{"id":1482,"date":"2008-06-12T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-12T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-10T08:57:56","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T08:57:56","slug":"for-those-who-bitched-through-the-90s-an","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-those-who-bitched-through-the-90s-an\/","title":{"rendered":"For Those Who Bitched Through the &#8217;90s: An Old Dude&#8217;s Guide to Blur"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/blur-best-of.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"314\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_legend\">Stop your sobbing!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>For those of you who, like me, spent much of the &#8217;90s bitching and licking wounds inflicted from musical battles fought throughout the &#8217;80s &#8211; <em>and who therefore missed most of the output of <strong>Blur<\/strong> when they appeared as part of that Britpop movement that I don&#8217;t think caught on much beyond stinking <strong>Oasis<\/strong> in the US<\/em> &#8211; I&#8217;d like to kick off work toward an <strong>An Old Dude&#8217;s Guide to Blur<\/strong>. This is especially meant for the consideration of fellow crotchety, old Townspeople as well as further enlightenment from the younger generation, for whom the band that gave Fox Sports broadcasts the &#8220;<em>whoo-hoo<\/em>&#8221; soundbite may mean something more. If you&#8217;re so cool that you straddle this issue as an older dude who was tuned in enough during the &#8217;90s to have appreciated Blur in their time, bear with us. You too may be of use in this discussion.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/riE-GI0PxnE?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I first noticed Blur the year my wife and I lived in Hungary, probably in the winter of 1993, when the above video was all the rage on <strong>MTV Europe<\/strong>. The months leading up to our year overseas are all a blur (<em>heh, heh<\/em>) now: when I wasn&#8217;t bitching about dashed dreams from the previous decade and fighting with bandmates in an offshoot band that was initially meant to self-deprecatingly celebrate said dashed dreams, I was <em>deep<\/em> in following my Phillies as they made their way to their first National League pennant in 20 years. (We left for our year abroad the night before they clinched the division and made their way to the World Series: yet more dashed dreams!) <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;d heard of this band Blur before leaving the US &#8211; and maybe Oasis was already a bit of a success &#8211; but I couldn&#8217;t have told them apart from any of those earlier sweatsuit-wearing, neo-moptopped British bands that had made a little splash in the US earlier in the decade, like <strong>Jesus Jones<\/strong>. When I first saw the video for &#8220;Girls and Boys&#8221; on MTV Europe I was taken aback by a combination of attraction and horror. Somehow the song and the video was on the razor&#8217;s edge of where the British post-punk of a band like <strong>XTC<\/strong> or <strong>Gang of Four<\/strong> went all wrong and turned into whiny, self-absorbed &#8220;&#8217;80s music&#8221; &#8211; a very bad term in my world! All in all, though, <em>I liked this song<\/em> &#8211; I actually liked it! It was clear from the video that this band was having a good-hearted poke at youth culture. To this day I&#8217;m still not sure that the bassist was in on the joke, but I&#8217;ve managed to overlook this concern.<\/p>\n<p>During that year in Hungary, waiting through a lot of European-friendly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=39KZ2afBtLU\" target=\"_blank\">stuff that I couldn&#8217;t stand<\/a> and laughing at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Fa5SiU2U5_k\" target=\"_blank\">utter oddities that only non-English-speaking nations could come up with when making their version of what they believed to be cutting-edge rock &#8216;n roll<\/a>, I got to see other Blur videos and live appearances on EuroMTV&#8217;s version of <em>Most Wanted<\/em>, hosted by a bloke named <strong>Ray Cokes<\/strong>, whose Conan O&#8217;Brien-like sense of silliness I adored, especially living in the sad, beautiful, sarcastic, but not-so-silly Budapest. Here&#8217;s one of the catchier singles that was playing that year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Blur, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/CharmlessMan.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;Charmless Man&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I liked the way this band could touch on elements of <strong>The Kinks<\/strong>, <strong>David Bowie<\/strong> (and <em>not<\/em> his often annoying singing style), and <strong>Buzzcocks<\/strong> while not sounding like they were created in a lab, like that band <strong>World Party<\/strong> from a few years earlier (not that they shared all the same influences).