About Last July

Insert obligatory "it was all a blur" joke here...

I began listening to Blur in the last good days of the before times—the final months of 2019—because a woman whom I had followed online for years wrote a story that shared a title with one of their songs. I reached out to her in the hopes that she would chat with me about her writing, which I admired¹ with a fervor I felt for only a very few specific things at the time.

Gen became one of the friends I saw most often—in fact pretty much the only friend I saw besides my roommates—during the true depths of Covid, because we happened to live so close to one another. In March, we sipped tea from thermoses at opposite ends of a park bench, six feet apart, because it was really too cold to be outside but we had no option to be indoors. In April and May, we strolled through Ridgewood as she pointed out all the darkened bars and restaurants that we might have once patronized but were now barred from. Regardless of the season and the weather, we always talked about a bit about books and writing and a lot about music: R.E.M.’s Monster, Fiona Apple’s return to the spotlight, Morphine, Kim Deal, Stephen Malkmus, Gen’s endlessly unwinding love for Spiderland by Slint, my boundless belief in the superiority of every Nina Simone cover compared to the original. But more than anything we talked about Blur.

Blur appealed to me in the first lonely weeks of spring 2020 because of their closeness. In the videos I watched, they invaded each other’s space with ease; they talked over one another; they gleefully stepped on each other’s toes, both literally and metaphorically, whenever they were given the chance. It was almost fantastical or otherwise borderline pornographic to watch footage of their concerts and witness all those people colliding with one another in the audience, all gulping in the same air without a single thought as to its viral load.

Blur were² stupid and beautiful and difficult and brilliant. Their career and my interest in their music and interpersonal dynamics are too complex to describe in detail here, but basically: Childhood/uni friends start a band together in London at the very end of the 80s, become ludicrously famous in the UK in the mid-90s, break up in the early 2000s with one member having been fired at the turn of the millennium, reunite unexpectedly in the mid-2010s, and ostensibly break up once more upon the release of their “final” album in 2015, after which they returned to their separate careers (music for frontman Damon Albarn and guitarist Graham Coxon; cheesemaking and local politics for bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree, respectively). From 2016 on, Blur were once again broken up for all intents and purposes. I know this doesn’t sound that remarkable on the surface but you have to trust me. Any more detail might turn this into a genuine mental health hazard.

Also, their music is pretty good.

Blur throughout the 90s.

I like Blur because I have always loved a reunion, anything that retroactively takes away the finality of what was otherwise assumed to be an ending. I like that they seem helpless to the pull of each another’s orbits, always circling back to their origins. I like Blur because I like good music and what it can do, how it reaches back through our collective psyche to a time before language, before we could name our emotions and were instead powerless to do anything except feel them. I like that, in general, the presence of music is inherently paradoxical because it moves through space without occupying it. Words do the same thing. In a way, so do memories.

In the summer of 2022, I received an anonymous message on a certain semi-defunct social media platform with an ominous promise: “See u at Wembley ❤️”. I hadn’t yet heard, but rumors were apparently afoot regarding a potential Blur reunion show at Wembley Stadium in London, the site of Freddie Mercury and Queen’s iconic 1985 Live Aid performance. I responded to the message with something sarcastic and dismissive. I did not—could not—believe this nameless, faceless oracle.

A little less than a year later, Gen and I were sitting together in the stands at the largest and most iconic soccer stadium in the UK, waiting for Blur to begin the first of two concerts at Wembley. Here were these individuals whom we had spent so much time mythologizing and here was the unequivocal fact of their existence as real people onstage before us. Here were the songs that I had listened to alone in my apartment and while traversing the eerily empty streets of my old neighborhood and on the subway and in the car and over the sea as I flew toward England, where I had wanted to go all my life.

