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

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

I think there's far, far worse songs in Blur's discography than 'Crazy Beat', which I've always found to be the complete opposite of offensive. Even now, I still don't quite get what's meant to be so awful about it or what makes it stand apart from other Blur songs of the same ilk as something particularly awful.

While it's true that we could all make different "best of" compilations, and they'd all be very different, I still think that this band have obvious classics which you'd find featuring on most of 'em.

I've just been thinking about this band, and two things have sprung to mind... one is that I can't think of another band of the era where all the band members were equally unlikeable, yet they somehow managed to put out some genuinely beautiful music. Secondly, it's amazing how much their career looks calculated in hindsight.

xp - what would those be? I cannot think of one completely consensus pick.

While it wouldn't make my personal "best of", I can pretty much guarantee that 'This Is a Low' would make it onto most of 'em. 'For Tomorrow', 'Sing', 'Beetlebum', 'Badhead', 'The Universal' and 'Blue Jeans' easily.

and possibly 'Caramel' and 'Out of Time', too.

Hm, not convinced, sorry, don't know if even two of those would be on my CDR

Blur tracks poll - the RESULTS thread

Looks like I wasn't too far off!

Wow, there's a (to me) surprising amount of dislike of The Magic Whip on here! The several Blur fans I know & myself included were all very impressed by it. I find My Terracotta Heart somewhat whiny (but not too off-putting) and the bit in Ghost Ship where Damon sings 'HONG KONG' annoys me, but I can find little wrong with the album apart from that.

Blur were pretty much my first big love in music, I got into them after Parklife was released, I was 14 then. Loved it all and For Tomorrow more than anything, which made MLIR my default favourite for a long time.

Nowadays I think I'd rank the albums as such:
Blur > MLIR > Parklife > TMW > Think Tank > 13 > Leisure > TGE
...and I enjoy it -almost- all the way to the end.

Leisure: Sing is gorgeous; I love Come Together and Wear Me Down; the singles are pretty good, especially There's No Other Way. But there's weaker stuff as well. I've always disliked Fool

Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife: two classics which are some of the greatest albums released in the Britpop era (one that was very important to me) and feature loads of amazing songs. I keep changing my mind over which of the two albums I prefer. I remember listening to Parklife recently and thinking that every song (save maybe for the instrumentals) was memorable in a good way. I have to say that I'm not overly fond of 'Tracy Jacks' or 'Jubilee', but there's times where I'm enjoying the hell out of those too.
Absolute highlights: For Tomorrow, Star Shaped, Coping, Badhead, End Of A Century, To The End, Trouble In The Message Center, This Is A Low.

The Great Escape... this is the one album I have strong issues with. Way too overproduced and overdone, waaay too annoying - I think it's got too much of the 'Dan abnormal, not normal at all!' in-your-face attitude as a disguise for mediocrity.
I remember hearing some early live versions of Country House, Mr Robinson's Quango and Globe Alone and they were so, so much more promising in those energetic, fiery performances than how they ended up on the album. It was all a huge disappoinment to me, which I couldn't even admit to myself back when I was a kid (couldn't believe they could come up with such a lesser record), that probably made me want to distance myself from the album even more afterwards. I hardly ever listen to it, I tend to get annoyed when I do.

Blur: I adore every little bit on this album. Just going to name one song as my highest highlight, which is Strange News From Another Star.

13: I want to have this higher in my ranking because there's so much beauty on it. But there's some annoying stuff too, like Bugman.
No Distance Left To Run is very pretty but it often makes me think of Matt Lucas & David Walliams 'Rock Profile' parody song.
Lots of people seem to have Trimm Trabb as their fave off the album. I like it but never noticed it all that much more than the other good songs on the album. I've always had a soft spot for Trailerpark (I think I might be a bit alone on that one).

Think Tank: a bit like 13: a lot of good stuff mixed in with some annoying bits here and there, which is why it comes somewhat later in the list. The Crazy Beat intro is the worst offender for me.
Like MLIR and Parklife, I find it hard to rank Think Tank and 13 as opposed to one another.

The Magic Whip: as I wrote at the start of my post, I find it a very impressive comeback with a lot of fantastic songs. New World Towers and Pyonyang are my favourites here, even if the latter sounds a lot like Blur doing Elbow.

PS anyone heard the early demo of For Tomorrow, which is featured on one of the rarities discs in the Blur 21 box set? It originally sounded like Space Oddity - a bit too much trying-to-be-Bowie but it's gorgeous.
Also interesting is the 'Electric' version of Far Out - it would have been such an awesome single! I wonder if Damon got the chipmunk voices in so he wouldn't be be upstaged by Alex.