<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/>\nI also got to see a few cool videos and live appearances by another &#8220;<strong>Oats<\/strong> band&#8221; I knew nothing about at the time, <strong>Pulp<\/strong>. I saw a lot of Oasis stuff as well, but never found them interesting. After a year of Britpop exposure, I actually bought a Pulp album, but it was nothing like the guitar and organ-based stuff I&#8217;d seen and like &#8211; it was a bunch of synth-disco stuff, more like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=39KZ2afBtLU\" target=\"_blank\">that band I always dreaded seeing on EuroMTV<\/a>. Long story short, the bummer that was the Pulp album I spent way more than necessary on (CDs were a good $5 more expensive over there) stopped me from dropping however many <em>forints<\/em> on a Blur album. I&#8217;ve still not gotten the guts to try another Pulp album, but this is the kind of stuff I was used to seeing:<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d4xvh-Og8Hc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>So anyhow, crotchety, old Townspeople and younger, Britpop-aware Townspeople, a few years ago I finally broke down and bought <strong><em>Blur: The Best of<\/em><\/strong>. What an eminently listenable <em>Best of<\/em> album! I know what some of you old farts are thinking:<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Does it knock my socks off? More often than not, no.<\/li>\n<li>Is it as good as what I consider &#8220;great&#8221; rock &#8216;n roll artists from that glorious pre-1983 world? At times, close.<\/li>\n<li>Forty years from now, would I be thrilled to find a scratchy Blur single in a &#8220;thrifty&#8221; bin at a flea market? Most likely.<\/li>\n<li>Do I wish I&#8217;d been buying Blur albums when they came out rather than wasting so much time and energy being in a bad mood? Yes!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another UK hit that, I think, should go down easy for crotchety, old Townspeople. Stop your sobbing for 5 minutes and make yourself listen to this. Let me know what you think, but please, see if you can do so without wasting all your energy telling me why it&#8217;s not as good as some obscure band you dig from an earlier era. Remember, this is a song that got played on the radio in some countries when it came out. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Blur, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/CoffeeandTV.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;Coffee and TV&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To this day I&#8217;d kill for more radio fodder like &#8220;Coffee and TV&#8221;. Blur&#8217;s songs always have a well-defined sense of style, they have memorable choruses that you anticipate hearing again after their first appearance, they have cool bursts of guitar, and they&#8217;ve got a snappy production. As the concept of recorded pop songs developed from the British Invasion through the dawn of Britpop, the future music of Blur fit the bill.<\/p>\n<p>The band&#8217;s debt to British Invasion bands like The Kinks should be clear by now, and the fact that you old farts may be shaking your heads and thinking, <em>But they&#8217;re nowhere near as great as The Kinks<\/em> doesn&#8217;t matter. There are two more characteristics that I&#8217;d like to discuss that I find interesting and effective. First, listen the following two songs. They&#8217;re on the long side and not rocking, but you&#8217;re older now and probably mellow enough to ride along with these tracks, <em>stroking your beard and taking a draw from your pipe, making sure not to spill ashes on your lab coat<\/em>.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/>\n<strong>Blur, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/TheUniversal.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;The Universal&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Blur, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/Tender.mp3\">&#8220;Tender&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Listen to the way the chorus is topped off with a <strong>decorative bow<\/strong> in &#8220;The Universal&#8221;. Listen to the overly crafted drama in this song. It&#8217;s got nothing to do with The Kinks and other &#8220;great&#8221; bands from the past but, rather, more humble, AM radio bands like <strong>The Bee Gees<\/strong> and much lesser bands &#8211; all that <strong>Gary Puckett and the Union Gap<\/strong>\/<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YJ8XLglx8HQ\" target=\"_blank\">Walker Brothers<\/a><\/strong> nonsense that may have belonged in night clubs more than what we think of today as rock venues. It takes a certain talent to put that much craft into a song, especially in the middle of a period in musical history that was not placing a high value on craft for craft&#8217;s sake. AND &#8211; and I get back to my earlier World Party comparison &#8211; and it sounds like the people making this music breathe oxygen!