McCartney In Goal
McCartney In Goal is a monthly podcast that debates and dissects the greatest albums of popular rock music. Hosted by David Hughes, and fellow judges, Brett and Steve Sumner, each episode the McCartney In Goal team pick a rock or pop music album that they love and put the songs through an imaginary competitive style-knock out format to find the best song on the album. At times, they may be uninformed, biased and they are often a bit unruly. Come and listen in on the fun - and if you enjoy it, TELL A FRIEND!!! Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com
McCartney In Goal
Blur (Blur)
What happens when a beloved Britpop band dares to defy expectations and embrace a new musical frontier? Join us as we explore the iconic yet daringly different Blur album from 1997, where Britpop meets American indie rock in a glorious sonic experiment.
We uncover fascinating backstories, from Blur's playful spoofing of grunge in "Song 2" to the introspective depths of "Beetlebum." Covering band feuds and creative tensions, our conversation captures Blur's journey through fame and artistic reinvention. Whether you're a long-time fan or a curious newcomer, this episode promises to be an engaging, enlightening, and thoroughly entertaining exploration of a pivotal moment in Blur's musical legacy.
Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin
Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com/
hello and welcome to mccartney and gold. This is the podcast where we've already recorded a really really funny introduction so good and and lost it in in a technical shenanigan fest that was lasted five minutes. That was a fun moment. I said some of the funniest stuff I've ever, most perspicacious stuff I've ever said on this podcast um, but it's not to be, uh, recreated, unfortunately no, I think what I think happened there was it was funny, interesting.
Speaker 2:It set the story really beautifully and also it kind of touched on the soul of what it is to be human and the meaning of life all in five minutes. But it's lost, so fuck it we got this instead.
Speaker 1:No, we're going to go super prosaic instead and I'm going to say things like this evening we're talking about blur by the artists blur, and we're gonna put this album through its paces. We're gonna put it through a sporting style knockout format and see which song is our favorite. I'm just saying old, boring stuff because I can't make up fun stuff anymore, because I've run out of steam or here in my pajamas everythingjamas, Everything's fine now Good. So with me is Mr Guy Woo-hoo.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's stolen my work. I suspect that was going to be Brett's one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, Brett do you want to just look through the sub-song titles quickly and think of something else.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean what? I can't believe it. It's the first time you've ever gone to someone else first as well.
Speaker 1:Right, tell me what, tim. No, no, we've done enough. We've done enough for it now. No, no, I'm going to say hello to Guy again and he's going to say hello, hello Guy, woo-hoo. No, he's done it again. All right, brett, you're just going to have to say hello, hello, brett. Is that the original bossanova demo that Damon did of the song You're channeling that?
Speaker 2:So I was channeling. Yeah, obviously I know, I know I planted it all along.
Speaker 1:Right, Brett, could you tell us the runners and riders for this evening's episode Blur are.
Speaker 2:Damon Orban on vocals, Graham Coxon on guitar, Alex James on bass and Dave Rowntree on drums. Blur is the band's fifth studio album, released 1997. Some of us remember it well. It was produced by stephen street. It got to number one in the uk chart, number 61 in the us billboard and sold approximately two million copies. Then question your runners and a riders.
Speaker 1:Oh, thanks very much. Thanks very much. Sorry to cut across you there, but question when, when people say in situations like that it sold two million copies, do they mean mean? Do you mean like in 10 minutes, like between when it was released and now that year ever?
Speaker 2:That was a back of a fag packet. Calculation I made today looking at Wikipedia. That's what I mean when I said it sold about 2 million. I mean when I said it sold about 200 million. So it sold about 700 in the US, 300 in the UK Sorry a million in Europe, and then of which 300 were in the UK.
Speaker 1:Up to now.
Speaker 2:Up to about now, according to Wikipedia, In the 14, 15 seconds. There did been research on that part of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I just wanted to know what the time period was when people say that, oh, the music industry is nebulous as hell. It's so approximate, approximate, isn't it?
