Sure, Gorrillaz have performed here (I saw em, not as impressed as the rest of the world), and solo (I saw him, nowhere near as impressed as the rest of the world) but Blur have always been a great live band, the proof is in the performance, and if he cared about cracking the States he might tour the States, but Blur don’t care at all, so they leave the middle of America to wallow in their own bad taste.
The band appears briefly at the beginning and at the end, dressed up as the avatars of their fake video game, Damon Albarn as the ice cream cone, Mr. Cream, Grahan Coxon as the cockroach, Mr. Brown, Alex James as the blob, Mr. Red, and Dave Rowntree as the fly, Mr. Black… and it didn’t even make me smile a second… do they really find that remotely funny?
I know what you’re thinking: where the hell are Blur? I mean, after a month of non stop blather, w’appen? Don’t fret so, they are at # 11 BUT, just to get that in perspective, Taylor is into her 26th week, and Sheeran his 50th week, meanwhile, this damn band who we’ve had shoved down our throat non stop can’t stay in the top ten two weeks?
How did Tay get back to # 2 five months after 1989 dropped? No new song on the charts, sure she has three dates in June but that is three dates and it is in June. No surprise to see Blur at # 1… every album since Parklife has done the exact same thing. Ps: remember how they didn’t put “Popscene” on the UK version of Modern Life Is Rubbish because they were pissed it didn’t chart? They are doing the exact same thing with the US.
My buddy Phil Tanner, a great musician in his own right, was at yesterday’s Blur concert, the one I couldn’t get a ticket too for love nor money, and claims they murdered it. I believe him though by reckoning only three songs are oldies and I am not a big enough fan of the new one to be certain they can pull it off a Thirteen.
If it was just me, well, fine. But Blur’s heyday was in the 1990s, so really anybody with a job was gonna find it ifficult and to add insult to injury, if they could get a ticket and then could risk it, they still couldn’t get in. If you work in the City, you might not get there till 4pm by which time you’ll be at the end of a line starring 4000 college kids.
The first time I saw Blur live was at the Academy in 1994 and they were magnificent, and, till their break up circa 2003, I saw them every time they played New York and they never let me down
So as far as I am concerned The Magic Whip is a return to form. Good, sometimes not good, never as clever as it thinks it is, but with some good Blur songs to add to the catalog. A lot better than I thought it would be.
“Go Out” a goodie with a very catchy chorus and a singalong attitude even if it doesn’t entirely lend itself and “There Are Too Many Of Us”a dreary somewhere in the middle of it all slog through overpopulation and now here is # 3, which exists somewhere in the middle.
“Too Many Of Us” suggests Blur are taking the oh no Hong Kong concept of smaller everything to logical extremes with this ode to over population, though, heaven knows, the West has done its parts to keep down the population over the past fifty years. So why is this brick lecturing us, on the awful song?
Compared to the years of crap we’ve had to sit through, last years painful rotten and boring Everyday Robots for one, it sounds like Fidlar. Truthfully it is drone rock, maybe more Blur than anything else, but a hooky one, it is like a treadmill of a song going round and round and leaving you grinning at the slay em stadium steadyness of it all.
Fever On The Bayou – Rodney Crowell – What a tinglingly wonderful singalong country swamp song, it rolls off the tongue and snaps like a frog at a flea – A