The Magic Whip: as I wrote at the start of my post, I find it a very impressive comeback with a lot of fantastic songs. New World Towers and Pyonyang are my favourites here, even if the latter sounds a lot like Blur doing Elbow.

Heh, I think it sounds more like Japan than Elbow, which is a huge reason why I think it's one of the highlights of the record. 'New World Towers' is a dud, IMO, and it kills the momentum of the album being placed as the second track, too.

Trimm Trabb reminded me too much of the Shake n' Vac advert.

Which bit!?!

Struggling to do this. I've re-listened to everything and I don't really know. How do you judge an album: is the best one the one with the highest highs or the one which is the most consistent? I don't really listen to albums any more, I haven't done for years, so I tend to forget that each of these albums has got some rubbish on it.

I'm going to put 'Blur' and 'The Great Escape' below 'Parklife', 'Modern Life Is Rubbish', '13' and 'Think Tank', in the case of the former because once you get beyond the tracks that I really like (Beetlebum, Death of a Party, Country Sad Ballad Man) it feels a bit thrown together and half-arsed, and in the case of the latter, the highs aren't really that high.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Blur
Modern Life Is Rubbish
Parklife
The Great Escape
Think Tank
13
The Magic Whip
Leisure

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

^ This is fantastic. The Magic Whip tracks stand nicely against the hits.

I am well aware I will be in a minority of one on this but for me it is Leisure. While its not my favourite album in the world ever there is a less of an overarching smug self awareness on this record and the songs work by themselves on a more basic level without the need for any sort of pompous attempt at le grande concept or vain clutching at addressing the zeitgeist, be voices of a generation etc, etc After Leisure, despite the odd good song, I reckon they largely disappeared up there own backsides completely.

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from with that... Leisure is riddled with flaws, but the members of Blur have never really been a particularly likeable bunch of people, so I can understand why the record that has the least amount of the band members' personalities in it would have an appeal for some people.

You know what's good off of Leisure? 'Wear Me Down'

The things about 13 that I return to:

1. The opening track *is* overly long, but that works well in context, as it's very straightforward and leads into an album that's anything but. Sort of drags out the normality of things as long as it can.
2. Immediate move into Bugman (and they hadn't done anything like that before, and no Song 2 doesn't count) is a major indication that this album is going to be a weird ride.
3. Next move to Coffee & TV which is the weirdly chorded "hit" video. Basically album is saying that even at the most accessible, we're still going to be pretty far out.
4. Swamp Song through Trimm Trabb is kind of the meat of the album, where Orbit goes bananas.
5. No Distance Left To Run is the somewhat exhausted end to all of this.

In general, album starts out like Rolling Stones, but so repetitive that you realize something is wrong/off. Then goes out into wierdsville. Then returns on the last song. Back to Rolling Stones Territory, but with some humility.

I don't consider myself a huge blur fan, but was completely blown away by 13 on release, and it still holds up. I like all their other albums to varying extents, and Parklife might in fact be the one that they always wanted to make, but 13 is the one that makes them great, after the warmup of blur. Producer (Orbit) coming off of one of the best production jobs of all time, probably deserves a lot of credit.

Hmm. I wish I could say that I was completely blown away by 13 on release but truth be told, I wasn't. I'd really enjoyed Blur and still consider it to be one of their finest ever records, however when 'Tender' came out as a single I thought it was okay, but not really anything much more than that. When I finally heard the album, I enjoyed about half of it but disliked the production and thought a lot of it sounded half-baked. I got the impression that they weren't really trying. My view of the album is a lot more favourable now, and I really love the use of stereo on the album (it's a great headphones record) but I go to it for select tracks and never listen to the whole thing. I still think that the record could have been better and the band could have been more focused - e.g. the final version of 'Battle', I truly believe that could have been much better.

I was blown away on release. In fact I was already blown away in the record shop before I bought the CD when I started listening on headphones. Isn't this a little bit their "Abbey Road"? It is such a rich album. Somehow it is a step further than just rock music. It is a trip.

That's a bit of an unfair comparison, really. Abbey Road is one of the greatest albums ever made, and 13... isn't.

13 belongs in the bracket of post-britpop millennial ambition with idk OK Computer, Six and other things I probably like too much

The Beta Band s/t

Radiator

Yeah, I'd totally put it in the same bracket as OK Computer and Six. Everything Picture, too.

The Beta Band, yes. I'd say Guerrilla rather than Radiator, though.