Speaker 2:you can google like really big selling albums and the. The figures will be between 30 and 40 50 million copies and no one really knows should we be including streaming in that now?
Speaker 1:should so, should you? Should you be saying something awfully tedious like and it sold two million copies since it was released, but also is receiving 2 000 streams, a second in japan?
Speaker 2:yeah, maybe I mean yeah, I'll chat gpt at one sec oh, here we go, exciting oh exciting chat.
Speaker 1:Gpt. We've all gone to space. Yeah, nice okay, blurred.
Speaker 4:Self-titled 1997 album. Blur has sold over 1.85 million copies worldwide, making it the band's best-selling album. Approximately 2 million, I did say.
Speaker 2:In the United States. My introduction army back in the 5th generation Very pleased In the United States.
Speaker 4:It has sold approximately 680,000 copies.
Speaker 2:Yep, 690, I think I said but yeah, that's about right, I'll give clearance to that I estimate, including streaming and everything else and some missing figures.
Speaker 4:two million is pretty much bang on, Pretty bang on.
Speaker 1:Well, there we go. He was right all along. None of that needed to happen. There you go, thank.
Speaker 2:God, because, again, it's never been scrutinised, but this time when I'm like approximately, because I did it, usually I'll find it, and I just thought I can't find it, so I just had it up. The problem with researching this fricking episode is it's a fucking self-titled album. It's pissed me right off. Yeah, just make up a fucking name for the album.
Speaker 1:It's so lazy. It's very much like when I used to live in Reading, which is, of course, spelt reading. So whenever you want to Google anything about the town you you live in, you just get endless thousands of articles about the concept of reading and, like you know, book recommendations. It's like no, I just want to know when the bus is arriving or when to take the bins out, uh. So yeah, I, I feel your pain. I feel your pain, right, let's get into this. Let's get into this. So. So what's your relationship with this album? Chaps brett. What's your relationship with this album? Um, well, I love blur I.
Speaker 2:what's your relationship with this album? Well, I love Blur. I'm not going to make any bones about it. I think they're a massively important band. I loved them at the time. I really enjoyed this when it came out. So I mean there's, it's interesting because I haven't listened to it for years. So let's see how I reflect on it after all of this time off, Because I try not too much to go back and listen to stuff that I listened to in my student days, because it's such an easy trap to fall into and you don't listen to anything new. But we'll do it.
Speaker 4:Mr Langley, it is my favourite Blur album. Growing up I was a massive Oasis fan, back when it was kind of the Versus shenanigans. And then this album came out and it completely flipped the other way around.
Speaker 4:Oh, wow, and then this album came out and it completely flipped the other way around. Oh wow, ever since this album I was, uh, really enthralled by them, especially coxson, I think, who, I think um, is the star of this record. But uh, yeah, it was a really amazing darker take on the whole genre that I kind of found at times a bit too light and a bit too cheeky, chappy, and now it got quite edgy and dark and I really liked it and steve.
Speaker 2:What is your background with this album?
Speaker 1:well, I was very much a I mean not that it is or should have been a binary thing but I was very much a, an oasis person and I, you know, I mean I mean, even though I feel like I really love blur, I've always really liked them, being really interested in them. If I'm honest with myself about it, I mean I, I had every oasis album, every oasis single on cd and knew every oasis b-side and I've never really sat through an entire blur album. If I'm honest, you know, I knew all the singles and I and I knew and liked them a lot, but I, I think I tried to sit through the whole of park life once and just got thoroughly irritated by two or three of the tracks in between. The big ones, um, and and so I I am, probably to my annoyance at myself, a bit of a fair weather fan with blur, right, okay, I feel like I love them more than the evidence of my actual listening habits over the years suggests. That's interesting.
