Adore 13! Wow, at least I agree with 2 of you. These albums are all good. ALL. Some hit me more than others, namely MLIR and Parklife and 13. Can't believe the diss on 13.
I have always felt that “You’re So Great” was an obvious homage to Guided By Voices. I read that Graham was really into them as well as Pavement around that time. It sounds like a lost Tobin Sprout track and would fit perfectly on an album like Vampire on Titus or Bee Thousand
Think Tank is a truly excellent album. In reality I prefer it to Parklife. Ambulance, Caravan, Sweet Song, Good Song, Out Of Time, Gene By Gene... its the feel of the album. This has a world feel to it. Yeah Coxon is on just one track....dont write it off.
It's amazing how divisive this album is, considering it's really just a smooth, very listenable collection of (admittedly pretty Damon-heavy) tunes. Personally I love it, but I guess if you're not into even the earliest Gorillaz stuff, or simply can't deal with the notion of Blur doing anything without Coxon, it probably ain't gonna be for you
The people making it divisive are a particular breed of music critic. There’s just not really that much to dislike about the album. There’s a couple of loose moments… but there’s always been that in blur albums.
I arrived in the UK for a university year abroad not long after Parklife came out and this was one of the albums that became the soundtrack to all kinds of great (also drunken, hazy) experiences and priceless memories. I recorded off the radio a concert they gave at the Alexandra Palace, a tape I still own and digitized at some point. At the end of the show two very obsequious radio presenters (Steve Lamacq and Jo Willey, I think) interviewed Graham and Damon. Damon demanded they play Supergrass, which they immediately did. And that’s how I was introduced to “Caught by the Fuzz” and another band that came to signify my year abroad.
Yeah, Blur are among my top 5 fav bands of all time, and I love all of Damon's and Graham's other projects too. Everyone knows Gorillaz, of course, but really, do yourselves a favor and listen to Graham's solo albums, especially from Happiness in Magazines onwards. Guy deserves way more attention and credit than he gets, but the mainstream appeal of Gorillaz obviously outshines Graham's more indie leanings. Last year's Superstate is among my top 3 fav albums of 2021. Taking Blur, Gorillaz, Graham solo and Damon's several other projects (The Good, The Bad & The Queen, his solo albums and collabs with African musicians) all together, this pair of musicians have one of the most diverse and brilliant discographies ever recorded under their belts. That said, here's my Blur album ranking: 8. The Magic Whip 7. Think Tank (though 7 and 8 often switch places) 6. Leisure 5. The Great Escape 4. Blur 3. Parklife 2. Modern Life is Rubbish 1. 13 Oh, and they also have several albums worth of great b-sides, single-only releases and other rarities. Under the Westway, my gods, what a song...
I voted for Joenuary mainly because of Blur. In high school I met this girl, and one of her favorite bands was Blur, a band I only had a passing familiarity with (oddly the only song I knew was "There's No Other Way", not the recently popular "Song 2") and since I was crushing on this girl I had to bone up on Blur knowledge. I picked up Parklife at the music store, and was immediately impressed (which made me like said girl even more). 24+ years later my wife still likes Blur. Never listened to Think Tank (which without Graham doesn't feel like a Blur album). And shockingly today juse learned that there was an album from the 2010s. 6. Leisure** - Except for the fantastic catchy "There's No Other Way" 5. Modern Life Is Rubbish*** - a big improvement. Though it turns out my favorite song from it "Popscene" isn't on the album anymore. (It was on the American release) 4 13*** - Got this near when it was released and was very disappointed it for me felt like the parts didn't like from the previous album and made a whole album of it.. Time has been kind to it though, and "No Distance Left to Run" is amazing. 3. The Great Escape***1/2 - Feels like more boring version of Parklife. Still there's a number of great songs. 2. Blur***** - A great change up from the Great Escape. 1. Parklife****** - Just fantastic. Nearly every song here is great. Blur vs Oasis - While I like Parklife more than MOrning Glory and overall I like more Blur songs than Oasis, Oasis has a slight edge because their top tier songs I think are stronger and more memorable than the best Blur songs.
Oasis had Acquiesce as a Bside. Nobody really mentions Blur’s great bsides because they’re not in the same league. Oasis became a rock n roll cliche but their original first couple of albums and bsides are head and shoulders above any run by Blur.
Great video. My favourite album is Modern Life is Rubbish and it's a clear number 1 for me. Parklife is a masterpiece too but I find that the sound of M.L.I.R is so quintessentially English and really Blur at its finest.
Can't wait for the Bowie episode coming up! I'm counting on it to be quite fascinating. I've dove in deep many times with Bowie's 70's and 80's output, but looking to you guys to help guide me through everything after -
Jason has ranked XTC and it was a strange order with some of my favourites at the bottom. He likes early XTC a lot which is strange given how little Blur has tickled his fancy
This was a delight. Thanks so much for making an old Blurhead happy by simply paying attention to them :) even though your #1 pick was not quite correct :))) Loved watching this and looking forward to going through your archive
FYI : 'Baggy" was a term given to the indie rock/dance scene out of Manchester in the late 80s, personified by bands such as The Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, The Charlatans , Northside, Inspiral Carpets etc. Musically "Baggy" was characterized by indie rock guitars but with a dance or funky beat , (James Brown's "Funky Drummer" beat was often used or replicated ( or attempted ) by some of the bands. This tied in with the rise of the "Rave" scene and culture in Britain in the late 80s as well.( Indie kids wanted to get out of their bedrooms and go dancing , party and take drugs as well i guess). "Baggy " also refers to the style of dress of the bands and their fans ( baggy jeans,, flared , bright coloured polo neck, casual tops, English football shirts, 60s styles etc) . Blur tried to cash in on that sound tbh as that scene started to wind down, hence why Albarn probably looks back on "Leisure" with some embarrassment. I'm with Joe though. Don't think it's a bad record ( they went on to make much better of course) , and it's a good representation of brit rock pop of that time .
Good choice to rank Blur’s albums. In the late 90s I really liked them. Still go back to them every now & then. The Great Escape & Parklife are my favourites.
I've been wanting to give Blur a try for awhile so it was good to have a reason to dive in this week. I got through the entire discography once which gave me some idea of their sound because before this I think I really only knew two songs ("Song 2" and "Girls & Boys"). The album that stood out the most for me was 13 because I thought it was really cool sounding and I enjoyed the change of direction. Not to say I disliked their previous direction but listening to it all consecutively in a small window of time I found it to be a lot. I think I will go back especially to Modern Life is Rubbish and Parklife on their own and let them shine. I also liked Blur quite a bit too which I actually picked up on CD in a thrifting haul a few months ago but hadn't got to listen to before this. All in all, a cool week. It's always fun to check out what is essentially a new-to-me band. And hey, you guys couldn't have had better timing for some unexpected publicity! My mind is still kinda blown by that timing.
Another great listography guys. Didn’t know Blur except for a couple of hits. Still enjoyed regardless. I would normally look into the music after watching but not sure I will for this one tbh (part of that is lack of free time btw). Anyways props to Jason for sticking to his (unpopular) views. Cheers guys!
I personally much prefer Oasis BUT i do believe that Blur are a better band terms of musicianship, ambition and variety, think I just love the simplicity of Oasis more.
Same. Snobs hate them, but I love Oasis, I think they were the perfect band for those 2 or 3 years in the mid 90s. However I like Blur too. The whole battle of the britpop bands was a bit silly, wasn't it?
I agree partially…. I think Oasis had much more ambition than Blur. The members from blur are all university educated and had some money growing up. The Gallagher’s didn’t have a pot to piss in and became one of the biggest bands of the 90’s… the blur members probably explored more music like talking heads etc etc whilst growing up meanwhile oasis listened too the Beatles, stones and Manchester band stone roses.. classics. I feel like blur were more worried about being weird/different /trendy. Whilst oasis just gave you the good old rock n roll… take it or leave it. I wouldn’t even consider Oasis britpop like I would blur, pulp and that lot of bands.
@@ursula3438 It's NOT snobbery it's people who aren't inverted snobs who automatically worship everything working class and who find their attitude sucks and their songs are too simplistic. Also very overexposed and overated so if you if you aren't massively on the hype train you're gonna be sick of them fast.
@katwelham9555n o its definitely class snobbery ...m blur fans always look down on people who prefer oasis as though they are lower beings....also they're really not that simplistic if you play all the licks, solos and chords properly.... rock n roll star, live forever, supersonic, bring it on down, don't look back in anger, champagne supernova, my big mouth, it's gettin better man, I hope I think I know, the turning, turn up the sun etc are nowhere near as simplistic as people make them out to be...m watch youtube videos of lessons of them. th-cam.com/video/6BUS6_E1oog/w-d-xo.html this great cover will show you.
@@GeneBolmarcichEsq Yep, this is also my experience with this channel! I find myself equally agreeing and disagreeing with all three of them - and that's part of the reason I enjoy the channel so much.
very based of Kramz to have 13 at #2. It’s my favourite but it’s always great to see it get love. Can’t disagree with Parklife though it’s an absolute classic.
This is why I love this channel; such intelligent analysis and discussion plus the variety. I really did suffer last week, clenched teeth time, but I love Blur and Parklife in particular. Thanks guys.
Kram, "Battery in My Leg" is the only "Think Tank" song completed before Coxon walked out, so not surprising it has the sound of "13" with the whole band still being intact.
My favourite band. First saw blur play the reading festival back in 1993. Really enjoyed their set and went and bought modern life is rubbish. Massive fan of Damon from blur, Gorillaz and The good, the bad and the queen. Also Graham is such an underrated guitarist. My list rankings My Favourite blur albums 1. Modern Life Is Rubbish - 1993 2. Parklife 3. 13 4. Blur 1997 5. Leisure 6. The Great Escape 7. The Magic Whip 8. Think Tank
Got to be honest: I only stuck with last week's episode on Whitney to hear Cram just go to town destroying and laughing at those records. However, while there were some disagreements here, everyone was more or less back on the same page (with regard to general taste) and it's great to hear you all go through the Blur discography. Blur is a band i always kind of liked but just don't listen to a lot, and these are usually the sorts of discography videos I have the most fun with from you guys. BTW I miss the old theme tune
Parklife is one of my favorite albums of the 90's, so I've been looking forward to this week very much, partly also because I don't know the margins of their catalogue.
I haven't listened to Blur for about 10 years but I will again now after that. I was into them at the height of Brit Pop, though, and even saw them on their Great Escape Tour. Great mid 90's albums.
