There's an article in this week's NME about Blur not reuniting, and they look back over the career of Blur. Would anyone like me to type it up?

I thought they did reunite? :unsure: I wish they'd make their minds up :(

I thought they did reunite? :unsure: I wish they'd make their minds up :(

 

Apparently it's definately off :unsure:

Do type it up :o :cry:

 

I hope Gorillaz don't go the same way or we won't have an excuse/forum to spam to our heart's desire reflect over their glittering careers :( :kink:

:lol: What would happen if both Blur and Gorillaz cease to exist? As well as this new project thingy of Damon's. Will this become a "Damon Albarn forum"? :heehee:

Do type it up :o :cry:

 

I hope Gorillaz don't go the same way or we won't have an excuse/forum to spam to our heart's desire reflect over their glittering careers :( :kink:

 

Ok will do :P I'll do it tonight or tomorrow!

 

I thought Gorillaz were splitting? But then that D-Sides album came out, and then we didn't hear anything else did we :unsure:

Thanks for the offer of typing it up Damondro.

 

No more Blur or Gorillaz?! :cry:

End Of A Century? - End Of An Era

 

So the Blur reunion is definately not happening and, after 20 years, it's the end of Britpop as we know it. Pat Long looks back at the highs and lows of one of indie's all-time greats.

 

We're living in golden times. Not for music, particularly, but for babysitters. Yes, in the last 12 months, responsible teenage girls nationwide have been experiencing a goldrush thanks to a new and not particularly healthy gig phenomenon; The Indie Reunion Tour. Existing several rungs down the live ladder from The Police or Spice Girls, barely remembered names from 90s NME live ads such as Sultans Of Ping FC, Cud and Northern Uproar are now playing bigger venues than they ever did in 1993. One act that thankfully won't be joining the reunion gravy train any time soon is Blur.

Despite the fact that this December will mark the 20th anniversary of the band's first rehersal (as a shonky south London student band called Seymour), guitarist Graham Coxon ended a year of speculation when he revealed to NME.COM a fortnight ago that the studio space the quartet had booked last December remained just that; a space. With Damon Albarn busy with The Good, The Bad & The Queen and winning Culture Show acceptance with "circus opera" Monkey: Journey To The West, Coxon on a run of form with his solo work (he's now released as many solo albums as he did with Blur), drummer Dave Rowntree considering a career move into politics and bassist Alex James niftily balancing being a media tart and a cheese-making farmer, they have finally called time on their band. At least they will never sully their reputation as being one of the most important, influential and smart British pop groups of the past 20 years.

Anyone who remembers just how bad Top Of The Pops was at the start of the 90s will tell you what a tonic Blur was when their second single made the top 10 in April 1991. Riding the baggified post-Madchester slipstream into the nation's living rooms, Blur's first couple of appearances on TOTP were essential 90s common room next-day talking points. Seeing them mime to "There's No Other Way" with pupils the size of 50p pieces felt endlessly exciting. No, Damon couldn't dance, or even really sing. But at least he was trying. "Being on Top Of The Pops for the first time is a real honour," he told NME's sister paper Melody Maker during his first interview with them in April 1991. "You're representing youth in front of 10 million people and it's your duty to..... put the knife in. There can be no modesty, I believe in just blossoming into something great, something legendary."

Until Blur came along it was easy to feel cheated. By the early 90s we had 24-hour satellite TV and still all you could see when you switched on the box was Jimmy Nail or endless hil-ar-ious novelty rave songs. It was a time when Bryan Adams spent 16 weeks at Number One, and in terms of danger, excitement and sex, mainstream music was at its absolute nadir, prompting endless handwriting broadsheet articles about The Death Of Rock N Roll. How exciting it was, then, to finally see a band who could appear on the front of NME and Smash Hits, who were famous enough to go on Top Of The Pops but indie enough to take Class A Drugs before they did it. "Stars are back," boasted Alex James. "There hasn't been a star drummer or a star bass player or even a star guitarist for ages." Finally, we had a band with such a surfeit of charisma that the biggest star in the group was the bassist. They gave great interviews, looked cool, went out every night and scored hits right out of the gate, meaning that Blur swiftly got the reputation for being the loudest, brashest, drunkest band in Britain. "You're getting yourselves a reputation as socialites," noted NME during an interview with the band later in 1991. "I think "liggers" is the word you're looking for," deadpanned Dave. Damon was equally self-aware: "With all the attention and indulgence, you have to be careful you don't turn into a monster. Because you get this permission to turn into a debauching, self-righteous, self-important monstrosity."

Indeed, a reality check was just around the corner with the release of their first album, "Leisure". Despite housing all the singles and a sublime tune called "Sing" (which was justly awarded an afterlife on the soundtrack to that other 90s phenomenon, Trainspotting), "Leisure" was a half-cocked disappointment. The album did OK, but the band were flailing; sent out on a miserable, seemingly endless tour of the US in 1992 in order to stave off bankruptcy, Blur famously reacted against mall culture and the Kurt-led dominance of grunge rock by coming home addicted to PG Tips and in love with the new wave bands of their youth: The Jam, Madness and XTC were all snappy, witty, very British pop bands, simultaneously able to apply a journalist's eye to the world around them and write great choruses. "If punk was about getting rid of hippies, I'm getting rid of grunge," declared Damon, if a little prematurely, as a revived Blur returned to don charity shop jumpers and skinhead boots and release a cracking punked-up single, "Popscene".