Speaker 2:I mean, park Live is an absolute cornerstone album in my life. I absolutely loved it. It was such an important album. It was just so representative of that summer we both, you know, we were 18, which is like one of the golden summers you're going to get. So, yeah, I mean, it's huge for me, that album, I adore it. But do you? But we're doing Blur Blur. I'm going to call it Blur Blur from now on rather than Blur Self-Titled. I'm just going to Blur Blur Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, no, but I think my thing was I've never been able to do that thing where it's like yeah, I love that album and just ignore the bits that I don't like. It's like you know, people seem to be able to do that better than me. It's like yeah, I love that album, and what they mean is that they love six tracks off that album and ignore the four they don't like, and yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1:That's fair, I think no, no, it's, it's healthy. My unhealthy response has always been if there's something I don't like on it, it feels like a dishonest thing to say. If I say, yeah, I love that album, but I thought you know, if I don't love like every inch of it, then I feel it's dishonest so that's a very extreme reading of the phrase.
Speaker 2:I love that album.
Speaker 1:It's always it's always been that way for me. I don't know why my brain works that way. So so I love.
Speaker 2:I loved 80 percent of my life do you give a stat on how much, oh, do you love Abbey Road? Well, it's an 84% for me. I love it. I love 80% of the bones of it. How did you know that? That's pretty much what.
Speaker 1:Abbey.
Speaker 4:Road is. For me, it's about 84%. Well, I thought about Maxwell Silver. I know the 60%. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah into this, let's get into it. So the qualifying round, the opening in the qual I'm not the girl that I'm mad. Without a minion in your lungs who sucks on a little cat, you think the whole world comes back In a stomach style, cause he's a palisade.
Speaker 3:When I said your life is mine, he barely could smile, cause this is a music. Oh, they know it's only now. He fights and he ground love and keeps you behind. I want to go up but I cannot fly. I can't speak up or touch. I need a little help. Catch a long call. The justice is done. Tony Ponce, beer time Chimester. Usa or somebody, or somebody. See the price. Usa For somebody For somebody. Cedar Plains.
Speaker 2:So why is this a great opening round? Because I think what you're doing here with these two tracks is you're covering the blur that they're trying to be and move towards with Chinese bombs.
Speaker 1:I love that you noticed this.
Speaker 2:It's the most extreme example and you've got the blur that they were.
Speaker 1:Oh no, actually, I thought that both of these represented the blur they were trying to be actually. I think both of these represent the lo-fi American-leaning blur that they were trying to be, because it's not like Chinese bombs versus. You know, look inside flipping America, is it Flip bracket?
Speaker 2:flipping America. Well, I think MOR, I think Moving On really reminds me of old blur. It just reminds me a bit of Great Escape Era blur. That's why I kind of call it that yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, ok, but again, that might be because of my unfamiliarity with with some of the album tracks on those earlier albums, because to me, to me blur, the thing that annoyed me was that the over kinksy character study, cheeky chap london thing that I thought was going too far. So, moving on, to me sound these, both of these songs sound like, okay, what this album should have been in my opinion, which is okay. We're listening to pavement, we're listening to lo-fi indie american music. That's what we're doing. Both of these tracks feel like they're true to that template gotcha okay.
Speaker 2:So I mean, it was was quite good up to that halfway point, wasn't it? And then it went south.
Speaker 1:My uh yeah, basically, your interpretation was completely wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, totally wrong yeah, so I've got to take back half that compliment now, yeah, guy, save us with some sensible chaplains these are these.
Speaker 4:Both songs are both wicked, basically I I hear that moving on has a little bit of the old school blur to it, but it still has the scuzziness and the batshit crazy guitars. They're more unhinged than they ever were before. There's more pedals going on. There's more sort of room noise. It's just brilliant.
Speaker 2:That's a diplomatic answer, isn't it, Steve?
Speaker 1:He's done well, he's a diplomatic chap.
Speaker 4:That's why we have him on I'm going to sound like a really boring old fart with a bit of a broken record at the same time. On this record because I love maybe it's going to be really hard splitting hairs on this, because I grew up on this record obsessing over the guitar parts and the so this is kind of your part life to what younger. So this would have been yeah, don't brag, yeah, you know, uh, a couple years, uh. So this was I was. What would I have been in?