<\/p>\n<p>Now, moving onto &#8220;Tender&#8221; &#8211; and if you&#8217;re a hard-hearted, old fart like me, I can understand that the title of that song was probably extremely threatening. You thought you&#8217;d be hearing something by <strong>ABC<\/strong>, didn&#8217;t you? Not quite. First of all, I was sucked in by the production&#8217;s nod to &#8220;Give Peace a Chance&#8221;, with that fairly heavy slapback on the kick drum. Then, as I&#8217;ve gotten used to this song over the years, I&#8217;ve dug the big chorus and the decorative bow that&#8217;s place at the end of this song&#8217;s chorus. Then, following that first chorus, I like how the lead vocal is blended in with a slide guitar for a few measures. It&#8217;s cool, man. There aren&#8217;t enough cool records being made &#8211; there weren&#8217;t enough in the &#8217;90s either. I should have been digging this stuff for all it was worth way back when.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, as I think &#8220;Tender&#8221; best represents, these guys have <strong>BALLS<\/strong>. Not the macho, Viagra-and-gunpowder balls we think of in an artist like <strong>Ted Nugent<\/strong>, but the balls of artists who actually have the balls to think they have an audience that wants to hear a 7:41 acoustic sing-along anthem about the Power and Glory of Love. <\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3BomNwpILtk?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nFor all their similar &#8217;60s and &#8217;70s influences, Blur do not show the signs of <strong>sandbox retreat<\/strong> that were seen in XTC from <em>Skylarking<\/em> forward. It&#8217;s refreshing and empowering for an old fart who&#8217;d like to think that rock &#8216;n roll can still be a force for positive community change and thought, even if I&#8217;m a good 15 years late in applying this thinking to Blur. For too long rock &#8216;n roll has been in short supply of this set of balls &#8211; the balls <strong>John Lennon<\/strong> had in spades. I&#8217;m not suggesting that Damon Albarn and company have balls anywhere near the size and scope of Lennon&#8217;s or <strong>Marvin Gaye<\/strong>&#8216;s or <strong>Curtis Mayfield<\/strong>&#8216;s, but while <strong>Paul Weller<\/strong>, at one time one of rock&#8217;s greatest proponents of the power of positive rocking was getting his head out of a cable-knit V-neck sweater up the collective ass of <strong>Traffic<\/strong> (albeit an improvement, if you ask me), Blur was making cool, conversational, trusting rock &#8216;n roll.<\/p>\n<p>So there, your crotchety, old Moderator, who spent too much time in the &#8217;90s being a big crybaby, has come clean with some positive thoughts on a band he could have liked fine enough 15 years ago. I hope fellow members of the <strong>Bad Attitude Club<\/strong>, some of whom I&#8217;ll be seeing in my garage soon enough, have taken the time to revisit this band. Better yet, I hope those who&#8217;ve already been in tune with Blur and other Britpop band step forward to fill me in on other perspectives regarding your appreciation of this stuff.<\/p>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-those-who-bitched-through-the-90s-an\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-those-who-bitched-through-the-90s-an\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-those-who-bitched-through-the-90s-an\/3\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">3<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-those-who-bitched-through-the-90s-an\/4\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">4<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-those-who-bitched-through-the-90s-an\/5\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">5<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stop your sobbing! For those of you who, like me, spent much of the &#8217;90s bitching and licking wounds inflicted from musical battles fought throughout the &#8217;80s &#8211; and who therefore missed most of the output of Blur when they appeared as part of that Britpop movement that I don&#8217;t think caught on much beyond <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/for-those-who-bitched-through-the-90s-an\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[7,8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}