What is Blur (1997)?
Short Answer:
Blur’s fifth album. Viva American Sounds.
Long Answer:
What is it?
Blur was released on 10 February 1997. After three albums of satire, swagger and sarcasm, they’d had enough. Enough of Britpop, enough of characters, enough of pretending they were enjoying any of it. So they binned the formula and made something uglier, stranger, and more honest.
Gone were the horn sections, the mockney monologues, the arch little commentaries on suburban life. What came instead was distortion, fatigue, violence, tenderness and the kind of songwriting that doesn’t care if you like it, as long as it means something.
No statement of intent. No concept. Just a band reaching breaking point and recording the noise it made.
Tracklist
Beetlebum
Song 2
Country Sad Ballad Man
M.O.R.
On Your Own
Theme from Retro
You're So Great
Death of a Party
Chinese Bombs
I'm Just a Killer for Your Love
Look Inside America
Strange News from Another Star
Movin' On
Essex Dogs (includes hidden track)
Song 2 got all the attention. Two chords, no fat, and more bite than most bands could muster in an entire career. Blur called it a joke. Everyone else called it a hit.
Where was it recorded?
Mayfair Studios, London
Additional bits at Reykjavík and Iceland’s Greenhouse Studios
Produced by Stephen Street, again. This time, less polish. More noise.
It sounded like it was recorded in a room with no furniture. All echo, hiss and anger. A band finally trusting themselves enough to be difficult.
Who played on it?
Damon Albarn – vocals, keys, disillusion
Graham Coxon – guitar, vocals, frustration turned into fuzz
Alex James – bass, quieter, tighter, sharper
Dave Rowntree – drums, holding down the chaos
The roles hadn’t changed. The mood had. They weren’t performing anymore. They were trying to stay upright.
Sound and Style
Grunge, shoegaze, post-punk, art rock. None of it quite fits. This was Blur exorcising something. The melodies are still there, but they’re buried under distortion and apathy. It doesn’t chase approval. It barely cares if you’re listening.
There’s no pop sheen. No winks to the camera. Just fuzz, fatigue and flashes of brutal clarity. It’s the sound of a band shedding skin.
Reception
Mixed, at first. The fans who came for Parklife didn’t know what to do with it. The Americans, hilariously, loved it. Song 2 went everywhere. Blur were finally “cool” across the Atlantic, just as they stopped caring whether they were.
Critics caught up eventually. Everyone does, when the record doesn’t.
Legacy
Blur is the crack in the pavement. The moment the façade slipped and something better came through.
It wasn’t the most British. It wasn’t the most clever. But it was the most necessary. Without this, there’s no 13. No escape from caricature. No way forward.
This is what reinvention sounds like when it’s not planned, not branded, and not meant to be pretty.
You Should Listen to Blur Right Now
You should listen to Blur right now because it still sounds like a band telling the truth after years of performance.
The production’s raw. The songs are jagged. The humour is gone, or hidden. What’s left is something better. Something broken, but human.
It won’t cheer you up. It’s not supposed to. But if you’ve ever been tired of your own voice and wanted to start again, this is what that moment sounds like.