Speaker 2:this album came out five or six, yeah fuck you I was 37 when this happened I wasn't I wasn't fuck off. I'm not that old right.
Speaker 4:So for me this was yeah, this was the album of like, where you kind of go from pop to rock, yeah, um, yeah and that's perfect and and that is that is literally emblematic of what's happening on this album in a very crude way.
Speaker 2:for Blur, they've gone from, as you're saying, steve, like being cheeky, chappy, poppy, brit poppers, to embracing a more rock sound.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and Chinese Bombs. When that comes on, you're like what the hell is this? It's amazing.
Speaker 1:It's punk mungus, isn't it?
Speaker 4:it's punk tastic yeah, if you, if you grow up. I mean it's weird. I I was slightly too young for grunge when it first came out and then I got the full force of brit pop as I was sort of turning into my teens and then. So I kind of I was aware of teen spirit and that was kind of seen as a separate entity. But then a band like blur doing a song like or song two, and Chinese Bums on this record. It was when I heard them on the radio. I used to think they were American bands. It genuinely sounded like an American rock thing. It was just amazing when you connect to the dots.
Speaker 1:These timelines are upsetting me. How much younger than us are you? How many years? What year were you born?
Speaker 4:1983. I was born 1983?
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah. Jesus I didn't know that. I mean, I just thought you looked youthful. Oh, thanks very much.
Speaker 4:Well, no, it's not.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much because you don't look youthful. You just are that youthful. Yeah, I'm young.
Speaker 4:You just are. I'm young and relevant, oh yeah. That's why he's hip and cool.
Speaker 2:That's why he still lives in an actual city, rather than us, who live in.
Speaker 1:What are you doing on this podcast with these two dinosaurs? I've got no hair.
Speaker 4:Charity begins at home. Fuck you, that's okay. Are we going to decide between these two songs then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, fuck me. We've gone ages, haven't we Not got?
Speaker 1:I'm going to vote. I'm going to vote early. I'm going to vote Chinese bombs because I just it was. It's such a an energetic, enervating shock of a thing. I love it. I love the tempo change.
Speaker 4:I love its punky energy okay, I'm gonna go moving on. Oh wow, because I just there's something about the guitar solo and the sort of weird, is it a synthesizer? Is it a guitar? Is it what, what is it? It's just that sort of that section of that record is just really powerful for me.
Speaker 2:Chinese Bombs I love, but moving on just feels a bit more cohesive well, brett, the first explosion goes to Chinese Bombs, because I'm voting for it as well love that right.
Speaker 1:Qualifier two is Death of a Party against. You're so Great Should have stayed away. Sad drunk Apolly.
Speaker 3:Sleeping really late. Sad drunk Apolly Not feeling so great, wandering lost In a town Full of browns. Sad drunk Apolly In a town full of browns. Sad, drunk and bawly Dogs digging up the ground. And I feel the light In the night and in the day, and I feel the light when the sky has just muddied and I feel the light when the sun is out.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, you're so great. Graham Coxon's solo His first solo songwriting credit, I think, for Blur, and he's certainly his first solo vocal. It's lovely. I love it. It's beautiful, it's so yeah, it's so tender, it's so like he's. Apparently he uh, he recorded the vocals with the lights out under a desk because he was so kind of feeling super shy and kind of vulnerable about doing it. That that's great and you can hear it. I love it.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, I think it's an interesting one.
Speaker 4:I sort of one of my great criticisms of this album are you labeling your criticisms Great, or is it just the numeracy?
Speaker 1:No, the quality of the criticisms is is is high, but obviously the criticisms remain negative in their content.
Speaker 2:Thanks for is high, but obviously the criticisms remain negative in their content thanks for thanks for clarifying that.