The world sighed and reached for their Pearl Jam records, but Blur didn't care, following single "Popscene" with the album "Modern Life Is Rubbish". Apart from being a landmark record full of pastoral-sounding Kinks-flavoured pop and well-observed comments on the stultifying nature of consumer society, "Modern Life..." revealed Graham Coxon to be, as producer Stephen Street acknowledged, "the greatest British guitarist since Johnny Marr". "I remember Stephen Street saying that Graham Coxon is one of the finest guitar players he's ever worked with," says Blur fan Pete Doherty. "I've always thought he's underrated. He gets plenty of praise, but there's something special about Graham".

"Modern Life..." also exposed what continues to be Damon Albarn's two greatest talents; writing genuinely moving ballads and second-guessing which direction the zeitgeist will blow in next. With "Modern Life Is Rubbish" he was right on the money, as the record marked the first flowerings of a new movement that would go on to grab headlines everywhere from Cape Cod to Kuala Lumpar; Britpop was born and Blur opened the doors for a brace of snappily dressed, literate and at times almost comically parochial bands. With a few exceptions (including Damon's then-girlfriend Justine Frischmann's band, Elastica), however, the competition wasn't really up to much and Blur looked louder, brasher and drunker than ever - leading to Peter Stringfellow writing an outraged letter to NME calling the band "obnoxious".

"Modern Life Is Rubbish" set the agenda, but 1994's "Parklife" really marked the start of Blurmania, with terrace lads, teenage pop fans and John Peel listeners all queuing up to buy the record by the truckload. It was one of those all-too infrequent moments when the whole country unites in mutual agreement about something good - and you had to be the most diehard of indie snobs not to revel in it.

In 1995 they set a new record at the Brits, winning four awards. Once again it left like a vindication, like the underground running amok in the mainstream - and the streets of North London soon began to fill with Italian tourists dressed in Adidas trainers and second-hand three-button demob jackets hoping to catch a glimpse of Graham Coxon being run over outside the Good Mixer at closing time. Blur were the Kings Of Camden, but Britpop got old rapidly. That initial exhileration of British youth culture finding something home-grown to celebrate rapidly gave way to a thousand horrible knock-off bands all calling themselves things like Walthamstow or Routemaster.

Damon Albarn didn't respond to all of this success well. "Parklife" follow up "The Great Escape" gave the impression that his knowledge of life for most ordinary people in this country was gleaned from reading the problem page in The Sun, while the middle-class son of a TV arts producer joined the Jamie Oliver/Guy Ritchie self-hate axis by affecting a wayward mockney accent. Britpop was over, then. Time for a re-think.

 

 

Yet at least Blur were smart enough to be the first to realise it. What followed was much experimenting with lo-fi rock, gospel and electronic textures on their next two albums ("Blur", 1997 and "13", 1999) and conquering the previously resistant America with tailor-made-for-sports-matches single, "Song 2".

"It was the only thing we could possibly make without going our separate ways," said Damon in a 1997 interview of the album, "Blur". "I suppose I saw everything in a vaguely cartoon way, and that's why we made cartoon music. But there've always been hints, on every single record of what this record is: things like "Sing" on "Leisure". In our minds it doesn't seem odd to have made this kind of departure."

And while their Britpop peers fell by the wayside, together and apart Blur consistently proved themselves to have more imagination than the rest: Alex James and Dave Rowntree poured their royalties into a Martian space probe, Graham Coxon made troubled-sounding solo records and angry paintings and Damon Albarn bought a bar in Iceland, invented Gorillaz and travelled to Mali to be taught how to play drums by the Africans. For what now looks like their final album, 2003's "Think Tank", Blur jettisoned Graham and relocated to Morocco to record with producer Fatboy Slim. The results were patchy at best, meaning that Blur's real legacy lies with some of the bands that came of age during Britpop: Kaiser Chiefs and their mass consciousness-infiltrating singalongs or Klaxons' melodic pop alchemy. "Blur were good because they had a great ear for melodies and pop, but also managed to be consistently interesting musically by always trying something different," says superfan, Bloc Party's Russell Lissack. "And Graham's not too bad on guitar, either."

But where does all of this leave us? Well, while their former rivals are content to remake the same album over and again with diminishing returns, Blur have done the smart thing and split for good. Disregarding the possibility of Dave Rowntree's Blur playing the Britpop Golden Oldies Tour with a very wrinkled Powder in 2024, audiences will never get the chance to shout "Pork Life!" or get all sniffy during "This Is A Low" again. Should we be sad? Sort of, but let's salute them. Blur RIP - time to move over and let the next generation have a go.

Leave our memories alone and let the babysitters starve.

 

Credit - NME Magazine

All typed up, this will only interest a couple of people, maybe not even a couple, but i think it's worth a read ;)

Thankyou Damon :o Woah, BIG article! Tis a sad day indeed :(

That is a great article - thanks for typing it up, Damon. Its very sad that Blur - one of my top bands of all time have called it quits, but at least they leave an excellent musical legacy behind them.

I spent ages indenting all the mini paragraphs, and it doesn't show up :unsure: :lol:

 

Anyway, i agree it's a good article. But i have to admit, im sort of pleased they aren't getting back together, they're all older now and i reckon a reunion would bring a completely "new" Blur, which some of the older fans may not like. I also can't see them fitting in with the current music scene, they're not really indie yet i think they'd struggle to slot into the "Rock" genre like Oasis have.

i agree in a way as much as i would loved a new album,i thik they have lost there way however id love the gorillaz to continue

Well as it is, we have neither :(