Joe I hated your hate for the Flaming Lips but my god am I so happy to hear you like Blur. One of my all time favorite bands. 1. Modern Life Is Rubbish 2. Great Escape (Jason speaking sacrilege. Can’t name one other song sounds like Quango. Yuko and Hiro is stunningly beautiful. Best days, fade away, top man, THE BASSLINE IN ENTERTAIN ME) 3. Parklife 4. Ballad of Darren 5. Leisure 6. Magic Whip 7. Blur(fuck the pens) 8. 13 9. Think Tank
Hey Joe thanks for replying to my comment about you guys doing the Kinks - I really like your analysis of songs and albums and I think your opinions are really spot on - I'm a fellow Steely Dan nut and I think you guys are great music critics - I really look forward to you guys taking on the daunting task of the Kinks - Ray Davies is one the most consistently great writers or the rock era and I look forward to your ranking - please tell Jason and Kramer I'm a big fan of you guys - keep up the great work!!! Jim Dennis from Boston
Great revisiting their work this week. "Leisure " , " Modern Life " and "Park Life " I played to death when they came out , so more emotionally invested in those records . But familiar enough with their later work to be as objective as I can be. Thought their last album Magic Whip was excellent , one of my albums of that year .(2015 ) 1. Parklife : 4.5 stars 2. Modern Life Is Rubbish: 4.5 stars 3. Blur : 4 stars 4. The Magic Whip : 4 stars 5. The Great Escape : 3.5 stars 6. Leisure : 3.5 stars 7 .Thirteen : 3 stars 8. Think Tank: 2.5 stars
I've been a Blur fan since I was 9 and got heavily into them in 1998 when I was 12 when I got all of thier albums up to that point and bought the next 3 the days they came out. I enjoyed your video. Here's my ranking: 8. Think Tank - as u say - this is not a proper Blur album. 7. Leisure - not quite there yet is it? 6. The Magic Whip - great comeback but without a Blur nostalgic lens u dont appreciate it as much. Graham did alot of underappreciated work on here - not just guitar work. 5. Parklife - love it - all the next 5 are 5 stars - i just rate others a lil bit more. Such a great selection. 4. The Great Escape - an underrated masterpiece. Darker than u think. Full of amazing guitar work. Darkly comic, full of strange Englishness - sums up the country at the time. 3. MLIR - the classic. The peak style - doc martens, turned up jeans, blazers over jumpers. Feels so English and i love it. 2. Blur s/t - into the black - magical moments galore. Such brilliant sounds - such brilliant tones and performances. 1. 13 - logical progression but even more magical. Fully a trip into space.... ultimate blur experience. Despite the chaos behind the scene.
The Great Escape drew me in then I went back to Parklife which was even better and then back to Modern Life which is even better still for me. I lost ways after this when Song 2 came out but this run through has made me want to go back and check out the latter half of the discography.
The steam engine on the cover of Modern Life is Rubbish is the Mallard, fastest steam locomotive of all times. It also appears on the cover of 1975's debut album from the band Mallard. This band consisted of former members of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band and recorded two albums. Their discography, even if smaller, outweights Blur's by 165 tons. (Imagine a mix of Little Feat and Captain Beefheart fronted by Guy Clark.)
@@viscountpalmerston I am sure Beefheart as well as Little Feat is where Jason considers to give minus ratings, I am not sure about Guy Clark but I expect a weak 2. And a band combining all three aspects?
1. Modern Life is Rubbish (one of my favourite albums of the '90s) 2. Blur 3. Parklife 4. Think Tank (underrated - the closest Blur came to Gorillaz) 5. The Great Escape 6. Leisure (my least favourite for years, grew on me massively recently) 7. The Magic Whip 8. 13 (would have been higher if all the songs were as good as "Caramel" or "Battle")
@@davidellis5141 It was one of those "love at first listen" records for me. Normally I burn out on those type of albums quickly, but it's still the one I return to all these years later.
Blur surprised me with how great their discography is. They are extremely consistent and have some really good albums in both the britpop and alternative rock genres. Ranking below. ALBUM RANKING: 1. Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) - 5/5 2. Parklife (1994) - 5/5 3. The Great Escape (1995) - 4.5/5 4. Blur (1997) - 4.5/5 5. 13 (1999) - 4.5/5 6. Leisure (1991) - 4.5/5 7. The Magic Whip (2015) - 4/5 8. Think Tank (2003) - 3.5/5 RATING SCALE: 5.0: Excellent 4.5: Great 4.0: Very Good 3.5: Good 3.0: Decent 2.5: Mediocre 2.0: Bad 1.5: Very Bad 1.0: Awful 0.5: Terrible
Love Blur, just watching now lads. Would LOVE if ye did the Kinks soon. Surprised with Jason regarding 13 lol. Sorry Jason haha. Joe I don't think their has to he a hit single to make an album personally.
Your side 3’s already done and dusted I’m sure , but ranking the “Britpop “bands ( like the grunge band ranking in Alice In Chains week) would be an interesting exercise: ( although you might not want to give too much away with bands you’ve yet to review) : Blur Oasis Suede Pulp The Verve Manic Street Preachers Supergrass Teenage Fanclub Ash Elastica Also there were more techno / house / “ trip hop” but distinctly British artists that one could include with justification: Massive Attack The Prodigy Tricky Portishead There’s probably others you could argue but that’s all I can think of for now ..
That’s definitely going to be an episode but some of the anglophobes on this channel haven’t listened to enough bands yet. Maybe after we do Suede and Pulp. - Joe
1. Parklife (1994) 4.5/5 2. Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) 3.5/5 3. 13 (1999) 3.5/5 4. Blur (1997) 3/5 5. The Magic Whip (2015) 3/5 6. Think Tank (2003) 3/5 7. The Great Escape (1996) 2.5/5 8. Leisure (1991) 2/5 CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER: 2.0 Leisure (1991) 3.5 Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) 4.5 Parklife (1994) 2.5 The Great Escape (1996) 3.0 Blur (1997) 3.5 13 (1999) 3.0 Think Tank (2003) 3.0 The Magic Whip (2015) Apart from a handful listens during the Album of the Year series, I'm pretty new to Blur's discography. 1990s Britpop barely reached us out here on America's west coast. For many years, "Song 2" was the only Blur tune I knew. (I remember liking it at the time, but apparently didn't like it enough to investigate the band further.) Now that I *have* investigated further, I find every Blur album contains at least a few songs I like. However, outside of Parklife, they rarely string together more than a couple really good tracks in a row before an average-to-bad track breaks the momentum. It results in a bit of a rollercoaster discography where less than half their LPs reach my 3.5 star "I would return to a majority of it" threshold. Overall, I slightly prefer their Britpop period to their alternative rock period (largely because of Parklife.) Although, there are excellent tracks to be found in both places. Blur would not be a candidate for my "top 100 artists" list, but I have a healthy amount of respect for them. Tomorrow's songs list is where this band will really shine for me. MY RATING SYSTEM: 5.0 = major classic (consistently great *and* stratospheric highs) 4.5 = minor classic (consistently great *or* stratospheric highs, but not both) 4.0 = great (more than 50% is worth revisiting *and* it's one of the best things for this artist/style - passes the "likely to make a fan out of someone who'd never heard this artist" test) 3.5 = seriously good (more than 50% is worth revisiting) 3.0 = nominally good (less than 50% is worth revisiting) 2.5 = decent (competent but uninspired, not worth revisiting) 2.0 = poor (difficult listen) 1.5 = awful (can't finish it) 1.0 = historically awful (musical apocalypse) *Note: "Consistently" does not mean "flawlessly." I allow for a few clunkers if the rest of the songs are good enough. Also, I don't go below 1 star because once I'm in the realm of the truly terrible I don't care to differentiate anymore.
I would love to see Läther being included then. That, in my opinion, is a legitimate chapter on it’s own within his catalogue. He worked on that 4-album set for three years, 1975 to 1977, only to have it butchered, by Warner Brothers’ request, into four seperate releases. The set itself was actually aired on the radio in 1977, presented by Zappa himself (don’t know what show it was). The albums born out of that compromise were Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, Orchestral Favorites and a good chunk of the live Zappa In New York album. Läther itself in it’s entirety was posthumously released in 1996. In my opinion it would make sense to have Läther ranked instead of the three studio releases mentioned above, since they don’t display his original vision.
One of my all time fave bands. Loved your video, and as a brit I feel proud! My list: 1. Parklife (all time classic tour of British life) 2. Blur (gorgeous “brits do pavement” record. Beetlebum is a perfect song) 3. 13 (kid a before kid a) 4. Modern life (the invention of britpop) 5. Great escape (the death of britpop) (Then a bit of a quality gap) 6. Think tank (Some experiments work, some don’t) 7. Leisure (A bit monotone for me) 8. Magic whip (B sides at best)
I'm going against the grain here. I'm not crazy about their Britpop era, and I love Think Tank. *Superb* 1. Think Tank - A lot of fans of the Britpop-era Blur hate this album, but I think it's perfect. I like the Moroccan touches and Albarn's voice never sounded better. *Very Good* 2. 13 - Definitely the weirdest Blur album, and it maybe gets a little two weird in the middle, which keeps it out of the #1 spot. Tons of great songs here though. *Good* 3. Blur - This is the first album where they really got my attention. They abandon the Britpop of their early days and go for a darker, slightly more experimental sound. 4. The Magic Whip - Not as good as the Blur-Think Tank era, but still it's a very pleasant album. 5. The Great Escape - The last of their Britpop phase. They do start to show some signs of changing directions a bit with songs like "The Universal" and "Yuko and Hiro". *Average* 6. Parklife - It's okay, but I do not get the insane amount of praise this album gets. Maybe you have to be British. There's some decent songs, but it's too long and there are only a couple of standouts. *Below Average* 7. Leisure - Kind of a Stone Roses ripoff. Meh. 8. Modern Life is Rubbish - I don't get the appeal. It's very British.
My rating: Leisure 5 The Great Escape 5 Think Tank 5 MLIR 6 Self titled 6 13 - 6 Parklife - 8 Like Jason, I could never really get into them except Parklife (which is fantastic) and some great singles.
grew up listening to both bands seen them both live my opinion if i love them both each its was great time for music the 90s the music lives on and love your lists and inputs .
Really enjoyed the vid My missus loves blur but I have periods I like and other phases where I don’t get along with them. I am a big fan of their more experimental bits my favs are Blur ,13 and think tank which does not get a lot of love but I think apart from crazy beat it is a bit of a grower especially Battery in my Leg which is one of my fav Blur songs. Never was a big Brit popper other than Pulp who were lumped in with the rest of the bunch but we’re actually the real working class artists that Blur aspired to be.
Jason, you are an enigma wrapped into a quagmire and a question mark. Riddle me this: how can the Magic Whip be your #2 album if you don’t think the songs are as strong as the ones on their mid-nineties output??
Kramzer - "None of these albums need resequencing!" Also Kramzer - "Best Days" should not have come after "Country House," they should have gone with "Charmless Man" instead to maintain that upbeat momentum!" (Just giving you are hard time Kramz ;-)
Great choice for ranking Joe! Probably my favourite band growing up in the UK during the '90's, and I can still return to their catalogue on a semi-regular basis, and enjoy most of it! My list (as of today at least) is as follows: 1. Parklife 2. The Great Escape 3. Modern Life Is Rubbish 4. Blur 5. 13 6. Think Tank 7. The Magic Whip 8. Leisure
1. Parklife (5) 2. 13 (4) 3. Blur (4) 4. Modern Life Is Rubbish (4) 5. The Great Escape (4) 6. The Magic Whip (3.5) 7. Leisure (3) 8. Think Tank (3). Nice job (well Joe & Kram!). Do think Damon Albarn is the great talent of the Britpop era, not only Blur but really dig some of the Gorilliz records especially Demon Days & Plastic Beach and his first solo record Every Day Robots. The Good The Bad & The Queen is pretty decent too.
Think Tank actually holds a special place in my heart as it was my first proper Blur album (after listening to Greatest Hits of course). I think it's severely underrated although I feel with Coxon involved it would have elevated it further up my rankings. I'd go with the following: 1. Modern Life is Rubbish 2. Parklife 3. Blur 4. Ballad of Darren 5. 13 6. Think Tank 7. Great Escape 8. Magic Whip 9. Leisure
I just went through the whole list of ranked albums I didn't see THE KINKS!!! I know it's a daunting task but I have faith in you guys - Ray Davies is one of the all time great songwriters - if you can do the Stones and Fleetwood Mac you can handle the Kinks - please do a Kinks ranking - you reference them constantly in your Blur ranking - rank the godfathers of Britpop- love you guys !
