Friday 31 July 2009

Blur - B-Sides (1990-'99)


^ Best song they ever did, period...

First off, this has nothing to do with the group's chequebook-balancing reunion - something I really couldn't care less about. It's a measured selection of 20 of the best B-sides and non-album tracks, including 2003's white label 'Don't Bomb If You're the Bomb'. Gloss over that though, because the meat of this is focused on the good stuff - offcuts from the Modern Life Is Rubbish era (possibly the last choking plea for sanity from indie rock Britain produced) which particularly draw attention to the influence of a little band called Wire.
Blur's initial submission to their label Food for their sophomore album was rejected for being too weird, so of course it has some of the best songs. They often suffer from the B-side syndrome of great ideas laboriously stretched out to song length, but what else did you expect? This includes most of (but not all) of the much-revered 'Popscene' EP. It's garnered mostly from the box set of their singles released in 1999, and if there are any particularly impassioned requests for the rest of it I'd be up to fulfilling them.

Unfortunately I was only born in time to see them touring the portentous Think Tank in 2003. What a fucking jip.

modern life is sadistic water torture


^Or was it this?

2 comments:

sp73 said...

you didn't really miss much,they were a shambles live when I saw them in 91 & 93.

Molecules said...

Ah nice, where did you catch them? There's some rose-tinted nostalgia involved no doubt, but from the 'Starshaped' and 'Showtime' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiwDjxx-ASQ) footage I've seen the quality of their performances was proportional to drunkenness/cockiness. The band always seemed on point, particularly Coxon... it's Albarn that lets the side down with his abysmal breathing control and, let's face it, not all-too-great voice.