Speaker 1:Yes, top quality critics. My, I have two particular issues with this album and one of them is is it keeps bringing to mind um, uh, acting baby, and and um, which we've talked about recently, and 1989, taylor, swift, which we talked about recently, because I love how much those two albums massively commit to their new direction and their new aesthetic. And I find this album problematic because I feel like it sort of 68% commits to its new aesthetic. Again, you're really on the percentages tonight. I'm well into my percentages tonight and I don't I get irritated, I'm irked by that. And the other problem is that I think it may be that in that, certainly in the top three, if not the worst um offender we've ever had on the podcast for the age of the cd, uh, let's cram everything into those 78 minutes and you end. And one of the reasons that it doesn't hit its its full uh aesthetic of you know now with this lo-fi pavent influenced american band, is because they're going to fill it up with with everything they did and there's loads of b-sides knocking about as well which actually some of which would have been more in keeping with that aesthetic. Um, so I find it, I find it problematic.
Speaker 1:And and that brings me back to uh, you're so great, which is why is there a need for it here? I mean, just stick it on his solo album, it's. It comes back to the eleanor rigby thing. It's like that's not the beatles, that's mccartney with a flipping string quartet. It's like, well, it's not blur, because damon's not doing anything. I don't understand it when people do this again. It doesn't, it doesn't. It doesn't fit my obsessiveness. It's like well, am I, am I listening to blur if damon's having a cup of tea?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, yeah, that's never bothered me at all, anything like that. Or if Keith Richards sings a song, I like it. I think I like it when you hear the band flex in a different way. And if they want to put it out as a Blur track, I mean technically it could be, I wouldn't defend the position.
Speaker 1:It just it's the sort of thing that stresses my oddly weird my mind.
Speaker 2:Statistically obsessed mind, as we're discovering well for someone who can't cope with numbers. Uh, yes, I don't know tonight.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, I know you're learning a lot about me after all these years. There you go um and death of a party. Anyway, I'm not voting for. You're so great.
Speaker 2:I think it's rather lovely, but I'm voting for death of party because it's got vibes yeah, death of party's got real vibes and it's, it's, it's it's far more representative of where Blur are at this point. Guy, what are you voting for?
Speaker 4:I love You're so Great. I think it does fit into this new aesthetic. It's got a really grungy lo-fi sort of sound. But I think if you're looking at Cox and Perfected vocal-led songs, coffee and TV sort of perfects this on the next record and Death of a Party is always sonically just it's on headphones. It's amazing, it's. It's like um, it really reminds me of being for the benefit of mr kite and for the beatles. You know it has that sort of oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's got that kind of word background, whirly sort of yeah yeah, woozy thing yeah, and if you haven't listened to what headphones do, because it is really something, so I'm going for death of a, a Party.
Speaker 2:Okay, death of a Party. Okay. Well, that's just gone through. Then I am going for just to give it a vote, because I love it so much. You're so great, it is so great, but it's going out. What a shame.
Speaker 1:Can I make a point on it before I go? I think this is a very me point and I do appreciate this, but I find the opening line challenging in terms of what I thought it was and what it actually is, because I thought obviously this is an American-leaning album, so he's talking about some bloke in character.
Speaker 4:What's this going to be?
Speaker 1:Who's called Pauly P-A-L-U-I-E Right Like a gangster, like Pauly.
Speaker 2:Like Barley.
Speaker 1:You know sad drunken Pauly, he's always sad and drunken. You know, sad drunken paulie, he's always sad and drunken. You know, and I'm like oh, paulie, but it's not, it's sad comma, drunk and paulie, p-o-o-r-l-y which could be more british, could not be.
Speaker 3:Which is the most british?
Speaker 1:word ever yeah uh, and whilst it's more affecting, um, because I'm like, oh, you're sad, drunken, poor and not feeling very well, you know it, it's. It's like the most british word ever on this you know, supposedly very american album, so I totally misinterpreted what that first line was. And again, these things irritate me because I'm like stop telling everyone this is your big american album and then doing really british things that's the beauty of, isn't it?