Neither Blur or Oasis are my favourite Britpop bands ( Pulp & Cast were my preference) though I do like them both 8. Think Tank 3.5 7. The Magic Whip 3.5 6. Leisure 3.5 5. Modern Life Is Rubbish 4.0 4. The Great Escape 4.0 3. Parklife 4.0 2. Blur 4.5 1. 13 (The only Blur album that I physically own) 4.5
One of my all-time favourite bands. The soundtrack of being at college, being a teenager and being with my first girlfriend... UPDATE: 1. The Great Escape 2. Blur 3. Modern Life Is Rubbish 4. Parklife 5. 13 6. The Ballad Of Darren 7. The Magic Whip 8. Leisure 9. Think Tank
Blur has a lot of great and entertaining B-sides as well beyond the mentioned All Your Life...recommended. The US version of Modern Life is Rubbish with Popscene is my "go-to" for that album.
“Daniel Romano released 7 albums this year” 🤣😂 Yeah. Excellent point, Kram. 8. The Magic Whip (3/5 - I got caught up in “Blur is back!” when this album came out. I returned to it a few years later and it didn’t have the same impact. I was kind of bored. Only giving it 3 stars because I do think it sounds really good. Sharp production.) 7. Leisure (3/5 - I just don’t think they had found themselves yet) 6. Think Tank (3/5 - Better than I think a lot of people give credit. If you like trip-hop, you like this album more than rock n rollers) 5. 13 (3.5/5 - Citing William Orbit as working with Melanie C was a cheap shot. His production on Ray of Light is great and he also did some really good work with Beth Orton which is why it makes sense that he could work with Blur. I do agree there is a bit of a push/pull relationship at times, but overall the experimentation on this album keeps it exciting.) 4. The Great Escape (3.75/5 - I agree it’s front loaded, but I don’t think the second half is as weak as Jason makes it sound.) 3. Modern Life Is Rubbish (4/5 - This is the album that took the most amount of time to grow on me. It has such a uniform sound. Even much more than Parklife. Just the songs are collectively stronger on Parklife.) 2. Blur - (4/5 - It would be 4.5 maybe even 5 stars with some editing, but it’s still a great album.) 1. Parklife - (5/5 - A masterpiece.) What Kram experienced this week, I experienced in 2012 when they released their full discography box set. I had heard Parklife, Blur and 13 before, but diving into the whole discography was so rewarding. Blur is such a great band. They tie together so many of the greatest things about the eras that came before them - from the clever wit of The Kinks to 70s glam to the mod-punk stylings of The Jam to the angular quirkiness of bands like XTC. As Joe said - Stone Roses and The Smiths in Moddern Life. Then of course embracing their American influences like Pixies and Pavement. I don’t think they get enough credit for being excellent students of popular music, and not just ripping off The Beatles like that other band. I really feel that’s where Jason is missing the mark, but he presents his arguments well for the most part. Great pick, Joe! Happy for you, Kram. Cheers ✌🏻
Also… “Girls and Boys” got plenty of airtime on MTV in 1994, btw. Enough American teens liked that song. Songs like Parklife and Tracy Jacks were way too British for Americans, so “Girls and Boys” was actually a smart choice for the first single.
Love 'em. Only ever seen Albarn live a few years ago. As a 90's kid I missed the whole Britpop thing for some reason, but one of my first Gfs got me into Oasis in 2004 (She's from Manchester originally I live in Australia.....and Britpop became a true love after she introduced me. In fact it was quickly after I got into Britpop that I really got into the Beatles, and then music became very important part of my life. Blur are more interesting musically as I age, would love to see them live.
08) Think Tank (3 stars) 07) Leisure (3.25 stars) 06) Modern Life Is Rubbish (3.25 stars) 04) & 05) (tie) The Great Escape, The Magic Whip (3.5 stars) 03) Parklife (4 stars) 02) 13 (4 stars) 01) Blur (4.5 stars) 0 stars - irredeemably terrible/insultingly bad/the worst .5 stars - terrible 1 star - bad 1.5 stars - between bad and fair 2 stars - fair 2.5 stars - meh 2.75 stars - "It's not horrible, but quit playing it." 3 stars - OK 3.25 stars - pretty good 3.5 stars - good 4 stars - very good 4.5 stars - excellent 5 stars - call the police notes - * Nearly all of this music was new to me. I started off thinking I wouldn't like this too much but I'm glad I stuck with it because they got a lot more interesting. * No great songs on Leisure, but I do love "Madchester" and I like it when Blur dabbles in it. Maybe a touch of Shoegaze as well, and I do love Shoegaze. * As an American, I absolutely love the British use of the word "rubbish." Modern Life Is Rubbish has some highlights but I'm not really a fan of this one. Some of it reminds me of early Pink Floyd but not as good. * Parklife gets more creative and adds more elements like the horn on "End of a Century," the great spoken verses on the title track and what sounds like a celeste on "Clover Over Dover." Some good grooves and quite a bit of rock on this one. Lyrically, it's more of the everyday concerns found on Modern Life Is Rubbish. And the modern disco of "Girls & Boys" is catchy as hell. * I like the way they break their albums up with intermissions and little musical asides. * The Great Escape is more of the same but a bit more negative and not quite as good. Opener "Stereotypes" is a turnoff. * I was "forced" to make The Great Escape and The Magic Whip a tie. On both albums, the songs averaged out to 3.583. ;-) * Their self-titled album is when they REALLY cut loose and get creative, although I always thought "Song 2" was a bit gimmicky. Back in the day I liked that song but it didn't make me want to get the album. It's great to finally hear it; I truly missed out. Here, finally, they fully embrace their weirdness and Graham Coxon spews out some radical guitar craziness. I love the use of varispeed on the totally bizarre "Essex Dogs" - I think more songs should mess with the tempo like that. Very creative stuff. Some of those industrial sounds sound like Jesus and Mary Chain on overdrive circa 1992. * 13, essentially Damon Albarn's breakup album, continues their creative streak. It's an unpredictable and trippy record with even more washes of sound. There's a great trip hop beat on "Trailerpark" and what sounds like a blender solo on "Bugman," a wild song loaded with tangents. * Think Tank, largely missing guitarist Graham Coxon, sounds a bit like a subpar Gorillaz album. There's some good bass playing and beats but also a handful of mellow acoustic tunes, most of which aren't that great. "Jets" is interesting though - the bass takes lead while the guitar takes rhythm for a very loose sounding exercise featuring a sax solo. * The Magic Whip is good overall, but a step back towards ordinary. "Go Out" is great though with great sound effects. * Cheers mates!!!!!!!!!!
I like your input here, Rich, but I’m going to disagree that Leisure doesn’t have any great songs. ‘There’s No Other Way’ is a great song. I remember it getting a lot of play at our local ‘post modern’ radio station, just before grunge hit big. The guitar work is brilliant. Even the video is cool. Stands the test of time. One of their best. Of course, this is all my opinion. But I think that one is great.
I personally love that their albums are long af, not a problem at all imo, can't go wrong with the British life trilogy, Modern life is rubbish, Parklife and The great escape, they're pure perfection
1. Blur (5/5) 2. 13 (5/5) 3. Parklife (5/5) 4. The Great Escape (4.5/5) 5. Modern Life Is Rubbish (4.5/5) 6. Think Tank (4/5) 7. The Magic Whip (4/5) 8. Leisure (3.5/5) Damon Albarn is one of the most underrated songwriters, he's a genius!!
i love that you guys are into Blur. Im from london uk, Blur sound very british, but if you are from the uk they sound very south east english in particular, so its a niche within a niche, as if cool for cats by the squeeze spawned a band. the best bands from this scene were Blur, Mansun, Radiohead and Puressence. those 4 were way ahead of the others. bands like oasis, manic street preachers, verve etc maybe had more widespread popularity, but i think the 4 i mentioned were really in a different league to everyone else. ive watched a bit of the video and had to pause to go listen to a few of blurs more recent albums for reference. i may post more later when someone incorrectly doesnt have parklife as their best album 😄 parklife rly was blurs masterpiece imo but they had a number of very good albums, and such an interesting band.
have the guys ever done a side 3 that looks at bands who took a long hiatus and made a good to great album after the long break? ...lotta the bands they have covered have had meh type releases after long breaks
In case people are wondering why there’s three artists in the upcoming artists rather than four, it’s because the week after Roxy Music is gonna be whoever wins the artist poll (I’m not gonna spoil any of the options or how well they’re doing)
The boys have published the list - it does not much matter who wins, it is all artists where a single album is already much to stomach - not even thinking of a whole discography...
I agreed a lot with Joe and Kramzer on this one, though I can understand Jason’s points overall about the albums being too long and the non-singles not being anywhere near as fulfilling in general (for instance, they do tend to over rely on simple guitar riffs in the style of something like Argent’s “Hold Your Head Up High” a bit too much, and I think Ray Davies set his character sketch lyrics to overall somewhat greater melodies during The Kinks’ late 60’s/early 70’s prime). Although I don’t quite think Blur were an all time great band, they’re still really good and catchy, doing their cheeky British style with a lot of flair, and I do have my top 5 albums, which were difficult to rank, all at 4 stars (Parklife is very close to 4.5 - my order after that would probably be The Great Escape, Modern Life Is Rubbish, Blur, and the album I knew Jason would really hate, 13). At the bottom I have Leisure at probably a low 3.5, The Magic Whip at a high 3 and Think Tank at a mid 3. Also, I’m glad I came to my senses with eventually loving “Girls & Boys” to death (the only other song that would be a contender for my favorite by them is “The Universal”) after initially thinking it was really dumb.
I was only able to get to 4 stars on one of their albums (Parklife, which I gave 4.5). Modern Life is Rubbish came close to 4, but I think it kind of falls off a cliff on side two. I don't care at all for the 3 song run of "Miss America," "Villa Rosie," and "Coping."
1. Parklife - Easily their best, most indicative record and also of Britpop. First half is front-loaded with near-all their best singles and Tracy Jacks whereas the second half features a near-total stretch of gold. 2. Blur - American alt-rock sequel to Parklife. Almost as good with similar pattern of good singles and strong second half of album tracks. 3. 13 - Only a couple of stand-out singles but overall a very dreamy albeit despondent record and great for falling asleep to. 4. The Great Escape. Very up and down record. Tracks like Country House, Ernold Same and Mr Robinson’s Quango are taking the britpop formula to the end of its tether but there are still some incredible tracks like Charmless Man, The Universal, He Thought Of Cars and Yuko and Hiro. 5. Modern Life Is Rubbish - Opener For Tomorrow is amazing, so catchy as is Chemical World. The rest of the album is good and sets the britpop template although is somewhat drab in comparison. 6. The Magic Whip - it’s a good record although with the exception of a couple of tracks it is a Damon Albarn record in all but name. 7. Think Tank - Some really great heartfelt moments like Out Of Time and Ambulance but later on really hamstrung by lack of Coxon. Some really lame cut n paste experiments like saxophone-out-of-nowhere solo on Jets. 8. Leisure - has a couple of early great singles along with some nice shoegaze/baggy vibes in places. Aside from that it has the fewest quality songs and the least going for it.
