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Blur
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Initially, Blur was one of the multitude of British bands who appeared in the wake of the Stone Roses, mining the same swirling, pseudo-psychedelic guitar pop, only with louder guitars. Following an image makeover in the mid-'90s, the group emerged as the most popular band in the U.K., establishing themselves as heir to the English guitar pop tradition of the Kinks, the Small Faces, the Who, the Jam, Madness, and the Smiths. In the process, the group broke down the doors for a new generation of guitar bands who became labeled as Brit-pop. With Damon Albarn's wry lyrics and the group's mastery of British pop tradition, Blur was the leader of Brit-pop, but they quickly became confined by the movement; since they were its biggest band, they nearly died when the movement itself died. Through some reinvention, Blur reclaimed their position as an art pop band in the late '90s by incorporating indie rock and lo-fi influences, which finally gave them their elusive American success in 1997. But the band's legacy remained in Britain, where they helped revitalize guitar pop by skillfully updating the country's pop traditions.
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The song "You're So Great" was the first song written by Graham Coxon to appear on a Blur album (his only previous solo outing on a Blur record had been the B-side "Rednecks"). It was performed solely by him and can be seen as the start of his solo career. The extreme lo-fi recording of the track is typical of songs on Coxon's first solo albums.
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With the success of Parklife, Blur opened the door for a flood of British indie guitar bands who dominated British pop culture in the mid-\'90s. Oasis, Elastica, Pulp, the Boo Radleys, Supergrass, Gene, Echobelly, Menswear, and numerous other bands all benefited from the band\'s success. By the beginning of 1995, Parklife had gone triple platinum and the band had become superstars. The group spent the first half of 1995 recording their fourth album and playing various one-off concerts, including a sold-out stadium show. Blur released "Country House," the first single from their new album, in August amidst a flurry of media attention because Albarn had the single\'s release moved up a week to compete with the release of "Roll With It," a new single from Blur\'s chief rivals, Oasis. The strategy backfired.
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After the whole Blur vs. Oasis mumbo jumbo Blur needed something else, something spanking new that didn’t reek of competition, resentment and money. Moreover, with The Great Escape, the bleak third part to its Britpop-trilogy, the band seemed to suggest that chapter was finished, and over and done with. The smells of decomposition were all over the place, so to speak, and luckily the band did what it was expected to do. Instead of turning the whole British-ness into a lame gimmick, elements from indie rock, electronica and lo-fi were incorporated in the sound. The main guy responsible was probably Coxon, who had never cared that much about the band’s image the way Albarn had, and who had always had more US-oriented tastes in music. So, despite Albarn’s disgust with America and its culture (a point he made clear over and over again), the bands sheds off the quirky pop tricks for the most part, choosing a looser and more experimental direction instead.
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Aside from a minor hit three years ago, with the perfect pop single "Girls and Boys," England's beloved Blur have never quite killed alternative-era America. The band's 1994 Parklife, with its deft character sketches and musical finesse, may have reminded Britain how intimately pop can reflect that country's social and political swirl. But by the time the 1995 single "Country House" (off The Great Escape) appeared here, the conflicts between U.K. and American tastes seemed too decisive for Blur. "Country House," a swinging indictment of upper-middle-class remove, struck many Americans as too perfect. It had been a long time since groups such as Roxy Music or Steely Dan offered similarly cranky-minded tunes that relied on that degree of pop calibration.
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Modern Life Is Rubbish established Blur as the heir to the archly British pop of the Kinks, the Small Faces, and the Jam, but its follow-up, Parklife, revealed the depth of that transformation. Relying ...Read full review
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