Speaker 4:it's like it's a band adopting something and putting themselves into it and ending up with something that's kind of a bit of both.
Speaker 1:Of course it is, guy, I'm just a killjoy stickler and I accept it. You're just a killjoy for our love. I'm just a killjoy for your love. That's exactly right. So Death of a Party goes through because it's got big fat vibes, which brings us to Country Shad Ballad party goes through because it's got big fat vibes, which brings us to, uh, countryside ballad man versus. Strange news from another stuff. My friend, forgotten of you, VRP Tutor.
Speaker 3:I have my chances. They say there's no game, there's strange news from another star and I'm lost. I'm lost.
Speaker 2:Well again, I mean, we've alluded to it, we're talking about this album being a big American album or influence. But I just want to take it back to kind of set that narrative in motion, because Blur come off three incredible years 93, 94, 95, their release albums they do Modern Life is Rubbish, which to many people is the original Britpop album. Then they do Parklife, which is the complete archetype of the Britpop album. It's the zenith of it.
Speaker 3:And then they do the Great Escape.
Speaker 2:And that is where it all goes tits up wrong.
Speaker 2:So much happens in 95 for them as a band, which is odd because I love so much of the stuff of that album. Well, that's really interesting. I mean, the Great Escape is such an interesting album because at the time it comes out they're having this whole massive kickoff with Oasis and everyone thinks that that's always been that kind of rivalry. But it's not the start of start of a 95 blur uh win the Brit award for press British band and they dedicate it to Oasis. They say you should be up here too, um.
Speaker 2:And Noel Gallagher says he's got a great quote saying um, yeah, I loved Girls and Boys. It's a fucking great single. And although I've never been into Blur album, I'll buy the singles compilation when it comes out. You know he's saying basically that he does like Blur. I mean, that's about as big a compliment as Noel Gallagher will give you. And then Damon Albarn's a really competitive guy apparently. And Oasis they've both got their album coming out and Oasis announced they're releasing Roll With it, don't they? And their last thing was supposed to come out a week earlier. He decides to put the release date back so they coincide to create this competition. And then this whole narrative blows up and it's one of the most memorable moments of Britpop, probably of 90s culture actually in Britain.
Speaker 1:Oh, I loved it I loved it so much.
Speaker 2:There was a battle for number one and it was literally can you believe this? Now front page news. Which one do you prefer, oasis or Glor, glor.
Speaker 1:What Oasis? I mean Oasis. It felt like something was happening. It's the only time in my youth where I felt that we came anywhere near. Sorry Guy, you were too young for this, you were still in nappies.
Speaker 4:It's the Barbie Oppenheimer, isn't it? It's the Barbie Oppenheimer of the 90s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, exactly, yes, sorry, you need your own cultural touchstones, that's right. Thanks, Grandpa, because you was so young, but it felt like something was happening. You know, I remember, and I remember, you know that whole thing of going to Camden and bumping into pop stars in pubs. You know, it was like a thing.
Speaker 2:It was Country House versus Roll With it, and they won the battle. But they very much lost the war for most people. I mean Auburn says every time he went everywhere that summer people would start playing Oasis. He went and walked down the street, played Oasis, going to a shop, played Oasis. And then it became kind of clear. It was such an interesting album the Great Escape because you listened to it the first time and, oh, this is really good. Yeah, they want Country House. It's great, it's a really good album.
Speaker 1:And, and then the sixth or seventh time.
Speaker 1:I'm like it's just so empty, it's so vapid, it was so forced and it had that review thing that had happened with Be here Now, where Be here Now got amazing reviews because everyone was reacting against the bad reviews they'd given the previous Oasis album and were like stung by the fact they'd all given They'd bullsed it up. They'd bullsed it up. So everyone gave like be here now amazing reviews. And then went, oh shit, and the thing is Blair were riding high and it looked like they'd won the ball and you know it's like. So everyone was like, oh yeah, great, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:And then everyone sort of it just sat around and and just totally and and kind of damon auburn had had to take himself off to iceland. They didn't do an album for that the next year. I mean it was a real, not a break, didn't have a breakdown, but he really kind of had to really reconsider. I think graham cox and was hating what's happening to the band. He was becoming more and more reliant on drink and to get through and he was having fights with alex james. He's finding alex james' lifestyle particularly obnoxious. So there's big problems.