During the second show we were seated closer to the stage, but I found that the band was still far enough away for their silhouettes to affect the appearance of their younger selves if I let my vision blur³ slightly (which wasn’t difficult, given the tears in my eyes): Dave seated behind the drum set with his careful wireframed gaze, Graham to the left in his striped shirt and cuffed jeans, still prone to hurling his Tele into the air, Alex to the right with his long dark fringe and bass slung low on his hips, and Damon in the center, as always, microphone in hand, wearing a replica of the Fila tracksuit from the 1994 “Girls & Boys” music video, drenched in sweat and grinning like a madman. I could almost convince myself that they were young and lovely again, stupefyingly beautiful as they had once been, but I tried to resist the urge. I wanted to be unable to deny the truth of time’s passage, how it keeps us apart and how it can return us to ourselves, and how the music remains the same even when everything around it has changed.

They really were just men, small and strange the way any of us would have been standing on that stage at that distance. We are all of us just people capable of moving and being moved by one another. We all get old if we’re given the chance. I think there’s a tremendous humility in realizing that.

Blur's biggest criticism and most consistent strength has always been their unpredictability—from Damon’s dangerous stunts at live shows, during which he scaled the rafters of venues and tossed himself into crowds as he sang, to the habit of retooling their sound on every other release in contempt of the genre trends that they themselves had invented. It’s hard to recommend any one Blur record as the place to start listening to them because each one appeals to such different sensibilities. I personally think it’s more gratifying to start with a survey of their whole discography, so you can hear the through-lines and consistencies as well as the evolution of their sound.

Gen made a “Blur starter playlist” with commentary for her fabulous music newsletter last year, which I was glad about because the NYT version was a bit…lacking in my opinion (no hate to Lindsay Zoladz tho!). I then made my own playlist as a supplement to both Gen’s and Zoladz’s, and I tried to avoid as much overlap in the tracklist as I could. If you listen to all three playlists then you will achieve complete Blur self-actualization, or something like that.

—ECT

P.S. You can listen to it on YouTube, too, if you’d prefer.

1. "London Loves" from Parklife, 1994.

This was one of the first Blur songs I can recall listening to outside of the context of the Wii game Just Dance in 2009. I was probably fifteen or so and I inevitably heard it because someone reblogged it onto my Tumblr dashboard. I remember being totally transfixed by the squelching percussion and oddly taut guitar that then balloons into long licks of sound midway through the song, and the incongruous melancholy of the lyrics: London loves the way people just fall apart…

2. "The Narcissist" from The Ballad of Darren, 2023.

Words can’t describe the shock of hearing this song last spring, their first single since 2015. I’ve decided that its chorus is one of my favorite lyrics from Blur’s entire discography. Shining a light at someone—in hopes of blinding them?—only for them to turn the light back on you…recognizing the self through the other…could it be the mortifying ordeal of being known??!?!?!??

3. "Go Out" from The Magic Whip, 2015.

4. "Coping (Andy Partridge Version)" from Modern Life Is Rubbish sessions, 1993.

Andy Partridge, from XTC, was initially signed on to produce Blur’s second album, but he was removed from the project in favor of producer Stephen Street, who became a regular collaborator. I actually prefer this version to the one on the studio album—I love the goofy echo on Graham’s backing vocals in the chorus, and then that weird descending harmony right afterwards. The scribbly guitar sound throughout just heightens the song’s preexisting playful mania.

5. "Death of a Party (7in Remix)" from Blur sessions, 1997.

6. "Coffee & TV" from 13, 1999.

The only true ‘hit’ on this playlist. This is another Blur song that I knew in my youth, because I must have stumbled across the music video, which was quite popular into the 2000s (it even got a cameo on The Sopranos!). The guitar solo toward the end of the song was inspired by Ira Kaplan’s playing on Yo La Tengo’s “Stockholm Syndrome.” 

7. "Miss America" from Modern Life Is Rubbish, 1993.

The echoey percussive element throughout the song is apparently Graham banging an unidentified object against a chair leg.

8. "So You" from 13 sessions, 1999.

This is a nice video showing a bit of this song’s development. As a non-musical person I always find footage like this incredible because I don't understand the kind of nonverbal communication that must be happening between all the different instrumental parts. It just looks and sounds like magic to me. Dave’s percussion is so great here, too. 

9. "Yuko and Hiro" from The Great Escape, 1995.

