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

The Magic Whip over The Great Escape is foolishness

Eight of you. My fucking god. Although presumably 7 of them are NV socks

The Magic Whip over fucking Think Tank is foolishness!

Well, those results seems about right to me! In fact, the results are pretty close to my own ranking, except for the self-titled one being lower and 13 being higher on the list (the latter of which I'd expected).

Inspired by this thread I listened to the Great Escape again last week, and I wasn't half as annoyed by it as I expected to be. I don't think it'll go up in my ranking, but I can still enjoy it. And the Universal is really really gorgeous.
'Dan Abnormal' might still be my least favourite Blur album track. And while 'Entertain Me' starts out great, I dislike the chorus.

Remembered my password too late to vote but I would've gone for 13

Eight of you. My fucking god. Although presumably 7 of them are NV socks

the good half of TGE would've been my vote if I voted, the one track I remember hearing off Magic Whip has probably stopped me from ever listening to Blur ever again

which I'm fine with

so yeah obv I wd've spammed the vote for that tragedy, If I Did It

I never realised 13 was so popular - not just on here, I've found a few other 'rank the albums' things online where it's placed 2nd to Parklife. It's an album I admire and like in parts but I can see why people love it. The little instrumental bits between songs are good.

It's interesting to see this re-evaluation of 13. When it came out it was seen as a bit of a patchy mess of a record with very little through-line. It's still not a perfect record. Lots of nothingy tracks (don't like Trailerpark or 1992 very much), but it's also got some of their best songs. In retrospect it's maybe one of their most enjoyable records.

I think Trailerpark is great, fwiw

and 1992. Where now for dog latin

Really surprised Great Escape is so low

Guess I have to give Magic Whip another shot

I still see 13 as a patchy mess, just it's a patchy mess that I like more now than I did in the late '90s. I wrote '1992' off at the time as being a lesser version of 'Sing', but now I find its use of noise compelling.

Damon should really stay the fuck away from using falsetto.

I don't know how much company I'll have, but expanded 13 also includes Music Is My Radar, which is actually one of my favorite non-album singles. Kind of Can, I guess. I was really excited when it came out, and then somewhat let down by Think Tank. The b-sides were pretty great as well.

I hated 'Music Is My Radar' when it first came out, but now I prefer it to about half of 13.

I always hated how the British Leisure didn't have "I Know," and the US one didn't have "Sing."

I bought 13 when I was 13. It was probably the turning point in my music listening habits. Prior to that purchase, my favorite album was Saturday Teenage Kick by Junkie XL. 13 will always be my favorite Blur album, warts and all.

xp the US version didn't have Sing??
that's like the main reason for owning it

'I Know' is fucking garbage.

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

― an uptempo Pop/Hip Hop mentality (imago), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:41 (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm interested in expanding on this because I think there are probably some more really good examples of late-'90s psychedelic/proggy indie (the Gorky's thread revive got me thinking, as did listening to bands I'd previously ignored this past week like The Soundtrack of Our Lives and pre-Mobile Disco Simian). I think Clinic might fit in somewhere? Also I'm just fascinated by those between-scene eras that are often talked about as creative wastelands but never really are.

This poll is almost right.

think tank deserves better

Watching a dance floor clear in summer '03 when the duck call in "Crazy Beat" started has sullied my memory.

Think Tank is pretty great if you drop Crazy Beat, definitely top 3 for me

^^

and with modern technology, you can drop crazy beat!

Although I choose not to, because I enjoy the track and find it odd how it's always been singled out for criticism as if it's one of the worst things the band have done, which of course it isn't.

They did worse earlier.

Yeah, there's a couple of things on Leisure that are worse, and some real stinkers among the b-sides.

Although, Blur were a far better b-sides band that they're generally given credit for.

*than

Hmm, I'd go MLIR > Parklife > Blur > TGE > Leisure > TT > 13. I struggle to recall anything from the last two, and 13 in particular has so much flab, and really only three good songs.

