Tag Archives: stereotypes

#1334: Blur – Tame

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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.

#1286: Blur – Stereotypes

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Up until The Great Escape in 1995, it was the trend that whatever the first song on a Blur album was had already been released as the first single in advance. ‘She’s So High’ for Leisure, ‘For Tomorrow’ on Modern Life Is Rubbish, and ‘Girls & Boys’ on Parklife. ‘Stereotypes’, although being the opener on The Great Escape when that came around in the autumn of 1995, bucked that trend. It was the main contender to be the lead representative, but then ‘Country House’ – the second tune on the record – was chosen instead. We all know how that went down. Nah, instead, ‘Stereotypes’ was released as the album’s third single in February ’96. But for the crazy successful year 1994 to 1995 was for Blur, ‘Stereotypes’ is a pretty perfect way to open an album released amidst the madness, with its frantic synthesizers and stabbing guitar chords.

I came across the track myself pretty much the same way I got to know all the other Blur singles. Through seeing their music videos on the television. Although it wasn’t on MTV2. I distinctly remember seeing it on Q, if anyone remembers that channel. Blur videos were usually playing on the telly, and this was during a time when the band weren’t even together. ‘Stereotypes’ was one of those live performance montage music videos you usually get when a band’s on the road and don’t have time for those two-day video shoots. Nothing like their cooler, cinematic videos, but the song sounded very, very nice. When I was 11/12, I was mostly into the songs I saw on TV, and so compilations were my usual request for gifts for older bands whose videos were frequently played. Blur’s 2000 Best Of didn’t have ‘Stereotypes’ on there, unfortunately. I have the feeling I knew this before owning it. I still got the comp anyway. But I downloaded ‘Stereotypes’ on its own a while afterwards.

The song’s kinda strange in that it’s about the activities of swingers, “wife-swapping” as it’s explicitly referred to in the lyrics. Damon Albarn sings about a woman who gets a little frisky with another man while her husband is away, having their way with each other in different locations of the house and in full view of the neighbours. The ‘stereotypes’ that there must be more to life than are the usual doting wife and adoring husband that I guess you would usually find in a faithful marriage. Albarn tells us to live a little, bring in another couple and get a bit freaky to spice things up. Graham Coxon’s guitar playing is a highlight. It’s kinda buried in the mix, but when you pick it out, you can hear how it sounds like he’s attacking those strings. A very rough sound to those chords, you gotta love it. Some websites last the line of the song as ‘You should go on another bender/Before you come to offend her’, which is a little menacing to say the least. I think Albarn sings ‘before you come to an end, uhhhh’, meaning “before you die”. I like how the song slows in tempo while that line’s being sung too. ‘Stereotypes’ is a bit of a forgotten single. Doesn’t help that the band don’t look on The Great Escape with the highest of regards. It’ll be a long time before they play it live again, is what I’m saying. I don’t think it’s too bad.