Blur: Think Tank

Blur: Think Tank

2003

Parlophone Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing:1. Ambulance  2. Out of Time  3. Crazy Beat  4. Good Song  5. On the Way to the Club  6. Brothers and Sisters  7. Caravan  8. We've Got a File on You  9. Moroccan Peoples Revolutionary Bowls Club  10. Sweet Song  11. Jets  12. Gene by Gene  13. Battery in Your Leg


 Blur's first (and to date, only) album after the departure of lead guitarist Graham Coxon. What's interesting is that they don't even attempt to replace him...They just make an album without a lead guitarist...Although he does appear on the distant closer "Battery in Your Leg."

Although this was released 10 years ago, I never actually heard it until recently when I picked up a copy of "Parklife" and also saw a used copy of this for 2 bucks sitting next to it...I actively avoided this album when it was originally released because I had heard the first single, "Crazy Beat" on the radio and was absolutely horrified by what I was hearing...



This song was godawful!  That Donald Duck voice that keeps repeating the title made me want to claw my eardrums out! I spent years hoping that the song was some horrid fever-dream...I must have heard it wrong! I'd always liked Blur and hoped that the loss of Coxon wouldn't have damaged them that much...So honestly, I didn't know what to expect when I put "think Tank" on a decade later...

Turns out it's a pretty enjoyable album...It's about as disjointed as can possibly (multiple producers and recording locales will do that ) yet it grows in stature every time I hear it...A big chunk of the album was recorded in Morocco, which gives it an intriguing Arabic feel at times...It's simultaneously rustic and processed, but manages to avoid any fakey "world music" vibe...

The album starts to life with a clattering beat and Damon numbly moaning,"I ain't got nothing to be scared of..." in a very Radiohead manner...It eventually comes together into an exotic, dread-filled funk groove, and I have no choice but to consider "Ambulance" a complete success...



Next up is "Out of Time" which has a relaxed bossa-nova feel and although it passed me by on the first listen, it later revealed itself as a highlight of their discography...It has a very alluring vocal melody that has managed to stay embedded in my head for the last coupla weeks....

I also love "Moroccan Peoples Revolutionary Bowls Club" becomes it reminds me so much of Big Audio Dynamite! Yes! It's been so long since something made me want to wear a big-ass digital watch!

 If I would have heard this song back in '03, I would've been the first in line to pick up a copy, but it's cool that I waited cos I probably need this more in 2013  than I did in 2003...

Almost everything connects eventually...At first listen "Caravan" and the extended jazz experiment "Jets" seemed to drag things down, but in the end there's only a song or two I actively dislike..."Brothers and Sisters" is alright, I guess, but it sounds like some uninspired Stereo MC's throwback..."Gene by Gene" is also fairly irritating and "Crazy Beat" is still the worst Blur song, but outside of those couple of hiccups it's all gold! I really liked this record so much more than I was expecting...

 

Oh, yea, I almost forgot to mention that there's a bonus track...Remember back when I was doing the post for Beck's "Mutations" and I rambled on aimlessly about hidden tracks and pre-gap tracks in particular? Well, this is one of those albums with a pre-gap track...If you hit rewind as soon as the album starts you'll see your CD player start counting backwards (or am I the only person who still has a CD player?)...Anyway, it's a rackety techno track called "Me, White Noise" that has the guy who does the talking on "Parklife"...Only this time he's shouting that we're boring! Hell yea!


Alright...Let's stop talking and start listening...Here's "Out of Time" by Blur...

Blur: The Best Of

Blur: The Best Of

2000

Food/Virgin/Parlophone Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing:  Disc 1: 1. Beetlebum  2. Song 2  3. There's No Other Way  4. The Universal  5. Coffee & TV  6. Parklife  7. End of a Century  8. No Distance Left to Run  9. Tender  10. Girls & Boys  11. Charmless Man  12. She's So High   13. Country House  14. To the End  15. On Your Own  16. This is a Low  17. For Tomorrow  18. Music is My Radar

Disc 2: 1. She's So High  2. Girls & Boys  3. To the End  4. End of a Century  5. Stereotypes  6. Charmless Man  7. Beetlebum  8. M.O.R.  9. Tender  10. No Distance Left to Run


This is a greatest hits compilation with an extra disc that features a live show recorded at Wembley Arena in 1999...They probably should have waited one more album to do this, since their next release would be their final album 2002's "Think Tank." As a result, this feels a bit incomplete, but there was another "hits" album called "Midlife" that was released in 2009...



I haven't heard it but the track listing looks interesting...Seems to feature more album highlights than the strictly singles "The Best Of."

Despite all their wonderful singles, I think Blur  were a true "album band" that had a good ear for song sequencing. and as a result these songs are best enjoyed within the context of their albums...For example, I think any of the band's albums would be a better introduction to their work than this compilation....But this works fine when you can't decide what Blur album to listen to...and the bonus live disc is cool...





