Blur: Classic Or Dud

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

13 is a really good album!

13 is a really good album!

correct

I mean Crazy Beat is kinda naff and the sax part of Jets is daft as a brush but otherwise it rules

Still impressed by the audacity of having Damon take over lead guitar duties and it somehow working

13 and Think Tank are phenomenal and two of my favourite albums ever.

Yeah Crazy Beat and that but even so.

think tank is uneven but one of the better blur albums. 13 is still albarn's best work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gr8Z3rUeJM

this is thankfully much better than anything on the magic whip which was dreadful. the 2012 singles were pretty good though

I'm surprised the band still generates such enthusiasm tbh. I don't mean it as backhanded snark. I have'em stuck in their 1992-2003 peak and never meet anyone in the wild who mentions the '90s stuff. Hell, last week I downloaded the 2000 comp for walking purposes and ended up skipping way too many songs ("Charmless Man," ugh). My local bookstore plays "Coffee & TV" ad infinitum in this playlist I can tell is called "Eighties/Nineties UK Indie" (Smiths, the Sundays, etc.).

The eponymous album and the slow stuff on 13 ("Caramel") are just about all I need.

Still impressed by the audacity of having Damon take over lead guitar duties and it somehow working

That might be because, CB and File on You aside, it never rocks out - no matter how abrasive Damon's guitar can occasionally get elsewhere. Alex and Dave power the record.

they were always pretty uneven really, a mostly great singles act but most of the albums are messes. 13 was just where they turned all the mess into brilliant noise. "caramel" is their best track

still kinda amazed how prolific albarn is, gorillaz just put out an album a few months ago (which i probably should get around to, the one before it was something of a return to form)

They've all been prolific this year sans Alex - this is the fourth Blur-related new album of the year.

Great news! Can't understand people hating on the Magic Whip at all.

Magic Whip just didn't have any of the playfulness or imagination of their other work. It sounded like "what people who don't really care one way or the other about Blur imagine when they think of Blur"

There are at least a dozen pages on the Hoffman board Blur featuring a certain banned member from here telling everyone else they don't like it

Magic Whip was/is good but in the light of day a lesser Blur record. No bad songs, some great ones, some okay ones. The glow of its 2015 rollout will make me think of it fondly forever though.

It had pretty much nothing which sounded like a 'proper' single like they used to do, which might have been a harder sell for some

it was just tuneless and half-baked. some terrible synth sounds too.

no proper singles yeah, but also nowhere near as compelling as the experimentation of 13 and think tank.

it was limp schlock with a very unfortunate side-order of asian exoticism. only 'go out' and the opener bang. ffs

'no bad song' my brother in britpop 'new world towers' is the second track

some okay ones

my favourite classic-Britpop-band album-release news of the day is that there's a new Electric Soft Parade ftr :D

A silver disc of their first album hangs in a pub not far from me and I cannot remember why.

I'm not sure how excited I am about this, I'm a fan and own a bunch of singles but I don't think I actually liked them that much. They're good but overrated.

i'm just pleasantly surprised that the single is decent enough

Can't help feeling a bit excited about this, but mostly I'm just hoping they keep up their post-Think Tank two-good-songs-per-decade streak, at least. Looking forward to checking out the new song later - the comments here sound promising.

'no bad song' my brother in britpop 'new world towers' is the second track

One of the best songs on the record, wtf?

this new single is absolute dreck imo, truly no songwriting detected

new ESP single otoh is how you *do* a Britpop album preview track

Magic Whip was great. This new song is great. The new album has Gourock Outdoor Pool on the cover. It's all good.

Listening to TMW now. Ahh it's so good. Actually fewer merely 'okay' songs than I'd remembered.

Magic Whip is honestly top 4 and maybe top 3 Blur for me.

Agreed for top 4, would place Think Tank just behind Parklife and MLIR

Update: just loving this new song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kTR9H-p4cA

Scary Monsters era Bowie feel to this new tune

For years I've been wondering what it is about Albarn's songwriting that has stopped hitting the sides for me compared to his earlier work, and I've come to the conclusion that he has either forgotten how, or is steadfastedly refusing, to write discernible choruses.

So many of his songs, at an increasing rate from 13 onwards, seem to chug along in a stumbling molasses haze with few dynamic shifts or lifts.

I've listened to 'The Narcissist' a fair few times since it came out. And while I generally enjoy it, or at least don't object to it, while it's on, there's very little about it that sticks. I couldn't tell you whether it has a hook or a memorable lyric - there's just nothing to latch on to. Same for everything on The Magic Whip - for the most part it's dirgey, meandering, unmemorable.

The most surprising thing, for me, is Gorillaz. This ostensibly fun and funky cartoon pop, executed for the most part as rainy-day moping. Watching them headline a festival a few years ago was one of the most tedious experiences. After about five or six totally un-fun songs they managed to wheel out De La Soul who immediately got the dance going before they were shepherd-hooked back off the stage so Damon could come back again on to sing like a depressed robot.

You could argue that this is a sign of mature writing, unshackled by trad-pop convention. I've heard a lot of people say this about artists like Bjork - that the music and the presentation is still exceptional, but the total abandonment of pop sensibilities puts them off.

I can forgive Bjork for this: I see her as having transcended pop into pure art music. But Blur? Damon's always been a creative ideas type of guy, but he's not art music, and the stuff he's writing isn't clever or interesting enough to get the benefit of the doubt from me.

I do like this cover of Getting Older though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTlLVL2CdKo

this is the best & only version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72-FPkrWVkw

the only decent album albarn has put out since 2010 is song machine

albarn has still been trying to make pop most of the time, especially with gorillaz, it just hasn't been very good in general

Going full Scary Monsters and I am here for it

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

Exactly that. Graham's really out to play.

It really is. I quite like it. And The Narcissist has grown on me a bit. Still wish they'd deign to write a chorus again though

very scary monsters, but also the s/t

pretty decent album, i might go as far to say it's already my second favourite blur album but that's more commentary on how most of their albums are rather bloated (except 13, their longest & best) which means i never want to revisit them.