Blur: Classic Or Dud

Ghost Ship is lovely. It's one of the albums keepers for me along with There Are Too Many of us, Pyongyang and I thought I Was a Space Man.

I hate Ghost Ship. For me the quality of each song is on the x axis while the amount of Coxon input is on the y. Whenever I feel like I could be listening to another Albarn project I lose interest.

Somewhat hilariously, Anthony Fantano (alias "theneedledrop") gave The Magic Whip a 6 and mystified a great deal of Blur fans with his descriptions of the tracks. Turns out he was reviewing a fake leak comprising of old Blur B-sides and had to hastily re-do his review.

― You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart (Turrican), Monday, May 4, 2015 2:18 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Anyone else ITT do this? Not me, oh no no....

it's hard to deduce who's dislike of the album is winning here, think it's going to take a few more months of analysis

This album is great. I hear it all around town in various shops and houses. Every track is a pleasure.

*sound of three sleeping giants awaking*

*sound of three sleeping giants awaking*

― PaulTMA, Tuesday, May 19, 2015 7:31 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You're seriously convinced that some of us have been lining up to slag this album off for the sake of it since the album was first announced, aren't you? I can't speak for the others, obviously, but I wanted to be able to file this record alongside their '90s classics, and I just can't. It's nothing to do with waiting in the wings for the album to come out only to slate it at the first opportunity just for the sake of it.

hey, I think this has two good songs on it

I think it has its highlights too, but I'm just not convinced by the whole.

I wish you guys liked it more, but to each their own. I'm super into it. One of my favorite records of 2015, and one of my favorite Blur records.

I think nearly every song is terrific. The weakest is I Broadcast, just generic Blur, but it lasts for two minutes and I enjoy it while it's on. Otherwise, there is so much beautiful detail on this record.

I hear it all around town in various shops and houses.

They were playing it in the Union St Fopp this lunch time. A dreary record for a dreary day.

Yeah, I likes it also.

I did go for the Japanese edition (not actually expensive), and it has one extra track on the end, which is better for it: The normal last track sort of just 'ends', whereas the mostly instrumental extra is somewhat knocked off but works.

At this stage I could live without New World Towers, Ice Cream Man and Ghost Ship but love the rest and think Pyongyang is a bona fide classic. It only falters when Damon clearly couldn't be bothered to build on a vocal melody and stretches it out for a whole song like he did on Everyday Robots.

Paris, yesterday (don't know if this is available worldwide, sorry if it isn't)

http://concert.arte.tv/fr/blur-au-zenith-de-paris

The audio could have been synched better on this video :-(

Don't know what to think tbh - are they always this loose/sloppy?

They have a history of being loose and sloppy, yeah. That performance they did at the Brit Awards in recent years springs to mind.

by the way, the audio synch problems will be solved shortly, according to the comments

"Une version optimale du concert sera mise en ligne dans les plus brefs délais."

Oh my fucking word!

I'm really glad he doesn't post on here anymore.

http://concert.arte.tv/fr/blur-au-zenith-de-paris

reuploaded! the audio synch problems have been solved

So I gave The Magic Whip another chance today and I still don't particularly feel that, on the whole, it's that great. Found myself really enjoying 'Pyongyang', though... it's like Japan doing a cover version of 'Gimme Shelter'.

"Go Out" turns out to be the big standout. Love it. Funny that it was the first track they leaked.

Mixed emotions about this band. Damon wrote some glorious ballads- To The End, Blue Jeans, Out of Time - but then he did all that stuff that epitomised the 90s - smug, superior, pastiche, not half as clever as it thinks it is. Like Hirst was to the art world. Coxon was an inventive guitarist, but the band only had one songwriter. You could tick off his influences - oh, that one's a bit like the Jam, or the Specials, or Ray Davies - but he rarely transcended them. He only really shone on the ballads.

Was going to say, number one album but off the chart after 13 weeks.

Then again, that's only one week less than Think Tank.

yeah but it's 2015

I was going to say that, yes.

Anyone else at MSG, last night?. Shit was fun.

yeah

what an ungood venue for music, especially trying to mix an 18-piece band

interesting that they've been throwing around a few lesser-played songs on dates of late; Country Sad Ballad Man, Caravan, etc. also Villa Rosie was soundchecked for one of the last few dates according to Setlist FM. Villa Rosie!

i was like 3rd row/center on the floor. sounded great to me.

Damon said on Friday that they hadn't played Country Sad in 20 years

I dont think thats true.

Meltdown Festival, 2000 - according to this: http://www.setlist.fm/stats/blur-13d6bd65.html (Sad = 24th in the list)

I guess that's close enough for jazz..

Probably because up to then they seemed to play it all the time. So, possibly not needing too much rehearsal.

I dunno, I guess I'm at that stage of leaving the bus now. I enjoyed the new album very much and it fits right in with the best of the old stuff, but I am unbothered by anything else Damon's done over the past ten, I feel it's Thanks and So Long...

Demon Days is probably the last Albarn-related release that I could say that I wholeheartedly enjoyed, and that came out a decade ago?

already have the 21 cd box, but i went ahead and splurged on the vinyl box. what a wonderful thing it is.

I have the vinyl box, but not the most recent album so I'm a little annoyed that the box is whole yet incomplete

Yeah, I have all the boxed cd versions, similar annoyance.

And that singles set from the ten year anniversary was incomplete when issued.

http://blurarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2012/08/out-of-box-update.html

oops. hit enter too early.
that's a bunch of shit that wasn't in the box set. looks pretty good. downloading now.

my local record store has the magic whip on vinyl at a pretty good price. might pick it up next week.

Wow, thanks for the link! Makes up a bit for not having TMW vinyl. Some kind fellow on reddit sent me an empty TMW ice cream container that was sold in the UK, so silly but fun on my shelf

i think that may be the site i got the Reading '93 and the infamous 92 'Gimme Shelter' shows from. great site

is this that bur archivist guy who encodes absolutely everything in 128 kbps

yup.

all that and his Seymour mp3s have an extra e at the end. Sheesh!
I thought I had a pretty good collection (I imported the Me Me Me single into Canada in the 90s ffs) but by the time I get through all these downloads I will have a "lock me up" worthy collection!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weDtDwHk6LQ

what is the record shop owner's accent??!?!!