13 is the least dated

Blur and Modern Life is Rubbish are the two I find myself returning to the most. I like 13 more now than I did almost 20 years ago.

I liked it better then, I think - it was my #17 album of the year. I imagine it would struggle to make the top 40 now, although the thought of having to listen to tons of 1999 music to find out is depressing. Maybe next year, after the inevitable Pitchfork article about how it was a pivotal year in popular music, uncoincidentally written by someone born in 1982.

Almost every album sparked the same contradictory emotions, you admired them, then you wanted to strangle them. It has to be Modern Life for Blue Jeans, don't you think? Out of Time is also damn near perfect.

Some bands I like to name check,
And one of them is BLUR,
Classic songs with a long history
Southern boys just like you and me.
Be-El-You-Are
Flashback to 1991,
Leisure was their first LP
Later on came Modern Life
Mallard art, and titles to match:
Chemical World, Starshaped,
For Tomorrow, Blue Jeans,
Kazoo kazoo you are mine,
Oily Water was my least favourite song,
Oily Water was my least favourite song.

Taken from the Blur tracks poll I did in 2011 - not votes for albums, but aggregating the votes for tracks to the albums they came from:

1. Parklife (2,786)
2. Modern Life Is Rubbish (1,808)
3. Non-album tracks (1,535)
4. Blur (1,491)
5. Great Escape (1,341)
6. Thinktank (1,221)
7. Thirteen (1,174)
8. Leisure (738)

If you swap #1 and #7 the results of the poll may be just about right. As an album Modern Life Is Rubbish is the most cohesive though.

Of course I refer to the aggregated tracks results.

Parklife was always a stronger end-to-end listen compared to Modern Life is Rubbish, which I always felt outstayed its welcome by a few tracks (it seems to fall off a little after 'Oily Water' for me) ... Nowadays, I'm far more likely to listen to Modern Life is Rubbish over Parklife, which feels like it's aged quite badly.

I mean, I don't want to say Parklife sounds dated, but it is strongly evocative of a very specific time which is at odds with now.

I always found Parklife a big drop-off after Modern Life Is Rubbish. Girls & Boys is such a crap song, I found it ridiculous the first time I heard it just when it had come out and the whole album was such a mixed bag and not really holding together.

This is crazy talk afaic - "Girls & Boys" is one of their standout tracks, and Parklife is pretty much their most cohesive album. I do agree with Turrican that it is too much of its time for it to resonate with current tastes, and I doubt I'll have the desire to listen to it again some time soon. (I do in fact think it also sounds "dated", but I've never understood why that's such a pejorative. Revolver sounds dated, Thriller and Bandwagonesque sound dated, "In da Club" sounds dated. So what?)

I'm listening to Think Tank for the first time in years. It could definitely do with editing and there are tracks here that do absolutely nothing ('Jets'?) but also it hold up a lot better than I expected

I'd say Out Of Time is up there with the best of their stuff. Actually, I probably did say that (in that poll more than a decade ago).

Is this the current Blur thread? They have just had a disastrous set at Coachella.

the crowd for blur at coachella was so embarassing damon im so sorry i wasn't there pic.twitter.com/k60LxJj8a7

— nicole (@cupidschok3hold) April 14, 2024

with all due respect (I quite enjoyed the set and Blur in general), it was sort of weird that they were on the main stage

i dont really understand who coachella is supposed to be for?

they have gen z fans aplenty throughout the world but idk if many of them were likely to be at coachella

a happier vid from a few days back

Audience member nails “Parklife” with @blurofficial on 4/10/24 at Fox Theatre in Pomona. #blur pic.twitter.com/rNmXXf7Dmy

— Beaker (@Beakerlives) April 11, 2024

They were the best set that I saw yesterday, don't care how it coma across live. We're talking about it on the Coachella thread while it was happening.