The Great Escape is a polarizing document among Blur fans. On one hand, it’s what launched the band to the absolute apex of their fame via ‘The Battle of Britpop,’ a publicity stunt largely pushed by music magazines like Melody Maker and the NME wherein the album’s lead single (“Country House”) was pitted against the lead single (“Roll With It”) from Oasis’ forthcoming album. (There is a lot more to be said for what the Blur vs. Oasis competition represented in terms of British class politics at the turn of the millennium, but we don’t have time to get into that now.) “Country House” ended up ‘winning’ the battle in terms of record sales on the day of their simultaneous release, but The Great Escape was ultimately Blur’s worst effort since their debut while Oasis’ What’s the Story, Morning Glory? is now considered one of the best albums of the 1990s—by the general public, I should add, not necessarily by me. The band came to hate many of the songs on this album, and I would be inclined to agree that they mostly suck. I like this one, though, except for the stupid carnival music outro…feel free to skip that…

10. "Birthday" from Leisure, 1991.

I spent my fifteenth birthday compiling a playlist of melancholic birthday songs, which I then uploaded to 8tracks, of course—where else? I only recently managed to access my old 8tracks account and was surprised to find that I had apparently included this track from Blur’s first record as well as “Happy Birthday” by The Innocence Mission and “Growing Up” by (ugh) Andrew Jackson Jihad.

11. "I'm Just A Killer For Your Love" from Blur, 1997.

Thus marks the segue into an emotionally dense block of songs. Again, I simply cannot get into the complete Blur lore (Blore) here, but if you know, you know…and if you do know, I’m so sorry…

12. "My Terracotta Heart" from The Magic Whip, 2015.

The Magic Whip was composed from jams recorded during a few days in which Blur’s entourage was grounded in Asia during their first reunion tour in 2013. Damon has gone on the record to say this song—actually, the whole album—is about his relationship with Graham, the tension between them, and the tentativeness of their reunion after seven years of radio silence. Graham said this song made him feel like Pattie Boyd, who famously inspired both George Harrison’s “Something” and Eric Clapton’s “Layla”.

13. "Sweet Song" from Think Tank, 2003.

While recording Think Tank, Graham was kicked out of the band because his alcoholism had become debilitating. (Only one song on the record retains his contributions: the guitar part in “Battery In Your Leg”, the album’s closer.) Damon apparently wrote this song while looking at a photograph of Graham in his studio. 

14. "Beachcoma" from Modern Life Is Rubbish sessions, 1993.

One of the band’s only true love songs, nearly excruciating in its simplicity.

15. "Essex Dogs" from Blur, 1997.

My second-favorite song that appears on a proper album—it is too enormous for me to describe. Damon, Graham, and Dave are all from Colchester, a suburb of Essex, England. This live performance, featuring Damon and Graham alongside the pioneering electronic duo the Silver Apples, is excellent. It feels so tangible and real that I want to sink my teeth into it, like a piece of meat.

16. "Inertia (Live)" from The Electric Ballroom B-Sides Gig, 1999. [originally from Leisure sessions]

This recording is taken from a small show in Camden that featured a setlist composed exclusively of underperformed B-sides. 1999 was a difficult, ugly year for the band, but it’s (in my opinion) one of their finest concerts by far. I love that I can never determine the real words of this song: the so-called official lyrics say “I’m not sure / Of you” while I personally hear them, especially in this recording, as “I’m not sure / Are you?” The way the whole meaning of the song, its address, the singer’s agency, are all called into question by a single tiny word—‘of’ or ‘are’—is endlessly fascinating to me.

17. "Kissin' Time (feat. Blur)" by Marianne Faithfull from Kissin' Time, 2002.

Blur adopted a rather isolationist outlook early on in their career and were, as a result, not a hugely collaborative band⁴. This track and the French version of “To The End” with Françoise Hardy (RIP 💔) are the sole major exceptions. I admit I find it incredibly endearing that the two people that they chose to work with were then-middle aged pop chanteuses who had been most popular in the early 1960s (and also happen to be two of my favorite singers). This album has a lot of other collaborations between Faithfull and 90s alt rock scenesters, including Beck, Pulp, and (ugh x2) Billy Corgan. 

