Blur: Classic Or Dud

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

Tennessee?

Of all the songs to look at - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEy5LBHq6OQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM_2EERaJP0
(as above, but Modern Life Is Rubbish)

Uhhh that is totally fucking amazing. I could listen listen to musicians yammer on and on about their albums all day.

No mention of Andy Partridge at all, though?

Toward the very end, surprised that the guy didn't know that AP had produced three tracks, he seems to like XTC too. Graham is such a sweetheart.

partridge comes up toward the end when the host compares villa rosie to xtc.

It was interesting to hear how he got the sounds in Oily Water, but also frustrating when you see him playing things as everything is so complex I know I couldn't possibly play it myself.

I was gutted Graham didn't remember he played a chair leg on Miss America

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

Tennessee?

It's not Tignabruaich, that's for sure.

Can you imagine...
https://www.instagram.com/p/ChRRCvnMEkI

https://preview.redd.it/mw1mm6wcxuh91.png?width=1202&format=png&auto=webp&s=a396615a2264df3e004cef3590de7be8671ca9b1

"Blur. 1994.
Early front cover visual for the album that would become Parklife.
Soft Porn was one of the working titles for the album, and images of London were woven into the developing musical content. So glad that this title and visual direction faltered at the first hurdle though."

Looks more like a Pulp cover

ha exactly my thought!

font is similar to this - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/PulpIntro.jpg

lol that album cover would’ve been perfectly fine. a lot more fitting than the racing dogs. that title, though…

John's got brewer's droop
He gets intimidated by the dirty pigeons
They love a bit of him
(Soft porn!)

Not seen that Softporn cover since in years. Always thought it was Pulp as hell too.

I bet Alex thought it was cheeky

I know they changed design company in 97, but I love to imagine there are rejected Stylorouge artwork in the vaults for Beetlebum etc with the vibe stuck in Great Escape era

"Stylorouge"

On a tangent I remember buying this book a few years ago, in Notting Hill no less:
https://i.imgur.com/vah9rgD.jpg

It's a coffee table book about record packaging from 1999. No Blur as far as I remember but it does have Stylorouge:
https://i.imgur.com/LMr0GF9.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/fLlQzhk.jpg

I wish I had bought it in 1999. It's a cross-section of what was hip in London back then. If I had memorised the contents I would have fit in more easily with hip people. I would have became a hip person, until my references ran out. I would have had to carefully ration my references.

But for every book like it there were probably lots that were rubbish, so I can only appreciate it in retrospect. It's very nostalgic, my generation's equivalent of those Hipgnosis Album Cover Album books but without the Edgar Winter Group or Rick Derringer.

It hails from a time when record companies had a lot of spare money - thus the Bill Evans metal box and the Orbital shrinkwrap and the Spiritualised pill-CD box (not pictured) despite the fact that none of those artists were major a-list chart-toppers - and the designers had begun their training with slide film and cut-outs and glue but who were suddenly using PhotoShop, so they were full of late-90s energy. Also war was over and the future was going to be great etc.

Stylorouge have their own coffee table book and your post has just led to buying a copy for a few quid, so cheers!
https://st33.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/stylorouge-cover.jpg

I want those books!! But this thread has reminded me to buy the new Barney Bubbles when I have money.

I got Sampler in the old Notting Hill Books and Comics Exchange. For the first time in years I've actually read the intro blurb! Coffee table books always have an essay at the front. Typically really serious and portentous. This one talks about how the album cover is in peril because (a) compact discs are smaller than LPs (b) record sales and thus budgets are down. But at the very end:

https://i.imgur.com/AiBxaAD.jpg

It made me wonder what impact the internet had on record sleeves. I should know, because I lived through the 2000s and 2010s, but I've never really thought about it. I have the impression that budgets remained low, but PhotoShop removed the necessity for elaborate physical setups. At the risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy I do have the impression that album covers were more inventive in the 1990s, but perhaps it's because the book is highly selective. Looking at lists of best albums from the 2000s an awful lot of them are portrait photographs of the artist presumably arranged to make it clear that that's who you're getting. The graphic design covers don't seem any more inventive or unusual than their ancestors from a decade earlier.

For a while thumbnail-sized album covers must have seemed the future, so that they could fit on the early iPods that had tiny video screens, but I just don't know. Perhaps the problem is that the market has stratified into mega-touring mega-stars and a smattering of tiny people who barely sell anything, so there's no room for inventive album art to penetrate the mainstream.

The book has nothing to say about Flash or websites etc. Did Peter Saville pick up web design?

One off gig at Wembley next year. One ticket will set you back about £100 though after fees

Blur, Wembley Stadium 🏟
8th July 2023

Tickets on sale 10am (GMT) Friday 18th Novemberhttps://t.co/pVoIxia1PP pic.twitter.com/xVomuUnQtt

— blur (@blurofficial) November 14, 2022

I remember their last show - more or less a one-off but in Brooklyn. (I think they did a private show elsewhere around the same time.) I was living just a few blocks away from the venue, so it was massively disappointing when I couldn't get tickets in time. Thank God for bootleggers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z_xHoQ87aA

(pro shot to be fair)

Actually, they apparently played MSG with Courtney Barnett in 2015 too - totally missed that.

I'm miserable to have still never seen them but I can't really afford this

Playing their classic album The Magic Whip in full, no encores

Suede are finally touring America; wish that old rivalry would spur Blur to do the same. I’m generally wary of reunion shows but Pavement were so good that I’m open to taking chances. Well, that and my work discount on concert tickets means I’m only out $10 or so.

Holding on for tomorrow
Never-before-seen, coming soon in technicolour#modernlifeisrubbish pic.twitter.com/cXjyR6xMaM

— blur (@blurofficial) May 9, 2023

Some kind of MLIR 30th anniversary reissue fest? Maybe I can finally throw away my StarShaped VHS.

The Starshaped DVD had the sound all fucked for the main feature. They never recalled it.

Yeah, a terrible shame, all the music portions are distorted, EMI really fucked it up.

surprise!

New album, The Ballad of Darren, out 21st July 2023.https://t.co/NYFL2LW7On pic.twitter.com/5uh5O5q5yl

— blur (@blurofficial) May 18, 2023

excited to hear if it's somehow even worse than the magic whip

I'm so fuckin excited

The album cover is brilliant btw

post-13 i've only paid attention to anything Albarn-related via singles (mostly gorillaz) but that coachella performance is enough to have me looking forward to this one, and maybe i should check out magic whip

the magic whip has its moments. a few.

It wouldn’t take much for this record to be better than the last one, which was stunningly … I don’t even wanna say bad, it just didn’t register with me at all.

don't believe i ever heard think tank either.

think tank is nearly as good as 13 imo. ppl who hate "jets" be quiet

(I’ll defend TT any day of the week, but acknowledge that I’m very much in the minority there.)

missed opportunity to make a concept album called Tory Cheese Twat

other post-13 albarn worth checking out: good bad queen

don't think I have ever listened to think tank all the way through, but I've listened to the magic whip at least twice. ama.

(didn't bother with think tank because I couldn't stand 'tender' and the song titles looked stupid)

Magic Whip & Think Tank are flippin great

oh tender was on 13. Well I haven't listened to that either.

Interesting to hear them wholeheartedly embrace the full-throated anthemic Britpop sound they've studiously avoided since, like 1999!

Magic Whip & Think Tank are flippin great

correct