs is 13, their sixth album, where they went off limits and decided to jam whatever the hell they wanted, before sharpening that down into a fantastic little record. However, I do have to admit those three songs jump from Beatlesque chanting to sleek Eurodance to angsty grunge, which is still impressive variety for one of the biggest bands of the 90s.

End of a Century: Leisure and Life (1991 - 1995) 

Maybe the thing that caught my eye was exactly that - how willing they were to experiment, yet still produce some catchy pop music. You can hear that on their first album, the much-maligned Leisure (released 35 years ago to the day). It's a mix of Madchester and shoegaze, although most songs tend to stick to one or the other. The fuzzy guitars and obscured vocals on She's So High are nowhere to be found on the more straightforward, bouncier Bang. They try to be the Stone Roses and Slowdive, but never both, which is a shame.  

For some reason, Damon Albarn hated Leisure so much he course-corrected hard with the follow-up, Modern Life is Rubbish. This was the first in their so-called Life trilogy, themed around catchy Britpop numbers inspired heavily by bands like the Kinks and XTC, with witty observational lyrics on British life. That also meant the heavier guitar tracks started to be sidelined; Modern Life is Rubbish at least has Oily Water and Resigned, both melancholic songs drenched in distortion. Resigned especially is an absolute stunner, with Albarn's abject singing about a man who's surrendered completely to apathy.

Modern Life is Rubbish album cover

However, the rest of the album is far more chipper. "He's a 21st century boy," sings Albarn on the opening track For Tomorrow, with such joy it almost sounds insincere. The band were enthusiastically British to the point it's easy to forget the lyrics often describe just how dismal life here can truly get. In a way, this was deliberate - Blur hated grunge, and wanted to fight back against the attitudes grunge imported over to the UK.

They followed up Modern Life with Parklife and The Great Escape, which brought them more fame, but I'm very mild on both. Parklife especially annoys me; I feel like that album has more filler than most would want to admit, like the carnival-themed instrumental The Debt Collector, the cute but unnecessary Far Out, and the ear-splitting punk-inspired Bank Holiday. Same goes for The Great Escape, with Country House and Ernold Same both incredibly tedious. 

However, I have to admit where Blur shone brightest with these three albums was with their more introspective, slower side. I already mentioned Resigned, but songs like Badhead, To the End, This is a Low (all on Parklife) and Yuko and Hiro, the closer to the Great Escape, are absolutely wonderful ballads. I could listen to them over and over again, and never get tired. It's this side of Blur I love most, which is probably why I fell in love with the three albums that came after this.

Essex Dogs: Blur, 13, and Think Tank (1997 - 2004)

At the time, Graham Coxon had grown increasingly disillusioned with the music industry, and started turning towards music coming from the US, most importantly slacker rock bands like Pavement. He inspired Blur to take on a more lo-fi sound, heavier on noise and distortion, on their self-titled album. I'm kinda mixed on this album, because whilst you have stunning songs like Beetlebum, You're So Great, and especially the droning Essex Dogs, there are also loads of forgettable tracks. Stuff like Theme from Retro, which I admire as an electronic experiment, but otherwise sticks out uncomfortably. You're So Great might be my favourite Blur track, it's gorgeous with Coxon's hesitant vocals and guitar solos that creak anxiously yet beautifully.

13 album cover

Their next album was 13, and it was amazing. They branched out even further with tracks like the country-themed Tender and the noise blast that's Bugman. And they put them back-to-back on the album! There's also Coffee and TV, a wonderful confessional song that sounds like Britpop, aged and looking back at itself in the mirror, which is another stand-out for me. Not forgetting the heartbreaking, almost violent Trimm Trabb, as well as the tender, yearning Caramel. God, every song on this album is amazing...except for B.L.U.R.E.M.I., I guess, but still. It deserves to be considered one of the greatest albums ever, and it's helped me countless times whenever I've felt low. 

Think Tank album cover

That's sort of where I finish with Blur. The follow-up, Think Tank, has its moments like Out of Time and Caravan, but also has its fair share of duds. It doesn't help that Coxon wasn't even on lots of the album, having left midway through the recording sessions. However, the one track Coxon is on, Battery in Your Leg, is another tear-jerker, before being followed up by the aggressive hidden track Me, White Noise. That song feels like the perfect way to finish off with Blur - in the chorus, Albarn sings "Why am I here?/I'm here because I've got no fucking choice", in what feels like a protest against the Iraq War. 

In a way, that's the perfect way to finish off with Blur. Only a decade ago, they were grinning as they sang about quirky outsiders; now, they had fully embraced chaos. The band broke up soon after, and whilst they have since released two albums, they're not as out there as I wished they were. Pleasant, sure, but not transgressive.

Blur deserve to be remembered for their willingness to experiment when they were at the top, more than anything. That's what caught my eye the first time I heard them on the radio, otherwise I'd have just dismissed them as some other 90s band. They'd have been just a blur.