I followed Blur since they came out. I've never been a big fan but I do like a bunch of their songs. More a singles band to me. I personally think there were other British bands in the 90s far more interesting than Blur (PJ Harvey, Portishead, Tindersticks, Massive Attack...). My ranking: - Leisure. A band still searching for his sound. Too derivative. A couple of good songs and many not really memorable. 5 - Think Tank. A Damon Albarn album. One of their best songs, Out of Time, and a few good ideas is the only thing that save this album from a total disaster. Too many tracks with no direction and simply tedious. 5.5 - The Magic Whip. There's only one that stands out for me: Ong Ong. The rest is not bad, not really good either. Just all right. 6 - 13. Two great songs (Tender, Coffee & TV), a couple others quite good, a few interesting sounds here and there but some songs that don't say anything to me. With 45 minutes would be a good record, why so long? 6.5 - The Great Scape. A bunch of catchy pop songs but in others they start to sound like a parody of themselves. No risk. Too long. 7 - Modern Life Is Rubbish. A great leap forward compared to their debut. Better production, better song writing, better playing. A few classic songs, but nothing really mind blowing. 7.75 - Blur. Their American album. More a Graham Cox work. Pavement, Sonic Youth and other American alternative bands gave a new direction to their sound. Good material, more raw, some interesting guitar work. More cohesive than Parklife. Again too long. 8. 25 - Parklife. It has some fantastic songs that have become classic. Good production by Stephen Street. Albarn's lyrics are sharper. However, the album doesn't flow smoothly. It lacks coherence, it jumps from dance pop to punk to Europop to... and it suffers again from the CD syndrome... It's too damn long. 8.5
Hi Fran - Great commentary. Again, surprised to see leisure at the bottom of so many lists. "Too long" is the apt description for many of these albums.
@@179rich Rich: With the highest level of respect, Sir, I don't think that really matters. Now . . . Mt. Britmore? That matters. Suede, Sleeper, Inspiral Carpets, Pulp (?). yeah?
Their self titled is my favorite. I’ve always seen it as their love letter to America, which I appreciate after all the anglocentricism of the past 3 (which I love as well but for different reasons). Coxson absolutely slays this record.
I think if Kramzer had heard Think Tank in context as a fan when it came out he'd appreciate it a bit more. Think Tank is to Blur as Adore is to Smashing Pumpkins where a key band member left and they went on to make a new adventurous album that obviously feels like it's missing something but somehow turned out to be really good in the end.
Parklife is my favourite - yes the 1st 4 tracks are probably the best, but the rest of the album is still very strong and I love the guitar sounds throughout, but the whole album sounds great to me. 13 is my 2nd favourite, although I agree with Jason that it would be much better if they left off Bugman, Swamp Song and BLUREMI - the noisy ones. The capacity of CDs is great for compilations, nowhere near so much for studio albums. As with movies, whither brevity as a virtue? The rest of the albums I’ve heard are patchier, so a compilation would probably do me. Beetlebum is a great record, though. Overall, the stuff I like by Blur I really like very much, and the rest I just don’t listen to - most of the Britpop bands are like that for me. The first 2 albums by Oasis and especially Suede are fantastic, but nothing after those was anywhere near as good. Jason is quite correct - in the UK “leisure” rhymes with “measure”.
"She's So High" was produced by Steve Lovell and Steve Power, not Stephen Street, by the way Jason. The ones that weren't produced by Stephen Street was "She's So High", "Sing", "Fool", "Birthday" and "Wear Me Down".
For me BLUR is a consistent band without a bad album, but also without a masterpiece. My ranking: 1. 13 (8,5/10) 2. Parklife (8/10) 3. Blur (8/10) 4. The Great Escape (7,5/10) 5. Modern Life Is Rubbish (7,5/10) 6. Leisure (7/10) 7. The Magic Whip (6,5/10) 8. Think Tank (6/10) Greetings from Canary Islands.
I don't think Blur ever truly mastered the art of the album. They are great in 3 or 4 minute doses but all their records have so much flab and filler. That said, at their best they were a great band. I always liked their melancholic stuff, something Albarn excelled at. This Is A Low, Best Days, No Distance Left To Run, Blue Jeans, etc. Think Tank has Sweet Song, which is absolutely stunning and possibly my favourite Blur song, so I could never put it last
You guys GOTTA do Suede! Those first 3 are peak Britpop (even though they’re more glam-alternative) and 90s albums! If you’re Bowie-Smiths fans, that’s the perfect inbetween right there. Pulp are great though too!
Long time Brit Blur fan since Leisure and Popscene (stand-alone single before MLIR). They're one of the great British bands, definitely a part of the lineage from The Beatles, Kinks, Bowie, The Jam and The Smiths. Leagues, LEAGUES ahead of Oasis. They operated on a completely different level to them. Loved this show despite being a tough crowd a times, and you've got yourself a new subscriber. Really enjoyed it and look forward to working my way back through your stuff. Fwiw my ranking: 1. Modern Life is Rubbish (5 stars) 2. Parklife (5 stars) 3. 13 (4.5 stars) 4. Blur (4 stars) 5. Leisure (3.5 stars) 6. The Magic Whip (3.5 stars) 7. The Great Escape (3 stars) 8. Think Tank (2 stars)
My 5 Favorite Blur Albums ( Technically 4 ) # 1 - Modern Life Is Rubbish ( Their most 🇬🇧 album - an unexpected gem at the time & holds up brilliantly) # 2 Park Life ( All killer - no filler & Blur are big fans of the Norwich Canaries Soccer team & are frequently sighted at their matches. When their manager Daniel Farke led them to EPL Promotion the club would play the title track after a win with the crowd singing " Farke Life ! " # 3 Think Tank ( A really misunderstood album & kinda of a Damon solo affair but a great listen , like Kid A ) # 4 The Great Escape ( Their 🇬🇧 Pop masterpiece) & # 5 is the bonus live at Wembley 💿 that came with initial quantities of the 1999 Best Of. 👌
Tough to rank Blur since I love pretty much all of it. Agree 13 is overrated, but support the experimentation. Think Tank is a great late night driving album. Magic Whip is underrated, the dreamy and dark undertones are unique to their catalog, and serves as one of their best concept albums. Ghost Ship should be a setlist staple.
The perfect pick! I fucking love blur! best to least best 1. Parklife, 2. 13, 3. Self titled, 4. Modern life is rubbish, 5. the Great escape, 6. Think tank, 7. leisure, 8. the magic whip.
Was it taht "Americans don't get Blur", or just that Blur wasn't marketed well to the uS? I was hanging out with a guy from England in 1996/97 and, while it's kind of anecdotal admittedly, he maintained taht Oasis just wasn't as well liked over there as Blur were. They got played on the radio sometimes here (in Canada, wehre we are *supposed* to be closer to our British origins), but certainly not as often as oasis around the same time. I almost feel the rivalry between them was fueled by the media and by oasis themselves doing lots of grandstanding (i.e., "Wer'e the Beatles *and* the Rolling Stones; Blur are the Monkees", etc). When i was fifteen I would have been in the Oasis camp, I guess, but not now. I did notice when I left highschool that people seemed to talk about Blur with a lot more veneration and respect.
Americans don’t like blurs music. End of. They are considered a one hit wonder here. Whilst oasis has 4/5 staples on classic rock radio. I would say that neither of them are that big over here anymore. If oasis got back together they’d probably do stadiums over here… meanwhile I don’t know if blur are together or not but they could probably do small clubs in big cities I saw oasis headline at Molson Park in Toronto in 96’ in front of probably 55k people. They nailed it. Blur would’ve never done that over here even in the 90’s I actually like some of blurs music too but I feel like there’s something very stuck up about a lot of Damon’s work whilst oasis is just cold stone arrogant rock n roll with some ballads and soft pop rock. Also the feud was confirmed to be started by Blurs record company and the media. They aligned the single “country house” with oasis’s “roll with it” on purpose. Oasis switched the release date and blur copied it. Once the fight was started Oasis started bashing blur…. Before destroying them with the mega hit album that has sold more records then blurs entire discography…after that. Oasis continued to bash blur and blur kinda shut there mouths… feud over.
Graham coxon is a great interesting guitar player added so much to their creativity
In my opinion he’s the closest thing to George Harrison (who is my favorite musician of all time)
Adore 13! Wow, at least I agree with 2 of you. These albums are all good. ALL. Some hit me more than others, namely MLIR and Parklife and 13. Can't believe the diss on 13.
I have always felt that “You’re So Great” was an obvious homage to Guided By Voices. I read that Graham was really into them as well as Pavement around that time. It sounds like a lost Tobin Sprout track and would fit perfectly on an album like Vampire on Titus or Bee Thousand
Blur is absolutely fantastic. Glad you had a mini epiphany Kram.
Think Tank is a truly excellent album. In reality I prefer it to Parklife. Ambulance, Caravan, Sweet Song, Good Song, Out Of Time, Gene By Gene... its the feel of the album. This has a world feel to it. Yeah Coxon is on just one track....dont write it off.
It's amazing how divisive this album is, considering it's really just a smooth, very listenable collection of (admittedly pretty Damon-heavy) tunes. Personally I love it, but I guess if you're not into even the earliest Gorillaz stuff, or simply can't deal with the notion of Blur doing anything without Coxon, it probably ain't gonna be for you
The people making it divisive are a particular breed of music critic. There’s just not really that much to dislike about the album. There’s a couple of loose moments… but there’s always been that in blur albums.
out of time is one of their best for sure
On the Way to the Club is an amazing, truly underrated atmospheric track underpinned by a wonderful grooving bass line from Alex.
It's their best album.
I saw them live on that tour and Graham Coxon's solo tour of Happiness In Magazines.Both were excellent.
I arrived in the UK for a university year abroad not long after Parklife came out and this was one of the albums that became the soundtrack to all kinds of great (also drunken, hazy) experiences and priceless memories. I recorded off the radio a concert they gave at the Alexandra Palace, a tape I still own and digitized at some point. At the end of the show two very obsequious radio presenters (Steve Lamacq and Jo Willey, I think) interviewed Graham and Damon. Damon demanded they play Supergrass, which they immediately did. And that’s how I was introduced to “Caught by the Fuzz” and another band that came to signify my year abroad.
If you haven't heard it check out the song "You & I by Graham Coxon". Graham Coxons solo stuff is really good.
Yeah, Blur are among my top 5 fav bands of all time, and I love all of Damon's and Graham's other projects too. Everyone knows Gorillaz, of course, but really, do yourselves a favor and listen to Graham's solo albums, especially from Happiness in Magazines onwards. Guy deserves way more attention and credit than he gets, but the mainstream appeal of Gorillaz obviously outshines Graham's more indie leanings. Last year's Superstate is among my top 3 fav albums of 2021.
Taking Blur, Gorillaz, Graham solo and Damon's several other projects (The Good, The Bad & The Queen, his solo albums and collabs with African musicians) all together, this pair of musicians have one of the most diverse and brilliant discographies ever recorded under their belts.
That said, here's my Blur album ranking:
8. The Magic Whip
7. Think Tank (though 7 and 8 often switch places)
6. Leisure
5. The Great Escape
4. Blur
3. Parklife
2. Modern Life is Rubbish
1. 13
Oh, and they also have several albums worth of great b-sides, single-only releases and other rarities. Under the Westway, my gods, what a song...
I voted for Joenuary mainly because of Blur. In high school I met this girl, and one of her favorite bands was Blur, a band I only had a passing familiarity with (oddly the only song I knew was "There's No Other Way", not the recently popular "Song 2") and since I was crushing on this girl I had to bone up on Blur knowledge. I picked up Parklife at the music store, and was immediately impressed (which made me like said girl even more). 24+ years later my wife still likes Blur. Never listened to Think Tank (which without Graham doesn't feel like a Blur album). And shockingly today juse learned that there was an album from the 2010s.
