Basically my point is that I miss the Internet

[petronia]

I have one paper left that I got an extension on and after that I'm done. So of course I'm not working on it, I'll review all of Blur's studio albums with an excessive number of anime references instead. It is pretty easy to write about this band because dudes suffer from chronic severe stephenkingitis, unlike Arctic Monkeys where it's like, "They have 2.5 albums and I skip 3/5 of the tracks, actually I think they're a great band!" I've been trying to write something intelligible about teh Arctics for half a year... With Blur you can create blog content by playing otaku car games like "top ten b-sides not including album tracks and remixes".

Leisure: Was expecting not to like this but in fact really do. It boils down to genre - which is kind of unusual actually, nowadays no one would care if you had indie-dance and shoegaze on the same album but I think at the time it would've been weird? "She's So High" wigs me out due to lyrics sounding like someone contemplating date rape. "There's No Other Way" is a stone-cold classic. The post-punk version of "Sing" from the fan club single thingy is the best. Not sure what's so wrong with "Bang". Overall opinion probably skewed by the existence of extended dance remixes. Oasis never had extended dance remixes of anything. OTOH Oasis had a stand in JoJo so it evens out, probably.

Modern Life Is Rubbish: argh I keep learning this lesson over and forgetting it - when initially approaching a hefty discography, don't go with the one the fans say is the best. Go with the one all the non-fans bought. Again what it boils down to is genre: I don't usually listen to the kind of 60s English white dude rock music this references, so my ears don't speak the language, and when that happens it takes me ages to register the melodies. I've had this album for at least four years and I finally grokked it... last week? You really have to love teh geeeetar. If I had to put money down I'd bet "Chemical World" was Pete Doherty's favorite Blur song. Their outfits were probably best during this period.

Parklife: I always like UK bands the same way I like UK books - it's not a conscious choice, it pans out that way. But I like UK stuff that makes it in America. XD The stuff that doesn't, doesn't because it's alienating and culture-shocky in some way. It's weird to me that people thought this was representative of real life; it feels too... heightened... to represent anyone's reality. It plays like a really well-sequenced FST a Britrock fan made for an anime set in England by a mangaka who's never actually been to England ("this song represents the astronomy tower picnic episode"). Like: one Smiths song, one Cure song, one '03 BeruSeba, one Gary Numan, one "small European town" instrumental theme from Final Fantasy IX, etc. idk what the story is but it's definitely shoujo. Maybe it's about a Japanese girl who moves to London to attend art school and meets hot boys, like a cross between HYD and Hachikuro only with 100% more Damien Hirst. OH YEAH THIS ALSO HAS "GIRLS AND BOYS" ON IT.

The Great Escape: at one point I was going to review these albums in the form of a quantitative Powerpoint presentation, because that's what MBAs do. It included a growth chart (which I built in Excel) of annoying perkiness over time with cutoffs at +5 ("punch inna face") and -5 ("dude get a grip"). This is a +6 but still an ace album - kind of their Death of a Ladies' Man-stylee fascinating trainwreck I guess? Massively OTT and full of garish brass showtunes. "He Thought Of Cars" is hot. I don't really get the love for "The Universal" or "Yuko and Hiro". The point of the latter seems to be that indie rock star = Japanese salariman, which is hilarious but kind of true. Basically Damon Albarn was already a huge weeaboo but no one noticed until it was too late. The showdown should really have been "Charmless Man" versus "Wonderwall", one set match no bankai, winner gets it in the kisser, what do you mean the fight wasn't for most annoying song of the 90s.

Blur: "Charmless Man" was so annoying someone dragged them out into the back alley and shot them, so this is a completely different band. Ties Parklife for being the best-sequenced, and like Parklife I enjoy the second half ("wait did this come out /before/ Mezzanine") more than the first half ("kind of... normal......"). "Essex Dogs" is awesome - it's eight minutes of a lawnmower dying in a schizophrenic fit of black smoke over a dubbed-out bass jam that sounds nothing like "Darko" but reminds me of it for some reason. idk why Graham Coxon is a walking talking milk carton rockist strawman?? It doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe because I assume distorted guitars with really complex textures are a dance thing, not a rock thing. OH YEAH THIS ALSO HAS THE WOO-HOO THE HABS SCORED A GOAL SONG ON IT.

13: -6, dude get a grip! Halfway through the "Breakup Trilogy" (England, Justine, Graham) and bottoming out the curve. I keep trying to explain to people that when you have a Goth temperament bands like the Cure and Joy Division aren't depressing, they're uplifting. What is really depressing is when types like Damon Albarn mope. Tenipuri fans: can you imagine Atobe Keigo moping? Yeah. Sonically it's the sort of thing I should love on paper, and there's a bunch of really great songs, so not sure why I don't find it more listenable as a whole. Not the sequencing, not the production, so it's gotta be the moping. OTOH I've established a deep emotional connection(tm) with "Coffee & TV" which is probably a bad sign.

This is far and away the Chinese fandom's favorite Blur album (followed by MLIR). Yeah, I don't know either.

Think Tank: I'm reviewing my personal version of the album, from which I've excised "Crazy Beat" and "Moroccan People's Whatever" and replaced them with b-sides and "Kissin' Time", turning it into a chillout record full of harem-pant-wearing hashish-smoking basslines flowing into pretty acoustic ballads. And a Marianne Faithfull guest spot. In the Computer Age it is possible to achieve such things. XD Usually I don't bother to mess with other people's artistic statements but this was a no-brainer... Anyway it's funny because they started off groove-led with crap lyrics and ended groove-led with crap lyrics. This is halfway to being a solo album tho; I have this theory about classic models of productive tension in a creative partnership, eclecticism versus purism being one, but that's a different writeup.