From their debut album "Leisure" we have "She's So High" and "There's No Other Way." I've never much cared for the madchester/baggy sound on "Leisure." The lyrics are overly repetitive, the melodies are blehhh...I usually skip these...



Blur's second album "Modern life is Rubbish" is where the band finds their groove...They only include one track from the album, the jangly epic "For Tomorrow" which usually has me la-la-la-ing all day...For some mysterious reason they don't include "Popscene."


 

Predictably, "Parklife" is well-represented...We have "Boys & Girls," "This is a Low," "To the End," "End of a Century," and the title track... I've never been that hot on "Boys & Girls" but the other songs are all among the best the band has ever recorded, but inexplicably, they're also the ones that suffer the most from being removed from the context of their original album...I would have tossed "Clover Over Dover" or "Tracy Jacks" on here just to keep things interesting...



"The Great Escape" is represented by "The Universal," "Charmless Man," and "Country House." As much as I like "Country House" I would have swapped it for "Stereotypes." They also include the grand orchestral pop-song "The Universal," which is their best single... It feels lackadaisical and ambitious which can be tough to achieve...The pinnacle of the Brit-Pop movement...



...aaaand we're onto Post-Brit-Pop..."Song 2" "Beetlebum," and "On Your Own" all hail from 1997's self-titled album..."Song 2" has been a bit overplayed for my liking, but the other two still hold up..."M.O.R" would have been nice, though..Bu it's not a big deal, because it's on the live disc...



There are 3 songs from 1999's "13,"    "Coffee & TV," "Tender," and "No Distance Left to Run."  "Tender" is an odd song for me...When I listen to it alone, it's so  emotional and beautiful I almost want to cry, but when I listen to it with someone else in the room it strikes me as unbearably maudlin...Does this ever happen to you guys?!?!  What the hell is wrong with me?

On the other hand, "Coffee and TV" is easily one of my favorites! Such a perfect, slightly melancholy, indie-pop song! The sprightly organ-sound at the end is the best  musical moment in their entire discography! Oh,and it has the best video cos it features "Milky!"

"Milky" is so damn cute! I want to be his best friend!

The whole thing ends with the single-only "Music is my Radar." It's sort of a 21st century update of stoned 70's funk...It's nothing Earth-shaking, really, but it is booty-shaking, and sometimes that's good enough...

So let's check out "Coffee and TV" by Blur, so we can see "Milky" again...God, I love this guy!

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

Blur: Parklife

Blur: Parklife

1994

Food/SBK Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Girls & Boys  2.Tracy Jacks  3. End of a Century  4. Parklife  5. Bank Holiday  6. Badhead  7. The Debt Collector  8. Far Out  9. To the End  10. London Loves  11. Trouble in the Message Centre  12. Clover Over Dover  13. Magic America  14. Jubilee  15. This is a Low  16.Lot 105


Man, I haven't heard this album in a looong time...I think I over-listened to it back in the day and probably sold my old copy or whatever...But recently I was listening to their 1997 self-titled record and had a hankering for some "Parklife," so I ventured out to the Zia Records in Tempe and found a used $2.00 CD copy...

The album plays like a 90's version of "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society"...



..with Ian Hunter on vocals...



God, it took me forever to realize it, but Damon Albarn sounds like Ian Hunter...The music doesn't bear any similarity to Mott the Hoople, but the vocals sure do...Sort of an arch yelp...But anyway, similar to "Village Green Preservation Society," each song is a little vignette of ordinary (and a few extraordinary) citizens, that taken in its entirety, tells the bigger story of British society at the end of the Century (which ends up being "nothing special")...

Musically, its most distinctive feature is its eclecticism...From club disco  ("Girls & Boys") New Wave ("Tracy Jacks," "Trouble in the Message Centre), punk ("Bank Holiday), soft rock ("Badhead," "To the End"),  to polka ("The Debt Collector").  They utilize whatever musical genre best tells the story, which gives the album its grand sweep...You really do feel like you're going from house to house, soaking up the feel and life stories of the record's various inhabitants...

There's the story of  the civil servant who one day loses his mind and decides to bulldoze his house, and the charming tale of Bill Barret who dreams about one day visiting America, where there are "Buildings in the sky and the air is sugar free"...Hell, we even get to drop off to Syd Barrett's psychedelic pad  on "Far Out"...

"Parklife" was a game-changing smash in England, I'm told, but it  wasn't much more than a cult curio here in the States...I'm not sure why this didn't go over bigger here...Maybe it was a bit too ironic...Sophisticated...

Actually, I think the main obstacle was that it was probably a bit too pop and not rock enough for our taste at the time...People that listened to "pop" music generally don't like guitars and American rock (especially during 1994) was all about LOUD GUITARS and catharsis...and there's not a lot of that here...Well, not in any of the obvious ways that it's usually presented to us...I mean, tell me "This is a Low" isn't cathartic in its own way...

Our loss...It really was a great little record that had a lot to offer...So let's check out "This is a Low" by Blur...