6. Leisure** - Except for the fantastic catchy "There's No Other Way"
5. Modern Life Is Rubbish*** - a big improvement. Though it turns out my favorite song from it "Popscene" isn't on the album anymore. (It was on the American release)
4 13*** - Got this near when it was released and was very disappointed it for me felt like the parts didn't like from the previous album and made a whole album of it.. Time has been kind to it though, and "No Distance Left to Run" is amazing.
3. The Great Escape***1/2 - Feels like more boring version of Parklife. Still there's a number of great songs.
2. Blur***** - A great change up from the Great Escape.
1. Parklife****** - Just fantastic. Nearly every song here is great.
Blur vs Oasis - While I like Parklife more than MOrning Glory and overall I like more Blur songs than Oasis, Oasis has a slight edge because their top tier songs I think are stronger and more memorable than the best Blur songs.
Oasis had Acquiesce as a Bside.
Nobody really mentions Blur’s great bsides because they’re not in the same league.
Oasis became a rock n roll cliche but their original first couple of albums and bsides are head and shoulders above any run by Blur.
Great video. My favourite album is Modern Life is Rubbish and it's a clear number 1 for me. Parklife is a masterpiece too but I find that the sound of M.L.I.R is so quintessentially English and really Blur at its finest.
YES!!! I’m so happy that guys decided to do Blur!!
Also, 13 is my favorite of theirs
Can't wait for the Bowie episode coming up! I'm counting on it to be quite fascinating. I've dove in deep many times with Bowie's 70's and 80's output, but looking to you guys to help guide me through everything after -
Love this podcast. I will be busy for weeks catching up with this podcast. Thank you for what you do.
Would love you guys to do XTC and Wire one day! Both big influences on Blur!
XTC is easily one of the greatest bands ever. Can't believe the guys haven't ranked them yet.
Jason has ranked XTC and it was a strange order with some of my favourites at the bottom. He likes early XTC a lot which is strange given how little Blur has tickled his fancy
Same! XTC would be great. And Depeche Mode!
This was a delight. Thanks so much for making an old Blurhead happy by simply paying attention to them :) even though your #1 pick was not quite correct :))) Loved watching this and looking forward to going through your archive
FYI : 'Baggy" was a term given to the indie rock/dance scene out of Manchester in the late 80s, personified by bands such as The Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, The Charlatans , Northside, Inspiral Carpets etc. Musically "Baggy" was characterized by indie rock guitars but with a dance or funky beat , (James Brown's "Funky Drummer" beat was often used or replicated ( or attempted ) by some of the bands.
This tied in with the rise of the "Rave" scene and culture in Britain in the late 80s as well.( Indie kids wanted to get out of their bedrooms and go dancing , party and take drugs as well i guess).
"Baggy " also refers to the style of dress of the bands and their fans ( baggy jeans,, flared , bright coloured polo neck, casual tops, English football shirts, 60s styles etc) . Blur tried to cash in on that sound tbh as that scene started to wind down, hence why Albarn probably looks back on "Leisure" with some embarrassment. I'm with Joe though. Don't think it's a bad record ( they went on to make much better of course) , and it's a good representation of brit rock pop of that time .
An Inspiral Carpets ranking would be terrific.
Good choice to rank Blur’s albums. In the late 90s I really liked them. Still go back to them every now & then. The Great Escape & Parklife are my favourites.
I've been wanting to give Blur a try for awhile so it was good to have a reason to dive in this week. I got through the entire discography once which gave me some idea of their sound because before this I think I really only knew two songs ("Song 2" and "Girls & Boys"). The album that stood out the most for me was 13 because I thought it was really cool sounding and I enjoyed the change of direction. Not to say I disliked their previous direction but listening to it all consecutively in a small window of time I found it to be a lot. I think I will go back especially to Modern Life is Rubbish and Parklife on their own and let them shine. I also liked Blur quite a bit too which I actually picked up on CD in a thrifting haul a few months ago but hadn't got to listen to before this.
All in all, a cool week. It's always fun to check out what is essentially a new-to-me band. And hey, you guys couldn't have had better timing for some unexpected publicity! My mind is still kinda blown by that timing.
Another great listography guys. Didn’t know Blur except for a couple of hits. Still enjoyed regardless. I would normally look into the music after watching but not sure I will for this one tbh (part of that is lack of free time btw). Anyways props to Jason for sticking to his (unpopular) views. Cheers guys!
I personally much prefer Oasis BUT i do believe that Blur are a better band terms of musicianship, ambition and variety, think I just love the simplicity of Oasis more.
the same with me. blur musically better; but oasis has more heart and soul (and lifestyle)...
Same. Snobs hate them, but I love Oasis, I think they were the perfect band for those 2 or 3 years in the mid 90s. However I like Blur too. The whole battle of the britpop bands was a bit silly, wasn't it?
I agree partially…. I think Oasis had much more ambition than Blur. The members from blur are all university educated and had some money growing up. The Gallagher’s didn’t have a pot to piss in and became one of the biggest bands of the 90’s… the blur members probably explored more music like talking heads etc etc whilst growing up meanwhile oasis listened too the Beatles, stones and Manchester band stone roses.. classics.
I feel like blur were more worried about being weird/different
/trendy. Whilst oasis just gave you the good old rock n roll… take it or leave it. I wouldn’t even consider Oasis britpop like I would blur, pulp and that lot of bands.
@@ursula3438 It's NOT snobbery it's people who aren't inverted snobs who automatically worship everything working class and who find their attitude sucks and their songs are too simplistic. Also very overexposed and overated so if you if you aren't massively on the hype train you're gonna be sick of them fast.
@katwelham9555n o its definitely class snobbery
...m blur fans always look down on people who prefer oasis as though they are lower beings....also they're really not that simplistic if you play all the licks, solos and chords properly.... rock n roll star, live forever, supersonic, bring it on down, don't look back in anger, champagne supernova, my big mouth, it's gettin better man, I hope I think I know, the turning, turn up the sun etc are nowhere near as simplistic as people make them out to be...m watch youtube videos of lessons of them. th-cam.com/video/6BUS6_E1oog/w-d-xo.html this great cover will show you.
After watching this, I've found myself equally delighted that Kramzer enjoys this band as much as I'm really confused that Jason doesn't.
Because Jason doesn’t have a tin ear
@@winstonoboogie9186 Neither does Joe or Kramzer.
They take turns confusing me...just when I think I have them figured out...seems I alternate every week on who I align with for any given band.
@@GeneBolmarcichEsq Yep, this is also my experience with this channel! I find myself equally agreeing and disagreeing with all three of them - and that's part of the reason I enjoy the channel so much.
Doesn't surprise me I tend to agree with Jason the least out of anyone.
very based of Kramz to have 13 at #2. It’s my favourite but it’s always great to see it get love. Can’t disagree with Parklife though it’s an absolute classic.
This is why I love this channel; such intelligent analysis and discussion plus the variety. I really did suffer last week, clenched teeth time, but I love Blur and Parklife in particular. Thanks guys.
Kram, "Battery in My Leg" is the only "Think Tank" song completed before Coxon walked out, so not surprising it has the sound of "13" with the whole band still being intact.
My favourite band. First saw blur play the reading festival back in 1993. Really enjoyed their set and went and bought modern life is rubbish. Massive fan of Damon from blur, Gorillaz and The good, the bad and the queen. Also Graham is such an underrated guitarist.
My list rankings
My Favourite blur albums
1. Modern Life Is Rubbish - 1993
2. Parklife
3. 13
4. Blur 1997
5. Leisure
6. The Great Escape
7. The Magic Whip
8. Think Tank
Got to be honest: I only stuck with last week's episode on Whitney to hear Cram just go to town destroying and laughing at those records. However, while there were some disagreements here, everyone was more or less back on the same page (with regard to general taste) and it's great to hear you all go through the Blur discography. Blur is a band i always kind of liked but just don't listen to a lot, and these are usually the sorts of discography videos I have the most fun with from you guys.
BTW I miss the old theme tune
Parklife is one of my favorite albums of the 90's, so I've been looking forward to this week very much, partly also because I don't know the margins of their catalogue.
I haven't listened to Blur for about 10 years but I will again now after that. I was into them at the height of Brit Pop, though, and even saw them on their Great Escape Tour. Great mid 90's albums.
Joe I hated your hate for the Flaming Lips but my god am I so happy to hear you like Blur. One of my all time favorite bands.
1. Modern Life Is Rubbish
2. Great Escape (Jason speaking sacrilege. Can’t name one other song sounds like Quango. Yuko and Hiro is stunningly beautiful. Best days, fade away, top man, THE BASSLINE IN ENTERTAIN ME)
3. Parklife
4. Ballad of Darren
5. Leisure
6. Magic Whip
7. Blur(fuck the pens)
8. 13
9. Think Tank
Hey Joe thanks for replying to my comment about you guys doing the Kinks - I really like your analysis of songs and albums and I think your opinions are really spot on - I'm a fellow Steely Dan nut and I think you guys are great music critics - I really look forward to you guys taking on the daunting task of the Kinks - Ray Davies is one the most consistently great writers or the rock era and I look forward to your ranking - please tell Jason and Kramer I'm a big fan of you guys - keep up the great work!!! Jim Dennis from Boston
Thanks Jim! Oh yeah Kinks are great though I’m really mostly only familiar with their 60s stuff. That’ll be a fun one when we do it. - Joe
Great revisiting their work this week. "Leisure " , " Modern Life " and "Park Life " I played to death when they came out , so more emotionally invested in those records . But familiar enough with their later work to be as objective as I can be. Thought their last album Magic Whip was excellent , one of my albums of that year .(2015 )
1. Parklife : 4.5 stars
2. Modern Life Is Rubbish: 4.5 stars
3. Blur : 4 stars
4. The Magic Whip : 4 stars
5. The Great Escape : 3.5 stars
6. Leisure : 3.5 stars
7 .Thirteen : 3 stars
8. Think Tank: 2.5 stars
This is the WORST rating I’ve seen…. That literally hurts me
I've been a Blur fan since I was 9 and got heavily into them in 1998 when I was 12 when I got all of thier albums up to that point and bought the next 3 the days they came out. I enjoyed your video. Here's my ranking:
8. Think Tank - as u say - this is not a proper Blur album.
7. Leisure - not quite there yet is it?
6. The Magic Whip - great comeback but without a Blur nostalgic lens u dont appreciate it as much. Graham did alot of underappreciated work on here - not just guitar work.
5. Parklife - love it - all the next 5 are 5 stars - i just rate others a lil bit more. Such a great selection.
4. The Great Escape - an underrated masterpiece. Darker than u think. Full of amazing guitar work. Darkly comic, full of strange Englishness - sums up the country at the time.
3. MLIR - the classic. The peak style - doc martens, turned up jeans, blazers over jumpers. Feels so English and i love it.
2. Blur s/t - into the black - magical moments galore. Such brilliant sounds - such brilliant tones and performances.
1. 13 - logical progression but even more magical. Fully a trip into space.... ultimate blur experience. Despite the chaos behind the scene.
Nice work, Kram 🤘🏼 We Americans have been pretty slow to come around to Blur but I’ve always thought they were amazing.
