BLUR

"What happened to us?

 Soon it will be gone forever

Infatuated only with ourselves

And neither of us can think straight anymore"

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“C”

 

Main Decade: 90's 

Main Ages: Brit Rock (1991-???)

​Key Members:

Damon Albarn, Singer

Graham Coxon, Guitar

Alex James, Bass

Dave Rowntree, Drums

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Key Songs:

Tender, To The End, The Universal, Girls And Boys, Song 2, Beetlebum, No Distance Left To Run, Parklife, She’s So High, Sing, Coffee and TV, Stereotypes, There’s No Other Way, For Tomorrow, Caramel, End Of The Century, Best Days, This Is A Low, Charmless Man, Swamp Song, Advert, Sing, Entertein Me, Mellow Song, Music Is My Radar, Colin Zeal, On Your Own, Country House, Bugman, Chemical World, You're So Great

 

Blur has a huge advantage that many 90s bands lack: two geniuses in their lineup. Damon Albarn, as a singer, has a voice that's perhaps too nasal, but he's a genius at creating melodies and hooks out of nowhere, taking a clear influence from the Ray Davies or Lennon-McCartney schools without falling into the obviousness and brazenness of Oasis, and also adding influences such as Ian Brown of the Stone Roses, among other more modern ones, to finally create a style of his own, inventive and delicious, always bordering on the freshness of pop and the audacity of the experimental. He's also a good lyricist, an Anglophile like Davies at times, but generally with a certain wit and British humor that make his lyrics superior to the average 90s band. And on the other hand, Graham Coxon, with a devilishly astute, creative, and playful guitar that respects the musical foundations, yet has fun creating riffs and hooks left and right, and creates perfect structures for Damon to round out with his vocals.

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This combination makes Blur's material very well crafted, commercial at times, but always showing great intelligence in musical construction, and consequently releasing quite solid albums with very little filler for the time (except for Think Tank, which was already in full dissolution). In the eternal debate between Oasis and Blur, my humble opinion is that Blur is far superior to Gallagher and company. Why? Simply put, because Oasis made simple things seem complicated. They took basic structures. Their songs are generally circles in the same key (almost always in G) with the same distorted guitar tricks, even going so far as to plagiarize themselves, and drawing attention to themselves with their controversial off-stage lives. Blur does the opposite: they achieve complex structures and arrangements and make them look effortless. And even fun. And Blur doesn't resort to tricks like reworking "Wonderwall" countless times with different lyrics. Instead, they seem to reinvent themselves every so often. They play with different rhythms, aren't afraid to experiment with electronic music and gospel. They mock grunge and the Americans, and take risks, almost always successfully and intelligently. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't quite like at least three Oasis albums, nor that I despise them. I simply consider Blur to be a far better band and far better musicians, without needing to chase the spotlight with nonsense. Not only that, but I see them as one of the best bands of the '90s, with a rather underrated experimental album (the 13th) that, in my opinion, is on par with OK Computer.

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How did this very interesting band come about? It turns out that Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon had been friends since childhood, unlike many other bands where the core members didn't meet until their youth. Damon had a band called Circus, and in 1988 a position opened for a guitarist, so he called his best friend to join. Around that time, they had just met Alex James, a classmate of theirs at Goldsmiths College in London, and in December, two other members of Circus left, so they brought Alex in to fill the bassist position. Dave Rowntree completed the combo on drums. Since it was practically a new group, in early 1989 they changed the band's name to "Seymour," after a novel of the same name by J.D. Salinger (also the author of "Catcher in the Rye," a book famous for many reasons).

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The group began to gain a strong fan base in mid-1989 and to refine their carefree sound, which was associated with the so-called "Madchester" movement. In November, Andy Ross of Food Records heard them and was impressed, so he immediately brought them to his offices to offer them a contract. The only "but" was the band name, and I genuinely agree, wondering if they would have had the same success with a name as silly as "Seymour." Anyway, Ross gave them a list of names to choose from, and the one they disliked the least was Blur. Even so, the contract wasn't signed until March of 1990, and they immediately hit the road. During breaks, they took time to go into the studio and begin recording their own material that had emerged on tour. It wasn't until October that they began releasing their first singles: "She's So High," which enjoyed relative success on the charts, and "There's No Other Way," which reached #8 and established them as stars in England. For the first time, a group from the "Madchester" movement was seen standing out for a more distinctive sound.

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With the relative success of their first singles, Ross took them into the studio to record their first LP, Leisure, which was released in August 1991. Despite being recorded in a hurry and the last songs written at the microphone, it was a solid and fun debut, already revealing the genius of the great Albarn/Coxon duo. The album is the one that most closely resembles the Madchester movement, but at the same time reveals a band with its own identity.

