Tag Archives: blur

#1353: Blur – There’s No Other Way

Leave a reply

Blur may be one of my favourite bands. But their debut album Leisure isn’t one that I think to listen to all that often. In some artists’ cases, the debut album becomes the benchmark to which the rest of their work is compared. Not throwing out any names. There are some obvious examples out there. Blur went on to make much better albums than their first. Damon Albarn called Leisure “awful”, just to show how much he cares for it. It’s not an authentic representation of the band, and was more influenced by the shoegaze and Madchester scenes that were around at the time. But we all have to start somewhere. And even on this awful album, there a few tracks on there that are essential to the band’s discography as a whole. You’ve got the opener, ‘She’s So High’, the group’s very first single. ‘Sing’ is the somewhat experimental jam and one that people may know from Trainspotting. But the standout, least to me, is one of the album’s other singles, today’s subject, ‘There’s No Other Way’, which I think the band are proud ’cause they usually play it live at every opportunity.

My first experience with the song? Well, it’s a bit like a few others. One of those times when I saw the music video (above) for it on TV, but it was ending, so I wasn’t really aware of what was going on. If you want to what happens in it, Blur sit in with a family at the dinner table and have a three-course meal. Damon Albarn plays, I think, a moody teenager role, making death stares into the camera lens while sporting a ridiculous bowl haircut. Things get freaky when the massive trifle is brought out for dessert. And then the video ends. Probably afraid that the video was just a bit too British-looking, someone convinced the band to do another music video for the song specifically for American audiences. Which one’s better, I’ll let you decide. The original UK video would show up here and there every now and again, and the track’s chorus is repetitive enough that it’ll get stuck in your brain anyway. I got the band’s Best Of compilation, the song’s the third on there, and I’ve been able to listen to it whenever I wanted ever since.

I think I read that the track was written to appease either their record label owner David Balfe who was demanding they write a single to be included on the album. So, in response, the band wrote this upbeat, Madchester-inspired track with a chorus that’s repeated to death. The first line, “You’re taking the fun out of everything”, sums up Albarn’s feelings about this constant pressure forced upon him. He just wants to breathe without this presence breathing down his neck. It wouldn’t be the last time they’d write a tune made to wind Balfe up too. I think Graham Coxon is the real MVP of the entire thing. His riff starts it off, he brings in another riff during the verses, then there’s that little lick that plays after the choruses – all of which I find myself singing along to, sometimes more than Albarn’s vocal. They all go hand in hand. Plus, there’s the backwards guitar solo, which must have taken some time to figure out when writing it the right way round. And away from his guitar skills are his higher harmonizing backing vocals, “There’s no other way, ahhhh ahhhh ahhh” and others. You’ll know when it’s him singing. A very fun song, overall. It’s always a good time.

#1344: Blur – Tender

1 Reply

My first impression of the studio version of ‘Tender’ wasn’t one of a positive note. After seeing music videos for Blur on the television quite regularly in the mid-2000s and liking nearly every song that came along with them, I was brainwashed into requesting Blur: The Best Of, I think, for my 11th birthday in 2006. On it was all the good stuff. ‘Beetlebum’, ‘The Universal’, ‘Girls & Boys’. You know, the singles. But there was ‘Tender’, a song that was almost eight minutes, right in the middle of it all. Eight minutes more or less feel like 30 when you’re 11, especially if you’re trying to focus on one thing for that amount of time. I was bored. Might have even fast-forwarded through it. But it might have been the music video for it (below) that made me come around to the song. It’s a live performance. The band play the track with a lot more gusto, the London Community Choir really make their presence known when it’s their time to sing, That, I could work with. It took me a long time to come round on the tune as it appears on 13 as a result.

13. The Blur album heavily influenced by Damon Albarn’s breakdown after his breakup with longtime girlfriend Justine Frischmann. It’s the band at the most experimental and downright insane at times, and it’s my favourite of Blur’s. ‘Tender’ starts it all. I think it and ‘No Distance Left to Run’ are the two tracks on there that tackle the breakup subject head-on. While the latter captures Albarn probably at the point where the split has just happened and left him devastated, ‘Tender’ seems to depict him where enough time has passed but he’s still left waiting for love to come his way again. A lot of sadness links the two tracks together, they’re almost like sister songs, but that tone of determination and optimism from ‘Tender’ allows it to seem much more upbeat than it really us. Plus it’s played in a higher tempo, so that would obviously help too. The proceedings are aided by Graham Coxon’s lyrical section, a chorus in itself, “Oh my baby, oh my baby, oh why, oh my”, that is usually repeated by thousands of concert-goers for minutes on end after the band finish playing it live. It’s like a national anthem, almost.

