There's No Other Poll: Let's rank the Blur albums

also the synths in "moroccan" sound like they came from a kraftwerk record or something, man do they rule

"sweet song"!!!! ok i'll stop

Out Of Time with Graham was amazing at Hyde Park, that's my preferred version now.

Blur is funny for me, i own all their albums expect the one from last year and about 25 singles. loved them at the time but never have the desire to play them now. even when we were running the Blur poll i thought it would be a good time to listen all over again. i never did get around to it and ended up not submitting a ballot.

voting Modern Life.

― To Live and Die In L.A. (Bee OK), Wednesday, March 22, 2017 5:01 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To be quite honest - and this has been hammered home to me by revisiting some of this stuff, which I haven't heard in years in some cases - I'm pretty much in a similar boat regarding this band. At the time I was quite a big fan and played the shit out of all of their albums to varying degrees, and I still do think they were one of the better bands of that period alongside Pulp, Suede, Oasis and of course Radiohead. Some, but not all, of Blur's work (even strictly talking about singles and album tracks here) retains its appeal, particularly the ballads. However, I very rarely have the desire to listen to this band these days and haven't done for quite a long time if I'm to be really honest with myself. I think that for every track that has aged well, there's another three or four which have aged terribly. I'm not just talking about their "knees up around the Joanna" period either, some of which grates on me intensely these days - their later years have a fair amount of self-indulgent meandering bullshit in the name of "experimentation" too.

I'd say I could easily put together a playlist of a couple of hours worth of music that Blur put out that would be incredible, and at the time I thought a lot of this music wouldn't age as terribly as it has done. However, that is the case and as the years advance, it's clear to me that unless there's some sort of revival around the corner that somehow makes some of this stuff "cool" again, the time for Blur's music has long passed. The cheeky chappieisms of 'Parklife', with its Phil Daniels cameo, sound ancient to me, part of an era that is so far in the rearview mirror it can't be fucking seen anymore.

Funnily enough, the Bowie/Roxy-isms of Suede and Pulp have aged far, far better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsedPxv-3_U

wow this sweet song demo is lovely

i even like "jets" but it hits the sweet spot for me of "enormous bassline + sax solo"

As for The Magic Whip - if Blur ever were going to get back together, reform with Graham and record and release new material, the most sensible time to do it would have been around 2005-2006 when people still really gave a shit on the scale they once did. Even the reformation in 2009, as excited as some got about it, was too late. Various people had moved on by then - much of their fanbase, even Damon Albarn himself (let's face it, he wasn't really that arsed about doing a new Blur record, was he?) - The Magic Whip was about 10 years too late.

if graham coxon could only be on one song on think tank i'm sure glad it's the one where his guitar sounds like it's swallowing the earth

"Battery In Your Leg" might be their best closer (when you remember that "This Is a Low" technically isn't one)

Nah, 'Battery In Your Leg' is their best closer. I always thought that 'This Is a Low' was immensely overrated even back in the mid '90s, as far as Albarn ballads goes it's mid-tier, I think.

really upset that they felt the need to put "we got a file on you" on this record though. why do they have one of these per record starting with the s/t

― the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience (BradNelson), Thursday, March 23, 2017 5:22 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This has long bean a bugbear of mine but I think you can trace it back even further to 'Bank Holiday' on Parklife and 'Globe Alone' on TGE.

*been

Yeah, they've been attempting "punk"-style numbers on their records as far back as Modern Life in Rubbish - 'Advert', 'Bank Holiday', 'Globe Alone', 'Chinese Bombs', 'B.L.U.R.E.M.I.' and 'We've Got a File On You' - and all of 'em are highlights of the albums they're from, IMO.

blur closers better than TIAL or BIYL:

essex dogs
yuko & hiro
resigned

admittedly all three have a fair claim to being their best song ever

'slow down' is leisure's punker btw, and it's amazing

"White Light" -- great punk number from the second Gorillaz album

I like both 'Essex Dogs' and 'Yuko & Hiro', but I've always thought 'Resigned' was a bit of a borefest - it's not really much of a song, and doesn't have enough to it to justify its length.

voted s/t as it's the only blur album i've ever really loved. patchy in retrospect, but i still love about half of it. 13's good too.

revisiting 13 for the first time in years... idk, maybe i like it more than the s/t in a way bc the way it spreads out and pursues its ideas so thoroughly that it ends up in v strange places is attractive. the guitar in "trailerpark" is enough to save it imo. "swamp song" isn't great but i even sort of like how it's trying to be the laziest thing possible

even "tender" is an idea pursued to the limits of its own taste (pathos generated in rock ballad through gospel choir) and i can appreciate it from that angle

it's weird that 13 opens with probably their most open-armed pop moment considering what follows

Well, there's two ways of looking at it. Another is that 13 opens with an "idea" ("hey! I listened to this Spiritualized record last night while getting smacked up and, uh...") that is "pursued" beyond its natural limits. Like, "hey, yeah, just keep this going, it felt like the song should have ended two minutes ago, but fuck it, let's keep going anyway..."

Tender is the only song on 13 that doesn't unspool gracefully and elegantly to a satisfying conclusion tbh

Well, there's two ways of looking at it. Another is that 13 opens with an "idea" ("hey! I listened to this Spiritualized record last night while getting smacked up and, uh...") that is "pursued" beyond its natural limits. Like, "hey, yeah, just keep this going, it felt like the song should have ended two minutes ago, but fuck it, let's keep going anyway..."

