"Another night and I thought Well, well go to another party and hang myself
gently on the shelf"

Blur- Blur

Blur have always been one of my favorite bands their well balance of rich pop with good musicianship never sacrificing one for the other has always lead me to admire them and their ability to constantly change and adapt their sound never leaves a dull moment with them. In 1997 the band were riding on a wave of success and were the leaders of a movement they helped create. Parklife (1994) had cemented them as Britpop heroes and it’s successor The Great Escape (1995) was much in the same vain. Guitarist Graham Coxon was becoming frustrated with their pop sound and wanted something else. At the time Coxon was listening to a lot of American lofi bands particularly Pavement which he cites as an influence for the band’s change in sound. Singer Damon Albarn had become fed up with the press attention of becoming a popstar had brought him and a rivalry with Oasis wasn’t making things easier. “The same people who were chanting along with park life earlier were now calling me a wanker in the street”- Damon Albarn. The band pushed for a new sound and major departure from their previous albums. Where Parklife and the Great Escape were pop albums that celebrated British life their self titled Blur (1997) was much more experimental and loud the way Graham and Damon had wanted. The album in my own personal opinion is arguably their best. The opening track Beetlebum has a very dreamy daze feel to it, which goes along with what it’s supposedly written about, Damon and his girlfriend on heroin. The title itself is a reference to the drug, but before I discovered that I though it had to with Graham’s guitar which making a distinct buzzing sound reminiscent of beetle flying around. The first sounds on the album are Graham hitting dead notes on his Fender Jaguar then whooshing in with buzzing notes while Damon enters singing “Beetlebum, what’ve you done, she’s a gun for what you’ve done, Beetlebum’, with fuzzy detached vocals (which resonant throughout the album) and soon after eventually the rest of the band soon follows before the chorus erupts ‘And when she lets me slip away’. The ending is a simple driven guitar solo with lots of what appears to be radio chatter. Noel Gallagher has cited this as his personal favorite Blur song . The second song aptly named Song 2 and coming in at 2:02 is Blur’s biggest hit in America. ‘People like it because it’s unsophisticated and thuggish, which is what people like basically’- Graham Coxon Not one of my favorite songs at first listen but it has since grown on me with it’s simplicity. I’m sure the Pixies would be proud of this one with it’s quiet loud dynamic and the utterly simple catchy chorus which explodes into overdrive ‘WHOOHOO’. A track I have to bring up which is one of my personal favorite Blur songs is You’re So great. Recorded and written completely by Coxon it’s musically the albums simplest but also it’s most warmly heart felt. It’s also the first track in which Graham sings lead vocals and the only to be written by and only featuring one band member. Just Graham and two guitars (one acoustic and one electric), the song was recorded under a table in the studio because Graham at the time was very shy of his vocal abilities which bring an honesty and earnestness to the song. The song is also very lofi, which means bad audio quality but I think it adds to the song rather than take away. Death of the Party is another fantastic number. A pseudo trip hop beat with heavy bass and scratchy guitar with a spacey vibe the song feels like the song would suggest the Death of the Party. The track is melancholic with Damon singing the chorus “Another night and I thought well well, go to another party and hang myself”. On Your Own brings a drum machine in the mix which adds a hip hop feel to the song along with Graham’s looping guitar effects. Unlike previous Blur albums their isn’t an overall theme the lyrics seemed to be very secondary to the music on this one which is just fine because the music alone is damn fine. I always admire a band that can change their sound and step into unfamiliar ground which is what Blur did with this one. They could of easily released another pop album and had it go to number 1 but instead they chose the other route. Blur overall is a great album of experimentation and worth a listen.






*EDIT
Youtube has made it damn impossible for me to post the music videos to these tracks, sorry.

Originally Posted by swim America does folk, hardcore and mathrock better and that's 90% of what I give 2 shits on.

Originally Posted by chartsengrafs sweet nothing openly flaunts the fact that he is merely the empty shell of an even more unadmirable member. his loneliness and need for attention bleeds through every letter he types. edit: i would just like to add that i'm ashamed that he's from texas. surely you didn't grow up in texas, did you sweet nothing?

