One day I mentioned to my girlfriend that I wasn’t sure what my favourite band was. She said I was crazy.
“But I love Belle & Sebastian! I love them so much!”
“Petey, you followed Blur around Europe. You saw them in a record store with 170 people. I can’t believe you are even trying to say that they aren’t your favourite band.”
And she was right. I do love love love many bands. Belle & Sebastian, Talking Heads, The Bad Seeds, The Flaming Lips, but there is one band that I can listen to anywhere, anytime and at feeling any type of emotion. Blur has been with me for the last decade of my life, and brought more happiness into my world than any other band has been able to.
I was never into them during the britpop times, and while they are always included within any sentence about the era, they are much bigger than that, more-so than any of their contemporaries. Britpop isn’t a genre, it was a time, a scene – and while Blur played a big part defining what britpop became, I don’t think they cared for it much at all, and they definitely didn’t struggle to release themselves from the shackles that tied most other britpop alumni to the sounds and songs of the time.
Blur seemed to do the impossible by consistently releasing better music with every album. As I have mentioned previously, Think Tank is my favourite album, and the best piece of music that Damon Albarn has ever written. Blur’s 1997 self titled was one big FU to britpop, and a brave departure for the band and proved that these four guys had a lot more to give to this world. It seems strange now thinking that there was a time when Blur was criticised for being complacent when they released The Great Escape, but it seems that that criticism sparked some great desire within the members to prove their worth.
All of my birthdays seemed to come at once when Blur decided that the summer that I was living in the UK would be the summer that they reunite and go crazy touring around Europe. I was extremely fortunate to see them in some very unique locations: with 170 people at Rough Trade East; at Goldsmiths Academy; two nights in Hyde Park; and at the most beautiful venue in Lyon, France. I still can’t believe the experience I was able to have with a band I have loved for so long, in the country and city that is so tied to the music they have written.
Trouble in the Message Centre is the best track from Parklife. Unfortunately coming from an album where almost every song could be a single, this song is often forgotten. Listen to this song and then go back to day one of this challenge and listen to Battery in Your Leg and it is hard to believe that this is the same band.
And just because I can, here is my other favourite Blur song, from the first Hyde Park gig: