Winds Howling

Around the same time I whipped through Weezer, I blasted through Blur’s discography, listening to all nine albums over the span of three or so days. I got inspired to listen to them after reading this blog post by All Over 2a, a blogger in London I like to read; if you scroll down, you can see my comment from the day I first shuffled Blur in the car.

I really like this band and am glad I listened through all their albums. I knew Damon Albarn, known to me as “the guy from Gorillaz,” had had an earlier chapter in his career, but wasn’t really aware of what it was, so it was a nice surprise to hear his voice in this different context. His voice is usually so mysterious and restrained, almost spoken, on Gorillaz songs, but here it’s unleashed with all the expression of a typical pop rock frontman. I think his voice is one of the more distinctive among singers active today, so it’s good to hear more of its history. Thanks to All Over 2a for writing that original post and getting me to listen to this.

Here are a few brief notes I took on each album, plus how many songs from each I saved to a playlist. In general, I really liked the peak Britpop albums, in particular “Modern Life is Rubbish,” and enjoyed the later albums, which have a more expansive style, but didn’t really like the middle couple of albums as much. These are all really just first impressions; I haven’t listened to any of these more than a couple of times yet.

“Leisure” — Most of the tracks blended together; only a couple were worth saving. Went down easy, but felt somewhat generic, with some fumes left from the ’80s. Saves: 3

“Modern Life is Rubbish” — A big step up. They’re coming through much more distinctly and seem to have sharper ideas. Saves: 4

“Parklife” — Had some highlights that were up to par with “Modern Life is Rubbish,” but the album didn’t catch me as much overall. Saves: 2

“The Great Escape” — Didn’t feel like a significant contribution over the previous two albums; I can see why they shifted styles after this. Across the albums so far Blur has had a lot of songs of a type I don’t usually like: Beatles-esque songs about named characters, like “Eleanor Rigby.” I’ve been tolerating them well enough so far, but “Ernold Same” was the last straw — this one was bad. Saves: 2

“Blur” — Liked a lot of tracks from this, but a lot of them also went by relatively unnoticed, and the overall mood was a bit bleh. Saves: 2

“13” — Most of this isn’t really catching my attention, a bit droney. “Tender” was an overall standout and the only Blur song so far to get stuck in my head. Saves: 2

“Think Tank” — From track 1 it feels like Blur woke back up. Variety is returning to the sound. Satisfying huge sounds, like the reverby bass blasts on ‘Jets’ and big jangly cascading guitar on ‘Battery in Your Leg.’ Saves: 4

“The Magic Whip” — has a sort of clean and gloopy sound, where previous albums were more jangly or rough. More observational writing returns, and some of the old poppiness too, but the music is still a bit more subdued and weirder sonically like the last couple albums. Maybe the least unique one so far. Saves: 4

“The Ballad of Darren” — Strong! Reminds me of David Bowie’s “Blackstar” in a lot of ways; generally subdued, reflective in tone, Albarn’s voice holding a ghostly gravitas. It’s not as necrotic as ‘Blackstar,’ though, and still has a good amount of energy holding it above the water. Not much to remember in terms of production, but it’s clean, classy sounding and had enough new noises to keep my ears entertained. Probably could have been sharpened by a couple of songs. Saves: 6