Speaker 2:And it was only because they went through all of that, because you've got to remember, blur styled themselves as reviving great British music culture. They were trying to pit themselves as oppositional to grunge, being something different from grunge, which was everywhere when they came out and it was a very brave thing to to do and they pulled it off and you could say they kicked off the whole cool britannia thing really with perhaps with suede. It's an extraordinary thing. But at that point coxon is really getting into american music and they have to pivot. And this is what happens they decide to pivot on this album. So that's really the the point at which we come to this album. That's why it's probably got a bit of both. They haven't fully kicked off. Yeah, oh blur and fully embraced yeah, we do.
Speaker 4:Great guy, they're always going to sound like blur. That's the, that's the beauty. They have an intrinsic melodic sensibility, especially with arbonne, um, uh, that it's always going to be present, and even on their kind of more out there stuff on 13, it still sounds to me very much like Blur. Yeah, and obviously this is also produced by Stephen Street, who produced the previous album, so there is a sonic coherence to that. But it's still. It's my favourite Blur is when it's all the wrong bits are in there. It's all the quirky chord changes. It's the sort of slightly things that shouldn't go together and that I've always felt. That kind of comes from Coxon's and Damon's juxtaposition of styles and personalities, one being lamenting characters and doing these pastiche songs and the other trying to rip things apart and destroy them.
Speaker 1:I think Coxon wins the battle more on this album than he has previously, though, doesn't he?
Speaker 2:And that's as a result of the Great Escape being such a nightmare for them and that whole period being a nightmare.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it really shapes their next, definitely the next two or three albums in terms of how they sound sonically, what their palette is. I guess, yeah, I mean there's a tension.
Speaker 2:There isn't there. Up to that point probably, Coxon is kind of certainly on Great Escape is certainly losing the kind of direction of shape and the direction of a certainly on great escape is certainly losing the kind of direction of shaping, the direction of the band um, and, and it's very much probably auburn and all the auburn's desire to be the you know, massively important band and to win and to be to. Obviously that's that's um, shown by the fact he he put the single release back and brought all of that upon them, this whole tabloid mess they find themselves in.
Speaker 1:Well, this is the first time that they actually start jamming as a band, isn't it it?
Speaker 2:is.
Speaker 1:Because they didn't do any jamming up until this point. It was very much a. I have written a song. I have brought in said song.
Speaker 3:I will now play you.
Speaker 1:I will play you said song, you will work out your parts and we will make it a blur song, which is one way of doing things that's great um, but this was a let's turn up, actually play the instruments we play, make noises, fiddle about a bit and see what comes out of it, which definitely changes the the vibe yeah, it totally changed the vibe.
Speaker 2:I mean, guy and I were in a band. Despite a many, many, many years difference in in age, we were in a band, oh so many differences.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, I don't know, he obviously had to carry all the equipment because I was too old and weak to do it, but he's a good lad. But we would generally usually we would jam them out, wouldn't we Langers? We wouldn't really sit down on an acoustic guitar and write them and then go these are the chords, these are the lyrics. We would kind of literally jam them out in a room full on amps, turn up to 11. And it is a harder way to write a song, but the vibe gets so much deeper and more interesting, I think if you can do it that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely Can I. Before we move on, firstly, two things. One, we need to come back to these songs because we've strayed quite a long way, although I think we've been on. I'd like to make an apology to the listeners for the three count them three different ways. You're hearing Damon's name being pronounced I'm pronouncing it Ol-Barn, brett is pronouncing it Ol-Burn and I think Guy is pronouncing it Ol-Bran.