18. "Look Inside America" from Blur, 1997.

Blur’s relationship with the United States is…complicated, to say the least. With the exception of “Song 2” (you know, the one that goes Woo-hoo!!!), they were never able to break into the US markets and achieve the same level of astronomical success that they enjoyed in their native land. Their second American tour in 1992 was a disaster mostly due to mismanagement and poor venue choices, but Damon was convinced that it was the American predilection for grunge music that had turned audiences against them. This is the final and most forgiving chapter in the band’s trilogy of “America” songs and ultimately a pretty anticlimactic conclusion to the long-standing feud. Damon concedes that the titular country and its culture, when looked at closely, is just “alright”—neither terrible nor deserving of veneration. 

19. "Maggie May (orig. Rod Stewart)" from Modern Life Is Rubbish sessions, 1993.

This was my fourth most-played song of 2023. Embarrassing…but that guitar during the bridge still knocks me out every time. Fun fact: Alex hates Rod Stewart so much that he refused to play on this track.

20. "Entertain Me" from The Great Escape, 1995.

Because Damon is such a prolific songwriter/showman, and Graham is such a renowned guitar player/emotional wreck, the other two guys in the band are the focus of critical attention far less frequently. I would argue, however, that Blur’s rhythm section has had some pretty serious strokes of genius during their career. This bassline from Alex is one of them.

21. "Trouble in the Message Centre" from Parklife, 1994.

22. "Garden Central" from Modern Life Is Rubbish sessions, 1993.

23. "X Offender (Damon & Control Freak's Bugman Remix)" from 13 sessions, 1999.

This was an interview Dave did in 2023 ahead of the Wembley shows:

So here I am, reporting from the dark depths of Blur’s fandom, apparently…

24. "Jets" from Think Tank, 2003.

25. "Sticks and Stones" from The Ballad of Darren sessions, 2023.

Some things are inevitable: death, taxes, and Blur relegating their best songs to bonus tracks and/or B-sides.

26. "Trailerpark" from 13, 1999.

Hilariously, this song was initially written to be included in a specific South Park episode, but it ended up getting rejected. I’m glad of this because I have already endured so many humiliations as a result of this band, and them being featured on a South Park soundtrack really might have been the final straw for me. I actually like the song a lot despite its unfortunate origins. 

27. "He Thought of Cars" from The Great Escape, 1995.

For whatever reason this really calls to my mind John Lennon’s parts of “A Day in the Life” by The Beatles. Maybe it’s that sense of being lost and alone within an urban environment, knowing you have a practical means of escaping the physical space while also knowing that you can’t ever really get away from the spiritual monotony of daily working life...

28. "Bone Bag" from Modern Life Is Rubbish sessions, 1993.

One of the best of an already great run of B-sides (as has been established). Compare this song’s refrain of “I don’t want to hurt you, no, not ever…” to that of “Sweet Song” a decade later: “I didn’t mean to hurt you, no, no, no…”

29. "You're So Great" from Blur, 1997.

I have spent a lot of time trying to articulate just how beautiful I think this song is and how much it means to me, but I don’t think there’s enough language in the world to hold all of those feelings. I first discovered this song when I was thirteen or fourteen and then proceeded to include it on nearly every single playlist and/or mix CD I made for a friend thereafter. I now know that this was the first song Graham wrote and sang solo for the band (he was so anxious about it that he insisted on recording alone in the studio under a table with all the lights turned off), but at the time it was anonymous to me and simply the truest, most sincere declaration of appreciation I had ever heard: You’re so great and I love you. What else could anyone possibly say?

Bonus: “Parklife” from Live at Wembley Stadium, 2024.

If you listen really closely, you can hear Gen and me singing along. Probably.

Our view of the Sunday show, with Damon looming large, exactly one year ago as of this publication.

1. And still do!!!

2. And still are!!!

3. Haha.

4. Through Gorillaz, Damon has made up for this lack of collaboration by working with practically every other artist under the sun.