The Great Escape drew me in then I went back to Parklife which was even better and then back to Modern Life which is even better still for me. I lost ways after this when Song 2 came out but this run through has made me want to go back and check out the latter half of the discography.
Man, you guys timed this video perfectly!
The steam engine on the cover of Modern Life is Rubbish is the Mallard, fastest steam locomotive of all times. It also appears on the cover of 1975's debut album from the band Mallard. This band consisted of former members of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band and recorded two albums. Their discography, even if smaller, outweights Blur's by 165 tons. (Imagine a mix of Little Feat and Captain Beefheart fronted by Guy Clark.)
Flying Scotsman always gets all the love but was always a Mallard man myself
Just checking out that Mallard album now; it's great! And I couldn't find it on Spotify, so Jason will probably be a fan too.. :-)
@@viscountpalmerston I am sure Beefheart as well as Little Feat is where Jason considers to give minus ratings, I am not sure about Guy Clark but I expect a weak 2. And a band combining all three aspects?
1. Modern Life is Rubbish (one of my favourite albums of the '90s)
2. Blur
3. Parklife
4. Think Tank (underrated - the closest Blur came to Gorillaz)
5. The Great Escape
6. Leisure (my least favourite for years, grew on me massively recently)
7. The Magic Whip
8. 13 (would have been higher if all the songs were as good as "Caramel" or "Battle")
Nailed it with the top pick 👌
@@davidellis5141 It was one of those "love at first listen" records for me. Normally I burn out on those type of albums quickly, but it's still the one I return to all these years later.
Madness, reverse that and you’re spot on.
If The Good, the Bad & the Queen had been a Blur album, as it may as well have been, it would be right near the top of my list.
Love all their albums too....and Gorillaz a wee bit more than Blur overall
Blur surprised me with how great their discography is. They are extremely consistent and have some really good albums in both the britpop and alternative rock genres. Ranking below.
ALBUM RANKING:
1. Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) - 5/5
2. Parklife (1994) - 5/5
3. The Great Escape (1995) - 4.5/5
4. Blur (1997) - 4.5/5
5. 13 (1999) - 4.5/5
6. Leisure (1991) - 4.5/5
7. The Magic Whip (2015) - 4/5
8. Think Tank (2003) - 3.5/5
RATING SCALE:
5.0: Excellent
4.5: Great
4.0: Very Good
3.5: Good
3.0: Decent
2.5: Mediocre
2.0: Bad
1.5: Very Bad
1.0: Awful
0.5: Terrible
Love Blur, just watching now lads. Would LOVE if ye did the Kinks soon.
Surprised with Jason regarding 13 lol. Sorry Jason haha.
Joe I don't think their has to he a hit single to make an album personally.
Depends on the artist. - Joe
Your side 3’s already done and dusted I’m sure , but ranking the “Britpop “bands ( like the grunge band ranking in Alice In Chains week) would be an interesting exercise: ( although you might not want to give too much away with bands you’ve yet to review) :
Blur
Oasis
Suede
Pulp
The Verve
Manic Street Preachers
Supergrass
Teenage Fanclub
Ash
Elastica
Also there were more techno / house / “ trip hop” but distinctly British artists that one could include with justification:
Massive Attack
The Prodigy
Tricky
Portishead
There’s probably others you could argue but that’s all I can think of for now ..
Portishead et al in one episode .. that’s the stuff Dreams are made of .. Hope they’ve already considered this.
Let's not forget Sleeper.
@@NaughtyVampireGod yes of course “ You were just my in between . You’re such an in-betweener” . Louise Wener. Can’t forget her 😊👍
That’s definitely going to be an episode but some of the anglophobes on this channel haven’t listened to enough bands yet. Maybe after we do Suede and Pulp. - Joe
@Joe - how exciting! When you do it for the Queen, please don’t forget Sneaker Pimps.
1. 13
2. Think Tank
3. Blur
4. MLIR
5. Parklife
6. Magic Whip
7. Great Escape
8. Leisure
Period
1. Parklife (1994) 4.5/5
2. Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) 3.5/5
3. 13 (1999) 3.5/5
4. Blur (1997) 3/5
5. The Magic Whip (2015) 3/5
6. Think Tank (2003) 3/5
7. The Great Escape (1996) 2.5/5
8. Leisure (1991) 2/5
CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:
2.0 Leisure (1991)
3.5 Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993)
4.5 Parklife (1994)
2.5 The Great Escape (1996)
3.0 Blur (1997)
3.5 13 (1999)
3.0 Think Tank (2003)
3.0 The Magic Whip (2015)
Apart from a handful listens during the Album of the Year series, I'm pretty new to Blur's discography. 1990s Britpop barely reached us out here on America's west coast. For many years, "Song 2" was the only Blur tune I knew. (I remember liking it at the time, but apparently didn't like it enough to investigate the band further.) Now that I *have* investigated further, I find every Blur album contains at least a few songs I like. However, outside of Parklife, they rarely string together more than a couple really good tracks in a row before an average-to-bad track breaks the momentum. It results in a bit of a rollercoaster discography where less than half their LPs reach my 3.5 star "I would return to a majority of it" threshold. Overall, I slightly prefer their Britpop period to their alternative rock period (largely because of Parklife.) Although, there are excellent tracks to be found in both places. Blur would not be a candidate for my "top 100 artists" list, but I have a healthy amount of respect for them. Tomorrow's songs list is where this band will really shine for me.
MY RATING SYSTEM:
5.0 = major classic (consistently great *and* stratospheric highs)
4.5 = minor classic (consistently great *or* stratospheric highs, but not both)
4.0 = great (more than 50% is worth revisiting *and* it's one of the best things for this artist/style - passes the "likely to make a fan out of someone who'd never heard this artist" test)
3.5 = seriously good (more than 50% is worth revisiting)
3.0 = nominally good (less than 50% is worth revisiting)
2.5 = decent (competent but uninspired, not worth revisiting)
2.0 = poor (difficult listen)
1.5 = awful (can't finish it)
1.0 = historically awful (musical apocalypse)
*Note: "Consistently" does not mean "flawlessly." I allow for a few clunkers if the rest of the songs are good enough. Also, I don't go below 1 star because once I'm in the realm of the truly terrible I don't care to differentiate anymore.
Like those top 2 !
Quick question, would you guys ever do a Zappa albums ranked. If so I’d say do all his music project before he died.
We will probably do the entire catalog someday. We’ve joked that we’ll do it when we can all quit our day jobs
@@TastesLikeMusic awesome to hear lol
I would love to see Läther being included then. That, in my opinion, is a legitimate chapter on it’s own within his catalogue.
He worked on that 4-album set for three years, 1975 to 1977, only to have it butchered, by Warner Brothers’ request, into four seperate releases. The set itself was actually aired on the radio in 1977, presented by Zappa himself (don’t know what show it was).
The albums born out of that compromise were Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, Orchestral Favorites and a good chunk of the live Zappa In New York album.
Läther itself in it’s entirety was posthumously released in 1996.
In my opinion it would make sense to have Läther ranked instead of the three studio releases mentioned above, since they don’t display his original vision.
Love that you're a fan of our glorious monarchy, Joe! Although I hope the fandom doesn't extend to Prince Andrew... 😀
One of my all time fave bands. Loved your video, and as a brit I feel proud!
My list:
1. Parklife (all time classic tour of British life)
2. Blur (gorgeous “brits do pavement” record. Beetlebum is a perfect song)
3. 13 (kid a before kid a)
4. Modern life (the invention of britpop)
5. Great escape (the death of britpop)
(Then a bit of a quality gap)
6. Think tank
(Some experiments work, some don’t)
7. Leisure
(A bit monotone for me)
8. Magic whip
(B sides at best)
I'm going against the grain here. I'm not crazy about their Britpop era, and I love Think Tank.
*Superb*
1. Think Tank - A lot of fans of the Britpop-era Blur hate this album, but I think it's perfect. I like the Moroccan touches and Albarn's voice never sounded better.
*Very Good*
2. 13 - Definitely the weirdest Blur album, and it maybe gets a little two weird in the middle, which keeps it out of the #1 spot. Tons of great songs here though.
*Good*
3. Blur - This is the first album where they really got my attention. They abandon the Britpop of their early days and go for a darker, slightly more experimental sound.
4. The Magic Whip - Not as good as the Blur-Think Tank era, but still it's a very pleasant album.
5. The Great Escape - The last of their Britpop phase. They do start to show some signs of changing directions a bit with songs like "The Universal" and "Yuko and Hiro".
*Average*
6. Parklife - It's okay, but I do not get the insane amount of praise this album gets. Maybe you have to be British. There's some decent songs, but it's too long and there are only a couple of standouts.
*Below Average*
7. Leisure - Kind of a Stone Roses ripoff. Meh.
8. Modern Life is Rubbish - I don't get the appeal. It's very British.
Oh, Erik. - Joe
Ah, I realize I left off The Great Escape. Goes in "Good" between The Magic Whip and Parklife.
Glad to see Think Tank getting some love & Yep Modern Life Is a very British affair & hard for Americans to decipher.
@@TastesLikeMusic This is my "Cut the Crap" moment. 😄
Oh my lol
My rating:
Leisure 5
The Great Escape 5
Think Tank 5
MLIR 6
Self titled 6
13 - 6
Parklife - 8
Like Jason, I could never really get into them except Parklife (which is fantastic) and some great singles.
grew up listening to both bands seen them both live my opinion if i love them both each its was great time for music the 90s the music lives on and love your lists and inputs .
Really enjoyed the vid My missus loves blur but I have periods I like and other phases where I don’t get along with them. I am a big fan of their more experimental bits my favs are Blur ,13 and think tank which does not get a lot of love but I think apart from crazy beat it is a bit of a grower especially Battery in my Leg which is one of my fav Blur songs. Never was a big Brit popper other than Pulp who were lumped in with the rest of the bunch but we’re actually the real working class artists that Blur aspired to be.
My list :
8. Think Tank
7. Leisure
6. 13
5. The Magic Whip
4. Modern Life Is Rubbish
3. The Great Escape
2. Blur
1. Parklife
I Love TGTBATQ, what do you think about their two albums? I think they are both great.
Jason, you are an enigma wrapped into a quagmire and a question mark. Riddle me this: how can the Magic Whip be your #2 album if you don’t think the songs are as strong as the ones on their mid-nineties output??
Kramzer - "None of these albums need resequencing!" Also Kramzer - "Best Days" should not have come after "Country House," they should have gone with "Charmless Man" instead to maintain that upbeat momentum!" (Just giving you are hard time Kramz ;-)
Great choice for ranking Joe!
Probably my favourite band growing up in the UK during the '90's, and I can still return to their catalogue on a semi-regular basis, and enjoy most of it!
My list (as of today at least) is as follows:
1. Parklife
2. The Great Escape
3. Modern Life Is Rubbish
4. Blur
5. 13
6. Think Tank
7. The Magic Whip
8. Leisure
1. Parklife (5) 2. 13 (4) 3. Blur (4) 4. Modern Life Is Rubbish (4) 5. The Great Escape (4) 6. The Magic Whip (3.5) 7. Leisure (3) 8. Think Tank (3). Nice job (well Joe & Kram!). Do think Damon Albarn is the great talent of the Britpop era, not only Blur but really dig some of the Gorilliz records especially Demon Days & Plastic Beach and his first solo record Every Day Robots. The Good The Bad & The Queen is pretty decent too.