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From this debut, Blur would continue to grow. As fate would have it, due to the mismanagement of their manager, the boys were left with a debt of 60,000 pounds, despite the fact that the tour was going well. They immediately fired him and replaced him with Chris Morrison. They tried to raise the money they owed by releasing another single, but soon saw that they had to undertake a tour of the United States to do it quickly, so the record company sent them on a tour that would forever change the band's sound. The result was that they realized that Blur was NOT for the United States and nor was the United States for Blur. Yet. The tour was disastrous, with the band feeling homesick, which made them go up on stage drowned from drunks (particularly Damon), which caused the people, who wanted Grunge and not a string of Brits singing to the queen, to bring them down with bottles and spit. There were more than one argument, and this caused a vicious cycle that strained the band almost to the point of breaking up. They didn't get the money, but Blur were fed up with the United States and began to revalue the traditions and "simple things (aha) of England." One day, Albarn and Coxon heard the Kinks' The Village Green Preservation Society and, along with the idea Justine Frinschman had put in Damon's head to create a sound representative of England (an idea borrowed from her ex, Brett Anderson, Suede's vocalist), they decided that was the direction the group should take. Despite the fact that Suede had replaced them as the band of the moment when they returned home, they set to work hard. Modern Life is Rubbish, released in 1993, completely distances itself from the Madchester movement and focuses entirely on Anglophilic sounds and lyrics, portraying everyday traditions and details. Albarn would deny Suede's influence, but Justine Frinschman would play a pivotal role, serving as an involuntary bridge between the two. It's not a masterpiece, but it was the spearhead of the Brit Rock movement, which would be joined by bands like Oasis, Pulp, Elastika, Breeders, The Verve, and others, as a counterweight to the American Grunge invasion. Young Englishmen, already yearning for something more local, a music they'd been short on since the Stone Roses, turned Brit Rock into a phenomenon, to the point that it would end up tipping the scales in its favor and Grunge would disappear within a few years.

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Parklife would confirm them as a giant band. It's one of their best albums, and at least the one that best represents this Anglophile period. On Parklife, they achieved complete mastery of the style and with it would spread to the rest of the Brit Rock movement that erupted that same year, managing to transcend the British Isles and finally achieving success in the United States, at the height of Grunge. Blur expanded with a sound that encompasses genres such as disco, music hall, French ballads, punk, pop, psychedelia, rockers... all woven together with a subtle touch of Brit Rock that gives the album a sense of unity that's lacking on The Great Escape. The songs here sound varied; there's no dominant genre, but the album still feels cohesive, with a direction. The songs are part of a whole, and that gives the album a very strong personality. Parklife is undoubtedly one of the key pieces of the 90s sound, and I don't think it has yet to receive its full appreciation.

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The Great Escape from '95 is a confirmation, a sort of lesser-known follow-up to Parklife, with the band feeling a bit over-eager from their success. But while it doesn't quite maintain the masterpiece-like quality of its predecessor, it's still an excellent album, with Coxon at his best and some of Damon's best lyrics. By this point, they were already locked in a deadly battle with Oasis, which led to the so-called "Britpop Wars," in which the first singles from both bands' respective albums were scheduled for release on the same day. Blur's "Country House" would win the battle over the Gallaghers' "Roll With It," but later the odious little brothers would boast of winning the war, as their album, "What's The Story (Morning Glory)," outsold the Great Escape. In the end, it turned out to be a lopsided contest, with Oasis' best album against Blur's average one. In my opinion, in the end, weighing up tracks and albums, Blur sweeps Oasis aside, despite having split up almost 10 years earlier.

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With the 1997 Blur, they took another stylistic turn, perhaps more accommodating, moving away from Anglo-centricity and sounding a little more American. They were supposedly parodying American music more directly, but Blur's sounds certainly resonated more with American youth, and songs like "Beetlebum" and "Song 2" became the band's biggest global hits, omnipresent on MTV.

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In 1998, Albarn broke off a nearly seven-year relationship with Justine Frischman, vocalist of Elastika, and sank into a complete depression. This left Coxon with absolute creative control over the next album, the experimental and atmospheric 13, one of the most underrated gems in rock history. 13 was released in 1999 and enjoyed little commercial success, despite good reviews. However, there was already notable friction within Blur. Coxon argued with everyone for various reasons, and the others blamed him in some way for the album's lack of success. The group took a break, and Damon started another, more electronic project called Gorillaz. By 2002, Graham, fed up and seeing that Damon was focusing more on his new project, left the band.

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2003's Think Thank You only confirmed that Blur without Coxon was like the Beatles without Lennon or the Stones without Richards. The album was disastrous, horrible, and pointless. And Albarn would finally officially disband Blur to fully dedicate himself to his Gorillaz.

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In 2008, there were rumors of a full band reunion. Coxon finally relented, and the group performed in full, headlining several festivals, already a cult favorite after several years of silence. Although they stated they had no plans to release a new album, in 2010 they released a single called "Fools Day," available for download from their website and with a limited edition of 1,000 vinyl copies. The single, while not a work of art, recaptures the essence of the old Blur: Damon's vocal hooks, Graham's guitar wizardry, and the personality of the rhythm section.

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There are currently rumors that they would release another single in 2011, but the band has denied that they are planning to record a full LP: "There are no plans for another world domination," said Damon with his peculiar sense of humor.

 

Although I haven't lost hope.

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A huge band, I believe it will continue to grow over the years as a new audience understands it, since at the time, despite the success it achieved, it was still overshadowed by bands like Radiohead and Oasis.

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No Distance Left To Run… with you, Blur!!!

 

 

By Corvan   

Jul/28/2011

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