So, yeah, almost eight minutes this song goes on for and it starts the album off. I see comments online that openly admit to beginning 13 with ‘Bugman’, feeling that ‘Tender’ is out of place and gets things underway too slowly and preferring the song under any instance it’s done in a live setting in comparison. I’ve come to appreciate the studio ‘Tender’ and the live ‘Tender’ in their own respective ways. But honestly, I can understand those people’s sentiments. You can hear edits in the studio track where a verse is cut off to make way for the guitar solo (about four minutes in). At 5:17, the percussion cuts out quite sharply to make way for Albarn’s arriving vocal. For the meditative, contemplative track ‘Tender’ is, it can get quite messy production wise. But then again, 13 is a very messy album in a great, great way. So in the context of it, I think ‘Tender’ is a fine opener. Plus, it’s all the more better being followed by ‘Bugman’, because its buzzing guitar hitting your ears right after ‘Tender’ fades out is the big sign that the album won’t be quite what you’re expecting.

#1334: Blur – Tame

Leave a reply

So Blur’s The Great Escape was released 30 years ago this September just gone. The anniversary will be celebrated with a special 30th anniversary edition, a reissue that, when it was first announced, was mocked and ridiculed by many a Blur fan because of the over-the-top eyesore of a cover that comes along with it. I was surprised when I heard the album was getting this treatment. Although I like it quite a bit myself, I’m a guy who prefers it over Parklife, the LP and the time surrounding it are things that even the members of Blur don’t look back on too fondly. Damon Albarn once described Escape as “messy” and having songs that would be good for a musical. But with this whole Britpop revival thing going on now – Oasis reuniting, Pulp reuniting, Suede releasing new material, Supergrass out and about – someone must have had the idea to capitalise on the occasion.

‘Tame’ isn’t on The Great Escape, but was released as a B-side on the ‘Stereotypes’ single in 1996. I lurk on the videos for the song on YouTube, and some comments go along the lines of, “Oh, this song’s so good! How didn’t this make it on the album?” Well, it’s most likely the case that it didn’t exist during the actual sessions for the album and was written and recorded after its release as B-side material, as bands would regularly do back in those days. Another thing that’s regularly agreed about the song, is how it’s sort of a precursor to the inward-looking, first-person narrative material that was to come on the band’s next album in ’97. Albarn sings about seeing two planes in the sky, game shows on the TV and his thoughts on, I’m guessing, his girlfriend’s confusion about the weather. And among all this is a chorus of the word ‘Tame’, sung repetitively in falsetto. What it has to do with the rest of the song, I still don’t know to this day.

Overall, I think it’s a song about boredom and that sometimes existential dread that comes with waking up in the morning and having to face another day. I just get that from the lyrics and the minor-keyness of everything. There’s something a little spooky about ‘Tame’, a little uncanny. Like, those erratic synths on the right-hand side. They scratch an itch, but they’re very randomly played. Albarn must have just felt like messing around on the keys to shake things up a bit. The short-tape delay effect added to the drums makes what would be a very ordinary drum break into a very effective one. And those constant “Tame” vocals are kind of weird enough, but they’re suddenly made all the more strange when at four minutes, the choice was made to switch from Albarn’s falsetto vocal to his chest vocals where he sounds like he’s almost yelling in pain. I’m a big fan of this one. The band don’t like that period of their time, but a few of their best B-sides were made during it. Too bad that with this B-side mark, they will never regularly play it live on the regular. But they did once upon a time, and you can hear that below.

#1322: Blur – Sweet Song

Leave a reply

Blur’s Think Tank is the one album of the band’s that sticks out like a sore thumb to many a Blur fan. Why? Well, ’cause Graham Coxon isn’t on there. When the band started work on what would become the album in 2001, Damon Albarn didn’t really want to do it anyway because of the success he’d had with Gorillaz earlier in the year. But when Coxon didn’t show up, he was in rehab for his alcoholism but this hadn’t been communicated to the other members, Albarn took it as a slight and started work with bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Coxon eventually joined them, but the mood was tense and unsettled. They made ‘Battery in Your Leg’ during this time, the track marking the end of the band as we’d known it in its place as the close on the album. Things fell apart though, and Coxon left, leaving Blur with an unusual-looking three-piece lineup.