― Coolio Iglesias (Turrican), Thursday, March 23, 2017 12:32 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, right

anyway, "caramel" is the best blur song

I don't know about the best Blur song, but it's the standout track on 13, IMO. It's one of those tracks where everything gels together really well and it just works. There are portions of 13 which don't work so well... 'Tender' is overlong, 'Swamp Song' takes the riff from Siouxsie and the Banshees' 'Arabian Knights' and does absolutely fuck all with it, I still think they could have got a better version of 'Battle' ...

Turn It Up being the best thing on MLIR just... what? Really? Worst thing they've ever done IMO, stain on an otherwise wonderful LP

I don't think I'd ever heard "Caramel" before. It's GREAT.

Blur is a band I generally like on paper much more than in practice but when things click for me (There's No Other Way, This Is A Low, Music Is My Radar, Song 2, apparently Caramel), they are phenomenal.

13 is one of the best albums of all time.

I went completely batshit over 13 when it came out. Still like it, but I don't think this band has a "best" album. I like pretty much all of them (tailing off near the end of the run) depending on mood. 13 was a pretty great surprise though, when it came out, so I'll give it my vote. Have to add that Ray of Light/13 was a pretty nice producer's run.

13 is the only blur album I've ever heard because a colleague of my father's got given it for a present and didn't like it and it ended up being given to me.

i did quite like it at the time. i struggle to remember any of the songs on it now bar tender, coffee and tv, and, for whatever, reason battle.

blur are still shite basically

Blur is funny for me, i own all their albums expect the one from last year and about 25 singles. loved them at the time but never have the desire to play them now.

Same for me. I even invested in the limited edition anniversary box set back in the day.

ray of light -> 13 -> pure shores :)

"Caramel" was the song in which I immersed myself at the end of my last straight relationship and my realizing I was gay. It's good for that sort of thing.

and oh hey I came up with a best-of two months ago.

I ran that Blur tracks poll back in 2011 and was really excited to see the reformed band for that gig in Hyde Park on the last day of the Olympics in 2012, but I've scarcely listened to them in the last few years and had no interest at all in The Magic Whip - played youtubes of a couple of songs, thought they were shit and didn't pay any attention beyond that. Still, I'll waste the next half hour quickly revisiting the albums...

Leisure - I had no interest in Blur in 1991, never bought this and don't really know it beyond the three really famous songs off it

Modern Life Is Rubbish - listening back, I am genuinely surprised to find I love nearly all of this. For some reason in my head I just associated it with the annoying wackiness at the end of Chemical World and stuff like Sunday Sunday, but that's not representative at all. Best bit is Oily Water followed by Miss America.

OK, this is obviously going to take longer than I realised and I can't stay up all night so I'll come back to this. Just sorted my iTunes to see what I had listened to most since 2009 and, surprisingly, it's Think Tank tracks at the top:
https://flic.kr/p/SCv5uh

Hmmmm. Let's have another go:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3939/33230905600_1425e019a2.jpg

Just did a sort of the most-played Blur songs on my Itunes...

1. There's No Other Way
2. Lonesome Street (I think Magic Whip was the first album I got on this laptop)
3. Girls & Boys
4. Song 2
5. Ambulance

Turn It Up being the best thing on MLIR just... what? Really? Worst thing they've ever done IMO, stain on an otherwise wonderful LP

Ha.. all I said it was the song I most returned to. I concede it sounds nothing like the rest of the album and feels tacked on. But it gets me in a good mood.

If I remember correctly, the band were toying with the idea of releasing 'Caramel' as a single but chickened out. I often wonder what would have happened if they'd just went for it and put it out as the first single without even bothering to make a radio edit or anything, just as Radiohead did with 'Paranoid Android' ... it would have been far more representative of the album than either 'Tender' or 'Coffee & TV', I think. My favourite part of the track undoubtedly is the ending section where Rowntree plays that skittering rhythm while Damon smothers echoing falsetto over the track, and feeling of release when that part kicks in.

also the synths in "moroccan" sound like they came from a kraftwerk record or something, man do they rule

― the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience (BradNelson), jueves 23 de marzo de 2017 17:24 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Are they not? I always thought they were sampling Autobahn (or is it Neoicht?) in that one. My favorite think tank song as well.

lol well it'd make sense if they literally are

I don't really hear the comparison, although I do agree that 'Moroccan People's Revolutionary Bowls Club' is one of the highlights of Think Tank. Some folks are seriously down on that record, but I think the rest of the band compensated for their guitarist not being around quite well. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that Damon's amateurish guitar playing really suits the tracks and I think sonically it's a very good record - I think it's one of their best sounding records.

would probably need to relisten to '93-97 to vote, instinct says Modern Life or Parklife

I think it's one of their best sounding records
this is otm and one of the reasons I keep coming back to it, it's def a sonic outlier, you enter a wholly different room w Think Tank

this is also why crazy beat is so offensive (we apparently have Fatboy Slim to blame for that particular production choice)

surprised to hear Orbit produced 13, can't say I've listened much to it but I don't remember those Orbit trademarks - ethereal space, electronic drums, ghostly synths

it does make sense that Sweet Song is an Orbit production though

There's plenty not to like about Blur, but one thing that's genuinely great about them is that we could all make different 'Best of' compilations, and they would all be very different.

its funny that the actual "Blur Best-of" has the same first two tracks as the "Self-titled' album

madness that they never finished this, although it sounds like bits of The Universal and Tender. such a good idea for a song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA-KZemlev8