Comments

[a-lighter-side.livejournal.com]

blur's earlier works (up to the great escape) have always been my favorite. i think 'blue jeans' / 'starshaped' and 'parklife' epitomized the kind of thing they stood for and why exactly they were in a band back then. i was sort of lost as a fan when BLUR came out, they claimed it was eponymous but it sounded very americana, very grunge :) and now i think i should check out '13' and 'think tank' -- because i clearly missed some good stuff! (this is what i get for jumping on to the suede bandwagon back in 97 XD)!

nice to see you back!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Ah yeah - those two are really different tho! From the self-titled and from each other. And they don't sound like the earlier stuff. XD; But there's a lot of good tracks... the stronger the melody the lazier they get so they all have titles like "Sweet Song" and "Mellow Song". If dudes ever make a new album it'll probably have titles like "Random Demo Song".

My sister got me Alex James the bassist's memoirs too, he's a really good writer (and has a knack for discussing stuff relevant to my interests, like New Order's Reading '98 set).

[a-lighter-side.livejournal.com]

will you be doing a write up on alex's memoirs? i'd love to read a review - definitely! i haven't been able to keep up with their individual projects save random dibblings on graham's art and singles XD!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I'll do it - once I finish this essay w/r/t which I'm skirting disaster. XD;

[cis.livejournal.com]

XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

O I no what you think anyhow, missy, those '03 posts are still up on ILM XD (i.e. this is why I've never posted on ILM).

I feel like I should write about Damon Albarn's Saiyuki nonsense but it's the sort of thing that should... go in an official publication. Or something.

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

idk what the story is but it's definitely shoujo. Maybe it's about a Japanese girl who moves to London to attend art school and meets hot boys, like a cross between HYD and Hachikuro only with 100% more Damien Hirst.

probably why Parklife is the most endeared (hesitate to say "favorite") album for me? /:) I dunno, I don't mind when Britrock tries too hard, only when it tries too hard to be cool.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Parklife is definitely the most listenable all the way through. XD idk if Blur come off to me as trying to be cool, though - no, scratch that, they do but everyone does. Their downfall is that they're too good at pastiche, too technically competent to fail endearingly at stretch goals, and - bless'im - the ENTJ one writes the lyrics. A lot of what I listen to is predicated on creating a sonic and emotional bubble that denies the external environment, but Blur is mostly outward-facing, which makes them a good accompaniment for business school. XD Ominously however the last two albums sound like burnout, exhaustion on the night bus... I guess the idea is you could drink two Red Bulls and listen to Gorillaz after that, if you were hardcore.

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

my original comment was actually steered to say that I think Blur tries too hard, but not necessarily too hard to be cool -- if anything, I feel like Blur accepts that they're not cool, but their listeners don't expect that of them, either. /g I love Blur because they are cliche, but they depend on their style rather than ~feelings~. Like, the fact that most of the members hate "Song 2" speak pretty clearly about how they view their music and what they want other people to get out of it.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Like Panic At The Disco! Man I keep harping on this. XD My sense is that they became too mainstream(?) to be cool, a balance Radiohead maintained more successfully because their weirdness is less obscured by pop. The style vs. feeling dichotomy becomes a more interesting proposition in dudes' solo stuff, actually.

Do they hate "Song 2"? It must be kind of weird, though, like having a drabble you knocked out in 15 minutes become your most-recced fic of all time.

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

yep! I forget where I read re: Song 2, but I find it hilarious and telling of the American perspective of Blur vs their fans in the UK.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

'S all right in the long run tho as it allows Americans the luxury of listening to Gorillaz without being distracted by the seiyuu. XD I find I've kinda lost that ability, which is sad.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

I was going to review these albums in the form of a quantitative Powerpoint presentation, because that's what MBAs do
...*frightened*

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Aw! XD I was gonna have SWOT analyses of the band members, then sub_divided said it made them sound like RPG character sheets. Which doesn't say much for the way "important business decisions" are made in real life, come to think of it.

And a bunch of charts in the vein of this one, probably:

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I have a really great picture of the time our lawnmower died in a cloud of dense black smoke, it was like the "fog of war" in Advance War, the whole yard looked like a battlefield.

So far I like 13 the best. But I still have to listen to numbers 1, 2, 4, and 7. I bet I'd like #2 (geetar!).

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Or our dishwasher. We (all four people in my nuclear family) spent the entire day trying to remove our dishwasher from its cubbyhole under the kitchen counter and replace it with a new one with a door that works and doesn't smell like it's catching on fire. Hacksaws and mallets were deployed. It doesn't want to move.

Figures. XD I can up 2 and 4 but I do not technically have a copy of 1, and my copy of 7 is farked. (Not because I messed with the band's artistic statement; the tracklisting was off to begin with.) I'd be interested in what you think of the Coxon solo albums, actually.

[motorbike.livejournal.com]

It plays like a really well-sequenced FST a Britrock fan made for an anime set in England by a mangaka who's never actually been to England ("this song represents the astronomy tower picnic episode"). Like: one Smiths song, one Cure song, one '03 BeruSeba, one Gary Numan, one "small European town" instrumental theme from Final Fantasy IX, etc. idk what the story is but it's definitely shoujo. Maybe it's about a Japanese girl who moves to London to attend art school and meets hot boys, like a cross between HYD and Hachikuro only with 100% more Damien Hirst. OH YEAH THIS ALSO HAS "GIRLS AND BOYS" ON IT.

This is the greatest take on this album I have ever and will ever see, thank you.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Poss. somewhat influenced by the early chapters of Alex James' memoirs which are... basically Hachikuro but with 100% more Damien Hirst, orz