Think Tank actually holds a special place in my heart as it was my first proper Blur album (after listening to Greatest Hits of course). I think it's severely underrated although I feel with Coxon involved it would have elevated it further up my rankings. I'd go with the following:
1. Modern Life is Rubbish
2. Parklife
3. Blur
4. Ballad of Darren
5. 13
6. Think Tank
7. Great Escape
8. Magic Whip
9. Leisure
I just went through the whole list of ranked albums I didn't see THE KINKS!!! I know it's a daunting task but I have faith in you guys - Ray Davies is one of the all time great songwriters - if you can do the Stones and Fleetwood Mac you can handle the Kinks - please do a Kinks ranking - you reference them constantly in your Blur ranking - rank the godfathers of Britpop- love you guys !
Neither Blur or Oasis are my favourite Britpop bands ( Pulp & Cast were my preference) though I do like them both
8. Think Tank 3.5
7. The Magic Whip 3.5
6. Leisure 3.5
5. Modern Life Is Rubbish 4.0
4. The Great Escape 4.0
3. Parklife 4.0
2. Blur 4.5
1. 13 (The only Blur album that I physically own) 4.5
One of my all-time favourite bands.
The soundtrack of being at college, being a teenager and being with my first girlfriend...
UPDATE:
1. The Great Escape
2. Blur
3. Modern Life Is Rubbish
4. Parklife
5. 13
6. The Ballad Of Darren
7. The Magic Whip
8. Leisure
9. Think Tank
Blur has a lot of great and entertaining B-sides as well beyond the mentioned All Your Life...recommended. The US version of Modern Life is Rubbish with Popscene is my "go-to" for that album.
These videos are always very good because there are always contrasting opinions on everything.
Jason really focuses on sound and production. Joe really likes being so positive, I'd assume. And I don't know for Kramzer.
Sing is one of their best ever songs. Also, no one mentioned He Thought of Cars? Another one of their best ever songs
“Daniel Romano released 7 albums this year” 🤣😂 Yeah. Excellent point, Kram.
8. The Magic Whip (3/5 - I got caught up in “Blur is back!” when this album came out. I returned to it a few years later and it didn’t have the same impact. I was kind of bored. Only giving it 3 stars because I do think it sounds really good. Sharp production.)
7. Leisure (3/5 - I just don’t think they had found themselves yet)
6. Think Tank (3/5 - Better than I think a lot of people give credit. If you like trip-hop, you like this album more than rock n rollers)
5. 13 (3.5/5 - Citing William Orbit as working with Melanie C was a cheap shot. His production on Ray of Light is great and he also did some really good work with Beth Orton which is why it makes sense that he could work with Blur. I do agree there is a bit of a push/pull relationship at times, but overall the experimentation on this album keeps it exciting.)
4. The Great Escape (3.75/5 - I agree it’s front loaded, but I don’t think the second half is as weak as Jason makes it sound.)
3. Modern Life Is Rubbish (4/5 - This is the album that took the most amount of time to grow on me. It has such a uniform sound. Even much more than Parklife. Just the songs are collectively stronger on Parklife.)
2. Blur - (4/5 - It would be 4.5 maybe even 5 stars with some editing, but it’s still a great album.)
1. Parklife - (5/5 - A masterpiece.)
What Kram experienced this week, I experienced in 2012 when they released their full discography box set. I had heard Parklife, Blur and 13 before, but diving into the whole discography was so rewarding. Blur is such a great band. They tie together so many of the greatest things about the eras that came before them - from the clever wit of The Kinks to 70s glam to the mod-punk stylings of The Jam to the angular quirkiness of bands like XTC. As Joe said - Stone Roses and The Smiths in Moddern Life. Then of course embracing their American influences like Pixies and Pavement. I don’t think they get enough credit for being excellent students of popular music, and not just ripping off The Beatles like that other band. I really feel that’s where Jason is missing the mark, but he presents his arguments well for the most part. Great pick, Joe! Happy for you, Kram. Cheers ✌🏻
Also… “Girls and Boys” got plenty of airtime on MTV in 1994, btw. Enough American teens liked that song. Songs like Parklife and Tracy Jacks were way too British for Americans, so “Girls and Boys” was actually a smart choice for the first single.
Love 'em. Only ever seen Albarn live a few years ago. As a 90's kid I missed the whole Britpop thing for some reason, but one of my first Gfs got me into Oasis in 2004 (She's from Manchester originally I live in Australia.....and Britpop became a true love after she introduced me. In fact it was quickly after I got into Britpop that I really got into the Beatles, and then music became very important part of my life. Blur are more interesting musically as I age, would love to see them live.
08) Think Tank (3 stars)
07) Leisure (3.25 stars)
06) Modern Life Is Rubbish (3.25 stars)
04) & 05) (tie) The Great Escape, The Magic Whip (3.5 stars)
03) Parklife (4 stars)
02) 13 (4 stars)
01) Blur (4.5 stars)
0 stars - irredeemably terrible/insultingly bad/the worst
.5 stars - terrible
1 star - bad
1.5 stars - between bad and fair
2 stars - fair
2.5 stars - meh
2.75 stars - "It's not horrible, but quit playing it."
3 stars - OK
3.25 stars - pretty good
3.5 stars - good
4 stars - very good
4.5 stars - excellent
5 stars - call the police
notes -
* Nearly all of this music was new to me. I started off thinking I wouldn't like this too much but I'm glad I stuck with it because they got a lot more interesting.
* No great songs on Leisure, but I do love "Madchester" and I like it when Blur dabbles in it. Maybe a touch of Shoegaze as well, and I do love Shoegaze.
* As an American, I absolutely love the British use of the word "rubbish." Modern Life Is Rubbish has some highlights but I'm not really a fan of this one. Some of it reminds me of early Pink Floyd but not as good.
* Parklife gets more creative and adds more elements like the horn on "End of a Century," the great spoken verses on the title track and what sounds like a celeste on "Clover Over Dover." Some good grooves and quite a bit of rock on this one. Lyrically, it's more of the everyday concerns found on Modern Life Is Rubbish. And the modern disco of "Girls & Boys" is catchy as hell.
* I like the way they break their albums up with intermissions and little musical asides.
* The Great Escape is more of the same but a bit more negative and not quite as good. Opener "Stereotypes" is a turnoff.
* I was "forced" to make The Great Escape and The Magic Whip a tie. On both albums, the songs averaged out to 3.583. ;-)
* Their self-titled album is when they REALLY cut loose and get creative, although I always thought "Song 2" was a bit gimmicky. Back in the day I liked that song but it didn't make me want to get the album. It's great to finally hear it; I truly missed out. Here, finally, they fully embrace their weirdness and Graham Coxon spews out some radical guitar craziness. I love the use of varispeed on the totally bizarre "Essex Dogs" - I think more songs should mess with the tempo like that. Very creative stuff. Some of those industrial sounds sound like Jesus and Mary Chain on overdrive circa 1992.
* 13, essentially Damon Albarn's breakup album, continues their creative streak. It's an unpredictable and trippy record with even more washes of sound. There's a great trip hop beat on "Trailerpark" and what sounds like a blender solo on "Bugman," a wild song loaded with tangents.
* Think Tank, largely missing guitarist Graham Coxon, sounds a bit like a subpar Gorillaz album. There's some good bass playing and beats but also a handful of mellow acoustic tunes, most of which aren't that great. "Jets" is interesting though - the bass takes lead while the guitar takes rhythm for a very loose sounding exercise featuring a sax solo.
* The Magic Whip is good overall, but a step back towards ordinary. "Go Out" is great though with great sound effects.
* Cheers mates!!!!!!!!!!
I like your input here, Rich, but I’m going to disagree that Leisure doesn’t have any great songs. ‘There’s No Other Way’ is a great song. I remember it getting a lot of play at our local ‘post modern’ radio station, just before grunge hit big. The guitar work is brilliant. Even the video is cool. Stands the test of time. One of their best. Of course, this is all my opinion. But I think that one is great.
@@mrp4242 I rate it 3.75 stars - "good, almost very good." The highest rated track I have for Leisure is "Birthday" at 4 stars.
@@mrp4242 I remember "There's No Other Way" from back in the day - probably MTV's 120 minutes? I enjoyed it.
I personally love that their albums are long af, not a problem at all imo, can't go wrong with the British life trilogy, Modern life is rubbish, Parklife and The great escape, they're pure perfection
Isn't Girls and Boys expressing the same kind of vibe as all those Spring Break songs that come out in the US?
1. Blur (5/5)
2. 13 (5/5)
3. Parklife (5/5)
4. The Great Escape (4.5/5)
5. Modern Life Is Rubbish (4.5/5)
6. Think Tank (4/5)
7. The Magic Whip (4/5)
8. Leisure (3.5/5)
Damon Albarn is one of the most underrated songwriters, he's a genius!!
i love that you guys are into Blur. Im from london uk, Blur sound very british, but if you are from the uk they sound very south east english in particular, so its a niche within a niche, as if cool for cats by the squeeze spawned a band.
the best bands from this scene were Blur, Mansun, Radiohead and Puressence. those 4 were way ahead of the others. bands like oasis, manic street preachers, verve etc maybe had more widespread popularity, but i think the 4 i mentioned were really in a different league to everyone else.
ive watched a bit of the video and had to pause to go listen to a few of blurs more recent albums for reference. i may post more later when someone incorrectly doesnt have parklife as their best album 😄
parklife rly was blurs masterpiece imo but they had a number of very good albums, and such an interesting band.
The Magic Whip is honesty my favorite, such an amazing comeback record IMO
It is surprisingly good
YES! Finally someone who thinks the same. This record is so underrated.
have the guys ever done a side 3 that looks at bands who took a long hiatus and made a good to great album after the long break? ...lotta the bands they have covered have had meh type releases after long breaks
Modern Life Is Rubbish wins for me by some distance with Parklife in 2nd. Its a purely nostalgic pick - i checked out after the Great Escape.
You guys have your first quadfecta, because Jason's dog just submitted his own rankings and has Parklife as his #1 as well.
Old timey railroad fans prefer Modern Life is Rubbish. Boaters favor The Great Escape. Nurses voted the 97 s/t as best . .
Swimmers prefer "Leisure"? Or is that some sort of joke?
In case people are wondering why there’s three artists in the upcoming artists rather than four, it’s because the week after Roxy Music is gonna be whoever wins the artist poll (I’m not gonna spoil any of the options or how well they’re doing)
The boys have published the list - it does not much matter who wins, it is all artists where a single album is already much to stomach - not even thinking of a whole discography...
I agreed a lot with Joe and Kramzer on this one, though I can understand Jason’s points overall about the albums being too long and the non-singles not being anywhere near as fulfilling in general (for instance, they do tend to over rely on simple guitar riffs in the style of something like Argent’s “Hold Your Head Up High” a bit too much, and I think Ray Davies set his character sketch lyrics to overall somewhat greater melodies during The Kinks’ late 60’s/early 70’s prime). Although I don’t quite think Blur were an all time great band, they’re still really good and catchy, doing their cheeky British style with a lot of flair, and I do have my top 5 albums, which were difficult to rank, all at 4 stars (Parklife is very close to 4.5 - my order after that would probably be The Great Escape, Modern Life Is Rubbish, Blur, and the album I knew Jason would really hate, 13). At the bottom I have Leisure at probably a low 3.5, The Magic Whip at a high 3 and Think Tank at a mid 3. Also, I’m glad I came to my senses with eventually loving “Girls & Boys” to death (the only other song that would be a contender for my favorite by them is “The Universal”) after initially thinking it was really dumb.
