UK number ones of 1997

That's the one! I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was.

Someone did a risible version of I Wanna Be the Only One on The Voice the other week actually.

I liked the Spice Girls, Teletubbies and Aqua from that list, but I was six years old and didn't speak English. It's surprising, and quite sweet, how well that list catered to my fairly unique demographic.

Block Rockin' Beats had possibly the best Chems b-side (Morning Lemon).

^^^^^^^^^ yes

such a simple concept too, and yet I can't think of another track quite like it

None of the Spice Girls' tracks here compare to the hits they had the previous year ('Who Do You Think You Are?' probably being the best of the bunch) ... I don't think they really had a truly killer single after '2 Become 1' until 'Stop', which strangely didn't make it to number one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Whoa!

Your Woman is a great little indie hit and was really refreshing for a time when the likes of The Verve, Texas, Reef, Six Colours Red and lots of other trad-rock was dominating the indie mainstream. Beetlebum was also very welcome after the bloat of The Great Escape. Never really got into the Amos remix but I see why people like it. So a good top 3 at least.

The non-remix version of Professional Widow is.. strange.

Beetlebum is such a clumsy-sounding record, literally everything about it.

I think that's what's good about it. I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking 'whoa wait what are you doing?' but it was nice to hear Blur come back with something so understated and awkward after all the bombast

I remember them playing it on Top of the Pops and when the music stopped and Damon sang "and when she lets me slip away", the audience cheered as if they were expecting some kind of big Blur chorus moment, but 'Beetlebum' doesn't really have much of a chorus. The guitar riff is really the hook of the song. I thought it was an odd choice of single, but perversely one which seemed to work.

yeah a bold move for a band at that stage in their career. Albarn's ego had been dialled right back and it was Coxon's guitar that was doing the (literal) grunt-work.

I actually thought Blur were done by the middle of '96 - I seriously thought they were going to break up because it seemed like they were dealing with fame and the whole Oasis thing really badly, and there were always reports of tension within the band. But they then back to their more exploratory side and were as successful as ever!

The big change for me at this point was Albarn's vocal approach - from 1997 there seemed to be more feeling in his vocals and the mockney accent was dialled down a hell of a lot.

Yeah I even gave sold all my Blur CDs to the secondhand shop at the time because I'd become so disenchanted by them immediately following TGE. Bought them all back again of course.

I remember there being a lot of talk of Blur being their attempt to scare away their audience, but large portions of that record was actually quite melodic and even poppy in hindsight, I think, just in a different way to the two or three records before. I don't recall have any difficulty with that record at all.

13 was the real challenge, I thought. I hated that record at first.

I liked it a lot and thought it was a significant improvement on the Great Escape stuff. Just dug up the Blur poll from 2011 to see where it was in my ballot (third).

Edit: 'it' = 'Beetlebum', not '13'

It was the right thing for them to do after the 'Life' trilogy. I think it's probably their most bearable album nowadays. And yeah, things like 'Look Inside America' aren't that radically different from what came previously. 'On Your Own' is the secret gem of course. I think everyone likes that one.

The three way tie of R. Kelly, Olive and Hanson is just weird

x-post:

'On Your Own' and, weirdly, 'Death of a Party' kinda point the way to Gorillaz.

The non-remix version of Professional Widow is.. strange.

― LimbsKing, Wednesday, 15 March 2017 20:34 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i got the clear vinyl release of 'boys for pele' on launch and played it to death assuming i was in a tiny minority, so imagine my surprise when suddenly everyone's listening to a barely-recognisable boppy remix of this song, complete with brand new video featuring tori herself doing some jazzercise and having a bath

Beetlebum has (probably) my favourite Blur track as its b-side, All Your Life.

But I voted for White Town. I think.

White Town - Your Woman 18
Blur - Beetlebum 13

you people are sick

There aren't all that many Blur B-sides that could have been album tracks, but 'All Your Life' definitely one of 'em, even if it is yet another one of Damon's Bowie rips.

There is only four years between the self-titled Blur and the self-titled Gorillaz. That somehow seems weird now.

"Damon Albarn: the smackhead years"

Crazy.