Blur:Blur

Blur: Blur

1997

Food Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1.  Beetlebum  2. Song 2  3. Country Sad Ballad Man  4. M.O.R  5. On Your Own  6. Theme from Retro  7. You're So Great  8. Death of a Party  9. Chinese Bombs  10. I'm Just a Killer for Your Love  11. Look Inside America  12. Strange News from Another Star  13. Movin' On  14. Essex Dogs



Hey, I just realized I own every other Blur album...I have "Parklife" but not "The Great Escape"...



 I have the self-titled album, but I skipped "13" and jumped straight to "Think Tank."




But today we're discussing Blur's 1997 self-titled album...This record was a huge hit at the time...They had previously been somewhat overlooked in the U.S., but suddenly you could turn on the radio and hear "Song 2" playing night and day...I can remember being taken aback at how raw and loose it sounded...On previous albums when they would briefly dabble in punk, there was still something mannered and calculated about it, but this sounded like they were blasting away in a garage somewhere...No ironic character sketches or music-hall pastiches here...But I figured it must have been a fluke...I figured that it was probably some sort of joke and  the rest of the album would be the usual mish-mash of musical styles...



Imagine my surprise when I  put on the album for the first time and heard Graham Coxon's dry guitar chop kick off "Beetlebum"...It was true! Blur switched up their  signature brit-pop sound and fully embraced  noisy, lo-fi. guitar-heavy indie rock in the Sonic Youth/Guided by Voices/Pavement style...The lyrics also became more abstract, as opposed to their usual sharp storytelling...

 But as the album wore on, despite the uniformly ragged sound, they actually end up with a hell of  a lot of diversity...showing just how wide the 90's college rock spectrum actually was...And no mater how dissonant (the noise-punk "Chinese Bombs") or diffuse (the dub-style "Theme From Retro") Damon Albarn always manages to find the melody. or at least an interesting angle (the trash-strewn closer "Essex Dogs").

Quite a few of my favorite Blur songs appear here; "M.O.R." is a catchy pop song that makes great use of their more rocking sound, but  I have to admit, the reason the song casts such a large shadow for me is 100% the result of the video that features a cameo appearance from...Oh my God, are you guys ready for this?!?!?!....

GRANT F-IN' PAGE!!!

Blur is the greatest band of all-time for doing this!! Listen, it's not an opinion, it's just a natural fact that "Stunt Rock" is the greatest movie ever made..

Don't just look at the poster! Worship it! Know that you have just seen a Man play a flaming guitar with a wizard casting a spell on it and a man on fire shooting out beneath it and realize that your life has peaked! It's all unhappiness and bill collectors from here on out, but don't be discouraged,...You can still turn to the memory of a hang-glider flying out of a skull's eye-socket when you need the strength to carry on...

I can't tell you how many times me and my friends have watched this movie...Probably almost as many times as we've seen "Terror in Toyland"...

Wait, I forgot what I was talking about...Oh yea, Blur..."On Your Own" is a good song too...I can imagine this coming on the bar's  jukebox and having no choice but to drunkenly shout along...Unfortunately, this'll probably never happen...Whenever I go to a bar I end up having to endure Toby Keith or that Sheryl Crow/Kid Rock power ballad where he spends four minutes  bitching about all the coke and trim he gets...

In the end, the band's self-titled album was the one that happened to most line up with my particular musical tastes and as a result, it's still the Blur record I revisit the most...I just love the shaggy, tossed-off feel so much...I have a lot of fond memories of driving around Michigan, blasting this in my car stereo...It's feels good to revisit it, so if you haven't heard it in awhile, I recommend digging out your copy this weekend, grabbing a bit of beer and blasting this with "Stunt Rock" playing on the T.V in the background...Ahhh, 1997...Here's "M.O.R" by Blur