I was only able to get to 4 stars on one of their albums (Parklife, which I gave 4.5). Modern Life is Rubbish came close to 4, but I think it kind of falls off a cliff on side two. I don't care at all for the 3 song run of "Miss America," "Villa Rosie," and "Coping."
1. Parklife - Easily their best, most indicative record and also of Britpop. First half is front-loaded with near-all their best singles and Tracy Jacks whereas the second half features a near-total stretch of gold.
2. Blur - American alt-rock sequel to Parklife. Almost as good with similar pattern of good singles and strong second half of album tracks.
3. 13 - Only a couple of stand-out singles but overall a very dreamy albeit despondent record and great for falling asleep to.
4. The Great Escape. Very up and down record. Tracks like Country House, Ernold Same and Mr Robinson’s Quango are taking the britpop formula to the end of its tether but there are still some incredible tracks like Charmless Man, The Universal, He Thought Of Cars and Yuko and Hiro.
5. Modern Life Is Rubbish - Opener For Tomorrow is amazing, so catchy as is Chemical World. The rest of the album is good and sets the britpop template although is somewhat drab in comparison.
6. The Magic Whip - it’s a good record although with the exception of a couple of tracks it is a Damon Albarn record in all but name.
7. Think Tank - Some really great heartfelt moments like Out Of Time and Ambulance but later on really hamstrung by lack of Coxon. Some really lame cut n paste experiments like saxophone-out-of-nowhere solo on Jets.
8. Leisure - has a couple of early great singles along with some nice shoegaze/baggy vibes in places. Aside from that it has the fewest quality songs and the least going for it.
I followed Blur since they came out. I've never been a big fan but I do like a bunch of their songs. More a singles band to me. I personally think there were other British bands in the 90s far more interesting than Blur (PJ Harvey, Portishead, Tindersticks, Massive Attack...).
My ranking:
- Leisure. A band still searching for his sound. Too derivative. A couple of good songs and many not really memorable. 5
- Think Tank. A Damon Albarn album. One of their best songs, Out of Time, and a few good ideas is the only thing that save this album from a total disaster. Too many tracks with no direction and simply tedious. 5.5
- The Magic Whip. There's only one that stands out for me: Ong Ong. The rest is not bad, not really good either. Just all right. 6
- 13. Two great songs (Tender, Coffee & TV), a couple others quite good, a few interesting sounds here and there but some songs that don't say anything to me. With 45 minutes would be a good record, why so long? 6.5
- The Great Scape. A bunch of catchy pop songs but in others they start to sound like a parody of themselves. No risk. Too long. 7
- Modern Life Is Rubbish. A great leap forward compared to their debut. Better production, better song writing, better playing. A few classic songs, but nothing really mind blowing. 7.75
- Blur. Their American album. More a Graham Cox work. Pavement, Sonic Youth and other American alternative bands gave a new direction to their sound. Good material, more raw, some interesting guitar work. More cohesive than Parklife. Again too long. 8. 25
- Parklife. It has some fantastic songs that have become classic. Good production by Stephen Street. Albarn's lyrics are sharper. However, the album doesn't flow smoothly. It lacks coherence, it jumps from dance pop to punk to Europop to... and it suffers again from the CD syndrome... It's too damn long. 8.5
Love to see quarter-star ratings. Been teasing the guys about using them.
Hi Fran - Great commentary. Again, surprised to see leisure at the bottom of so many lists. "Too long" is the apt description for many of these albums.
@@179rich Rich: With the highest level of respect, Sir, I don't think that really matters. Now . . . Mt. Britmore? That matters. Suede, Sleeper, Inspiral Carpets, Pulp (?). yeah?
Thanks Naughty, yes, I think their career would have been much better with somebody helping them out with some decisions like shortening their albums
@@frangarcia7774 It may not have been their decision at all. Record companies were pushing artists to load up their CDs with more songs at the time.
Their self titled is my favorite. I’ve always seen it as their love letter to America, which I appreciate after all the anglocentricism of the past 3 (which I love as well but for different reasons). Coxson absolutely slays this record.
I think if Kramzer had heard Think Tank in context as a fan when it came out he'd appreciate it a bit more. Think Tank is to Blur as Adore is to Smashing Pumpkins where a key band member left and they went on to make a new adventurous album that obviously feels like it's missing something but somehow turned out to be really good in the end.
Parklife is my favourite - yes the 1st 4 tracks are probably the best, but the rest of the album is still very strong and I love the guitar sounds throughout, but the whole album sounds great to me.
13 is my 2nd favourite, although I agree with Jason that it would be much better if they left off Bugman, Swamp Song and BLUREMI - the noisy ones. The capacity of CDs is great for compilations, nowhere near so much for studio albums. As with movies, whither brevity as a virtue?
The rest of the albums I’ve heard are patchier, so a compilation would probably do me. Beetlebum is a great record, though.
Overall, the stuff I like by Blur I really like very much, and the rest I just don’t listen to - most of the Britpop bands are like that for me. The first 2 albums by Oasis and especially Suede are fantastic, but nothing after those was anywhere near as good.
Jason is quite correct - in the UK “leisure” rhymes with “measure”.
8 - Think Tank
7 - leisure
6 - Blur
5 - The Magic Whip
4 - The Great Escape
3 - Modern Life is Rubbish
2 - 13
1 - Parklife
"She's So High" was produced by Steve Lovell and Steve Power, not Stephen Street, by the way Jason. The ones that weren't produced by Stephen Street was "She's So High", "Sing", "Fool", "Birthday" and "Wear Me Down".
For me BLUR is a consistent band without a bad album, but also without a masterpiece.
My ranking:
1. 13 (8,5/10)
2. Parklife (8/10)
3. Blur (8/10)
4. The Great Escape (7,5/10)
5. Modern Life Is Rubbish (7,5/10)
6. Leisure (7/10)
7. The Magic Whip (6,5/10)
8. Think Tank (6/10)
Greetings from Canary Islands.
Oh man I think Parklife is a masterpiece.
Il call 13 a masterpiece and possibly also self titled and the Ballad of Darren
1 MLIR
2 Blur
3 Park Life
4 Great Escape
5 Magic Whip
6 Leisure
7 13
8 Think Tank
Going to see them tomorrow!
I don't think Blur ever truly mastered the art of the album. They are great in 3 or 4 minute doses but all their records have so much flab and filler. That said, at their best they were a great band. I always liked their melancholic stuff, something Albarn excelled at. This Is A Low, Best Days, No Distance Left To Run, Blue Jeans, etc. Think Tank has Sweet Song, which is absolutely stunning and possibly my favourite Blur song, so I could never put it last
You're kidding? 13 is a masterpiece, and a full round album
Really really struggling to understand how MLIR, Parklife, self titled, 13, MW have filler
Modern life is rubbish / 13/ think tank are all sublime as full albums.
You should do a review of the PULP albums
You guys GOTTA do Suede! Those first 3 are peak Britpop (even though they’re more glam-alternative) and 90s albums! If you’re Bowie-Smiths fans, that’s the perfect inbetween right there. Pulp are great though too!
Long time Brit Blur fan since Leisure and Popscene (stand-alone single before MLIR). They're one of the great British bands, definitely a part of the lineage from The Beatles, Kinks, Bowie, The Jam and The Smiths. Leagues, LEAGUES ahead of Oasis. They operated on a completely different level to them.
Loved this show despite being a tough crowd a times, and you've got yourself a new subscriber. Really enjoyed it and look forward to working my way back through your stuff. Fwiw my ranking:
1. Modern Life is Rubbish (5 stars)
2. Parklife (5 stars)
3. 13 (4.5 stars)
4. Blur (4 stars)
5. Leisure (3.5 stars)
6. The Magic Whip (3.5 stars)
7. The Great Escape (3 stars)
8. Think Tank (2 stars)
Welcome!
There's a new album coming out and it's called "The Ballad of Darren" on July 21st.
My 5 Favorite Blur Albums ( Technically 4 ) # 1 - Modern Life Is Rubbish ( Their most 🇬🇧 album - an unexpected gem at the time & holds up brilliantly) # 2 Park Life ( All killer - no filler & Blur are big fans of the Norwich Canaries Soccer team & are frequently sighted at their matches. When their manager Daniel Farke led them to EPL Promotion the club would play the title track after a win with the crowd singing " Farke Life ! " # 3 Think Tank ( A really misunderstood album & kinda of a Damon solo affair but a great listen , like Kid A ) # 4 The Great Escape ( Their 🇬🇧 Pop masterpiece) & # 5 is the bonus live at Wembley 💿 that came with initial quantities of the 1999 Best Of. 👌
The beat from "Girls & Boys" is on a drum machine.
Tough to rank Blur since I love pretty much all of it. Agree 13 is overrated, but support the experimentation. Think Tank is a great late night driving album. Magic Whip is underrated, the dreamy and dark undertones are unique to their catalog, and serves as one of their best concept albums. Ghost Ship should be a setlist staple.
The perfect pick! I fucking love blur! best to least best 1. Parklife, 2. 13, 3. Self titled, 4. Modern life is rubbish, 5. the Great escape, 6. Think tank, 7. leisure, 8. the magic whip.
To be fair, Albarn criticized 'Leisure' (or Leesure to Kramzer) and 'The Great Escape' back in 2007 .... lets hope he's reassessed since then.
I feel like Kramzer styles his hair if he likes the artist… am I imagining this?
PULP! Anyway I'd love to hear how you guys actually listen to your music. Have you done a video on that before?
Not officially.
@@TastesLikeMusic Actually, there's that one video where you took listener's questions. You touched on it then.
Was it taht "Americans don't get Blur", or just that Blur wasn't marketed well to the uS?
I was hanging out with a guy from England in 1996/97 and, while it's kind of anecdotal admittedly, he maintained taht Oasis just wasn't as well liked over there as Blur were. They got played on the radio sometimes here (in Canada, wehre we are *supposed* to be closer to our British origins), but certainly not as often as oasis around the same time. I almost feel the rivalry between them was fueled by the media and by oasis themselves doing lots of grandstanding (i.e., "Wer'e the Beatles *and* the Rolling Stones; Blur are the Monkees", etc).
When i was fifteen I would have been in the Oasis camp, I guess, but not now. I did notice when I left highschool that people seemed to talk about Blur with a lot more veneration and respect.
Americans don’t like blurs music. End of. They are considered a one hit wonder here. Whilst oasis has 4/5 staples on classic rock radio. I would say that neither of them are that big over here anymore. If oasis got back together they’d probably do stadiums over here… meanwhile I don’t know if blur are together or not but they could probably do small clubs in big cities
I saw oasis headline at Molson Park in Toronto in 96’ in front of probably 55k people. They nailed it. Blur would’ve never done that over here even in the 90’s
I actually like some of blurs music too but I feel like there’s something very stuck up about a lot of Damon’s work whilst oasis is just cold stone arrogant rock n roll with some ballads and soft pop rock.
Also the feud was confirmed to be started by Blurs record company and the media. They aligned the single “country house” with oasis’s “roll with it” on purpose. Oasis switched the release date and blur copied it. Once the fight was started Oasis started bashing blur…. Before destroying them with the mega hit album that has sold more records then blurs entire discography…after that. Oasis continued to bash blur and blur kinda shut there mouths… feud over.
Great list, agree with Joe the most here. Yuko & Hiro is my favorite Blur song
Has anyone listened to the new album yet?
Yes
@@TastesLikeMusic I think 'The Ballad of Darren' possibly leaves this video requiring an edit.....? What a comeback.