Blur: The Best Of Blur
I have written quite a lot about Blur on my individual album reviews and my lack of knowledge of them back in the nineties (and indeed up to recently) so I won't repeat myself here, other than to say that probably the best way for me to listen to Blur is via this pleasingly collated collection. I have read commenters who have stated - to its detriment - that it doesn't include much from their first two albums - only three tracks to be precise - but that doesn't worry me much, as there is certainly some good stuff here from the "once they were big" offerings.
I'm talking about the Beatles-inspired psychedelia of Beetlebum, which, although grinding and somewhat dour, has a hook that sticks in your head. It is one of the songs of theirs that I remember back from its time of release. That sort of applies to Song 2 as well, but largely because its instantly appealing instrumental riff has been sampled to death on TV sports commercial/trailers. etc.
The catchy, rhythmic There's No Other Way is a song that sort of represents BritPop by itself. I struggle to find the words to express exactly what I mean, but you know it when you hear it - those distinctive vocals, the infectious drums, the staccato guitar riffs, the Madchester-style trippiness. For me, this sounds very Stone Roses-ish, so maybe they started it all. It also puts me in mind of Ocean Colour Scene's The Riverboat Song in its drum sound.
Tracks that also appeal to me are the string-enhanced and sleepily attractive The Universal and the excellent, atmospheric Coffee And TV, a track I hitherto had no knowledge of whatsoever but now I find myself really liking. It puts me in mind of something from the new wave period but it is annoyingly escaping me. Either way I love the fuzzy guitar and the drum sound. Come to think of it the chorus to The Universal is one that I did know from back then, without knowing it was Blur. I like the brass break in the middle of this one too. Very Billy Bragg circa 1987.
Now, of course there is Parklife - a huge Ian Dury-influenced hit with Quadrophenia actor Phil Daniels on spoken down to earth cockney vocals. although undoubtedly catchy, both lyrically and riffily, I have always found it vaguely irritating, for some reason. All a bit "down with the common people" contrived, maybe? Did the band really spend their leisure time down the dog track, checking the form intensely, as the rear cover shows? Possibly, but more for effect than genuine enthusiasm, if you ask me. Doing things that the common people do was de rigeur in the nineties, after all, ask Jarvis Cocker. He told us it was, albeit very tongue-in-cheek.
End Of A Century is an attractive song bemoaning the process of ageing, enhanced by some most delicious Beatles-esque French horn in the middle (or some sort of brass).
No Distance Left To Run is a melancholy bleak number about the end of a romance in classic miserable student fashion. Talking of breakups, we get Tender now - a seven minute-plus chugger of a "where did it all go wrong" track with vague country rock/country blues hints in it. Its big, massed vocal chorus from The London Gospel Community Choir lend it a certain grandiosity and the deep voiced "love's the greatest thing" bit is sort of infectious. As relationship breakup numbers go, it certainly cuts the melodramatic mustard.
Up next is the irrepressible young people off on holiday summer fun of Girls & Boys - a cheery mockney update of The Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls. Once more, it is just very likeable in its carefree way. It puts me in mind of David Bowie's D. J. single a lot, and of The Buzzcocks too. Charmless Man is an irrepressible, chunkily riffy shouter apparently written after Albarn saw a piece of graffiti in the toilet at Grantham railway station in Lincolnshire. It was a single but not one I was familiar with.
Packed full of sixties-inspired trippy riffs and drugged-up sounding droning vocals, She's So High sounds like the Beatles getting back together in 1972. This was the "launch of BritPop", then - something new, vibrant, young and fresh to blow away all the dust still hanging around from punk and new wave etc. Are you sure? It sounds totally retro to me - going back more than twenty years.
Country House is the other one that I knew due to its being played endlessly not just on the radio at the time but also subsequently and also whenever a TV report needs some music about large country houses. Like Parklife, it explores that whole common man mockney thing and is more than a little irritating, particularly in Albarn's contrived vocals. Not my favourite of theirs at all.
A dreamy vibe is created on the French-sounding (and vocally enhanced) To The End. There is something about this disparate track that puts me firmly in mind of Paul Weller's 2010 Wake Up The Nation album. On Your Own is an electronic, psychedelic-ish number that has a sort of post punk/PIL appeal to it. Albarn sounds, on the vocals, like his later-to-be mate from The Good, The Bad & The Queen, ex-Clash bassist Paul Simonon. He wore one of those unattractive, laddish bucket hats for the video too. Not a good look. I like the track though. It has a punky, retro vibe to it.
This Is A Low has that classic nineties melancholy but ethereal sound that The Verve would come to specialise in. Strangely, For Tomorrow is the only track off what many to consider to be a seminal album, 1993's Modern Life is Rubbish, and it is here that Damon Albarn sounds like a slowed-down Pete Shelley. This is pure 1979-82 isn't it?
Finally, Music Is My Radar builds on the electronic sound of On Your Own, giving us a Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club-ish vibe that shows considerable diversification from many of the songs here. As with many groups, Blur began experimenting with electronica and dance rhythms, albeit to good effect here. It is one of the tracks on the album that appeals to me more.
Look, Blur were never a group that particularly appealed to me, but I have given them a chance and they have sort of won me over - just sort of. Don't they just look like your typical students on the cartoon cover images, though? Get a job you lazy wankers!