The band carried on the recording sessions in this new configuration. But although he probably wouldn’t say it out loud, Damon Albarn was missing his best mate. He was in a waiting room one day, saw this picture of Coxon on the cover of a magazine and was inspired. The inspiration resulted in ‘Sweet Song’, a sad, sad number all based on Albarn’s disappointment in the whole falling out situation. A few songs on Think Tank allude to his and Coxon’s relationship. But it’s ‘Sweet Song’ that lays it all on out on the table. “What am I to do? / Someone here’s really not happy” – the first lines of the song – sets the scene rather plain and simply. The track centres around a piano loop, harmonized ‘oohing’ backing vocals and a pulsing kick, making everything sound like a warm hug to the ears. Albarn concedes that he has his own faults, making it clear that he never wanted to hurt Coxon and leaves an offer of reconciliation if ever the time was right. As we know now, this is all water under the bridge. But it was looking very bad for a while.

I heard Think Tank in full the first time in 2013, so I’d obviously heard ‘Sweet Song’ then. I don’t think I really listened to it, though, if you understand what I’m saying. Would have been years later, I want to say 2019, I really can’t pinpoint it, that I think I just searched the track up in YouTube or something. I listened again, and it was an immediate feeling of “Oh, well, I should obviously put this one on the phone now,” ’cause it was obviously a very good song. Should have been listening to it for years up to that point. I’m all for songs about friendships. I’m sure I’ve written about a few on here. But there’s something about this one, especially. Albarn got all vulnerable on the previous album 13 regarding the breakup with his ex, and here he was again (with the producer of 13 working only on this one track) dealing with the cut ties with his mate he’d known since secondary school. And with such sincerity. It’s all too much.

#1314: Blur – Sunday Sunday

Leave a reply

Blur’s ‘Sunday Sunday’ was released as the third and final single from the group’s second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish, in October 1993. It was the highest-placed out of three, peaking at an, I guess, respectable 26 in the charts. And yet, out of those three, the track is definitely the one that’s talked about the least. Not discussed in the pantheon of the great Blur singles. When I was growing up and looking at MTV2 or any alternative music video channel very much every day, if there was to be a Blur video playing, it was never the one for ‘Sunday Sunday’. Maybe once or twice, I think. And that amount of plays was never gonna make an impression. It wasn’t until the summer of 2013 when I went through Blur’s discography, listened through Modern Life Is Rubbish and found I enjoyed it almost immediately. Even made it one of the first songs I played on the Sunday morning radio show I began to host later that year in uni, I was hooked immediately.

A critic once stated that the track imitated ‘Lazy Sunday’ by Small Faces. Looking at the two, it’s very clear that that tune was a huge influence on this one. But while Steve Marriott and co mainly discuss annoying their neighbors with loud music, Damon Albarn and co bring the Sunday topic to the dinner table, to the family home. Albarn sings about the things people get up to, especially British people, on those Sunday afternoons and evenings when the parents and kids have their time together before school and work start again the next day. That includes the usual Sunday roasts, seeing on entertainment’s on the television, and obviously those good old naps that sometimes you don’t even plan. Where you’re sitting in front of the TV, you close your eyes and you open them up to then find out that a good hour-and-a-half has passed. Both ‘Lazy Sunday’ and ‘Sunday Sunday’ mention sleeping in their lyrics, just goes to show how important and treasured the act is during that last day of the week.

Leaning into the whole, “We’re a British band and we write about British things” theme the band started on this album and proceed to for their next two, the music on ‘Sunday Sunday’ is very East End of London. A Cockney kness-up music hall with a bit of a swing to it, with Damon Albarn exaggerated the Bri’ishness of in his vocal. Very suitable that a couple B-sides to the single were their covers of ‘Daisy Bell’ and ‘Let’s All Go Down the Strand’, both of which none of the bandmembers are particularly fond of. Dave Rowntree starts things off with a booming tom-tom pattern. The band joins in after, Graham Coxon performing a particularly spirited guitar intro, and Albarn comes in on the vocal not too long after. The song soon explodes for the chorus when the harmonies and an organ are brought into the production. There’s a nice little trumpet solo. Who doesn’t like a bit of brass? And things then get a bit frantic when the band go into double-time for the instrumental break. Coxon brings out a slide guitar, Albarn works his fingers out for a carousel organ solo, which all slows down emphatically to the song’s original tempo for the final chorus. I like how that final “sleep” at the end seems to go on forever after all the instruments stop playing. Very nice production trick. But I like the package as a whole. If you want to see it being made fun of, here’s a YouTube Poop that heavily features its video.