"What can you want now you've got it all? The whole scene is obscene
Time will strip it away a year and a day"

The Libertines- Up The Bracket
The Libertines first album Up the Bracket (2002) was my first step into the world of indie rock and modern music. Up to the point I heard it the ‘newest’ band I liked was Nirvana. I remember watching a documentary on British indie and seeing the Libertines perform ‘Boys In The Band‘ on Later….With Jools Holland. They had such an energetic aggressive who gives a fuck sound that reminded me a lot of punk and they looked great too with their leather jackets and tight black jeans. They looked as cool as they sound. Then I saw them play The Boy Looked At Johnny at a live show. On stage the singers/guitar players Pete Doherty and Carl Barat thrashed around on their guitars jumping up and down smashing into each other while drenched in sweat. Drummer Gary Powell pounded away on his away at his drums while bassist John Hassall stood their like a statue providing an anchor to the all the energy. So I went on itunes and gave it a download. They quickly became my favorite band and unlike Joy Division, The Smiths, or Nirvana even they left me feeling good and not depressed which was nice for a change. I defiantly see the Libertines as the start of the post-punk revival for the UK scene and you can defiantly draw a line between them and the Arctic Monkeys. Founding members Pete Doherty and Carl Barat met each other thought Pete’s sister who Carl was friends with. The two quickly became close friends as they shared a common love for writing music and the Smiths. The two formed a band called the Strand “I used to go to Blur’s record company everyday with a demo, and they’d tell me ‘oh we’ll get back to you’ I sorta became the laughing stock of the office. But that band fell apart and me and Pete started a new band and decided it was all or nothing”- Carl Barat. After adding Drummer Gary Powell and bassist John Hassall to the mix the Libertines were created. After constantly playing gigs and sending out demo’s the band and a praise review by the NME the band were singed to indie label Rough Trade records. The band recorded Up the Bracket with legendary Clash guitarist/singer Mick Jones who was able to encapsulate the raw energy of their live shows in the studio recordings. Throughout the record Carl and Pete share vocal duties. Pete’s voice is much more thick accented and he slur’s his words abit but so does Carl who has a much more accessible voice softer voice. Time For Heroes is one of the standout tracks. Like the Clash’s White Riot on their debut album the song was inspired by Pete’s experience in a riot on May Day in London, ‘Did you see the stylish kids in the riot? We were shovelled up like muck, set the night on fire. Wombles bleed truncheons and shields’. And there is also some emphasis on England loss of national identity ’here are fewer more distressing sights, than that, of an Englishman in a baseball cap.’ Pete maybe an overrated lyricist but he does have his moments, and Time For Heroes is pretty much all those moments. The Boy Looked at Johnny is a pub anthem with slurred words and inconsistent babbling it’s not so hard to picture the band singing it along with a small crowd in a smoked and sweat filled pub. The title track is quite possibly my favorite Libertines track. It starts out with what sounds like a death howl from Doherty screaming “Get out of it”. Pretty much a great pop song. Boys in the Band is Carl’s best moment on the album sounding like it was made for an indie dance club with its drums and funky riffs and with Carl singing “I’ve never heard you dance and I’ve never heard you sing so how could it mean a single thing?”. I get along would be his second best which has him saying “I get along singing my song people tell I’m wrong….fuck em’ which could either be scene as a very juvenile statement or very brilliant one. What A Waster another favorite of mine by them in general it’s also probably one of their most profane. With the opening lines “What a waster, what a fucking waster you pissed it all up the wall round the corner where they chased her there’s tears coming out from everywhere. The city's hard, the city's fair, get back inside you've got nothing on No you mind yer bleedin own you two bob cunt” The song is revolves around a girl with an obvious drug problem. Overall the album is a blast form the past made new, it has all the energy form the first wave of punk but made modern which is a good thing. The album always puts me in a good mood because of memories of younger days tied to it.

Originally Posted by swim America does folk, hardcore and mathrock better and that's 90% of what I give 2 shits on.

Originally Posted by chartsengrafs sweet nothing openly flaunts the fact that he is merely the empty shell of an even more unadmirable member. his loneliness and need for attention bleeds through every letter he types. edit: i would just like to add that i'm ashamed that he's from texas. surely you didn't grow up in texas, did you sweet nothing?