Speaker 3:Ol-Bran, that's right. Nice, he's regular. That's right, he's a regular chap yes, anyway.
Speaker 1:So apologies for the absolute lack of consistency. In the future, if there's any question marks at all about how an artist's surname is pronounced, I will call a meeting prior to the recording of the book?
Speaker 2:yeah, please do. Can we just call him Dan Abnormal from now on?
Speaker 1:Dan Abnormal, which is the anagram pseudonym.
Speaker 4:Pseudonym speaking of um mispronouncing a surname, um strange news from another star is very much a david bowie, slash bowie kind of affair.
Speaker 2:We bowie we have had this whole bowie bowie um debate before. I can't remember the conclusion. Do you remember? Do you remember my conclusion?
Speaker 1:okay, my conclusion was that he, because he was named after the bowie knife and actually no one knows how that's pronounced and actually history dictates that it's probably pronounced Bowie Right.
Speaker 2:So he's probably not Bowie, or.
Speaker 1:Bowie? He's probably David Bowie.
Speaker 2:So I call him David Bowie, I think. If it's pronounced after the knife, you know you just go with whoever's holding the knife, what their pronunciation is. Whatever you want me to call you, I'll call you that.
Speaker 1:It's all good, you've got the weapon, but but I think you're raising a very interesting point here, because obviously we're going to talk about another song on this album later on, which which david bowie actually took or david bowie's people actually took legal action over because it sounded too much like a bowie song. But, hilariously, this is the song he should have taken legal action over because it's ridiculous. It's a complete pious take. How much strange news from another star is a bowie ripoff. But the way music copyright works is is the other one that doesn't sound like bowie at all, has too many melodic similarities, so they sue him for that one. This one, which doesn't sound like a specific bowie song but is the worst bowie pastiche I've ever heard, doesn't get sued for this it. It's a fucking disgrace. Stain Juice, stain Juice from another star. It's absolutely shocking.
Speaker 2:It is very much. It does remind me of, yeah, space Oddity. It really does.
Speaker 1:As you can tell, I will be voting for Countryside Ballad man.
Speaker 4:Guy, what are you voting for? Well, I'm revisiting this record. Countryside Ballad man has the potential to be a Maxwell Silverhammer on this record potentially where it starts. And it's like after two raucous, fucking amazing records and you get this sort of like what's that called? That twangy sort of mouth harp thing?
Speaker 1:Juice harp.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like something that's just okay. Where are we going here? Are we going too? Are we going to Pasadishu? They lost confidence and they're going to swing it back the other way. But then by the end of it, the second half of the record has got some of the best guitar work on the record on there.
Speaker 1:It's really it's just electric Coxon guitar work all over this record of less than very interesting to that point.
Speaker 4:Like you listen to how many different ways Coxon can make and it still sounds like a blur record. He has that sound that sounds like sort of deep but kind of clean, but kind of crunchy, but then he hits a pedal and it just goes weird, but we've all got these tools at our disposal.
Speaker 4:But no one else can do it like him and his little accents say, sort of the blur, sort of stabs he has on the guitar, fucking love it. Um. So yeah, out of the two countryside ballad man, purely just for the second half alone.
Speaker 2:Um, is is my pick yeah, I, I'm definitely going for countryside ballad man. I think you're right. Strange news um from another star is is he's good and it's a really well worked song, but it is so derivative it's not it's so derivative.
Speaker 2:Um and countryside ballad man is kind of. It's a really well-worked song, but it is so derivative, it's not. It's so derivative. Um and countryside battleman is kind of it's got a really nice. It's got a really nice vocal on it from, uh, from all barn, all brand, all born. Um, choose your pick. I really like it. Yeah, it's good. What it is is interesting about countryside battleman as well as is and this is a thing that happened perhaps in the 90s I think late 90s is. The album is stacked to start off with singles and Country Sound, and Balladman is the only one that breaks it up. It's the filling in a singles sandwich at the start of this album.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know. Just on that, I think that I have got really into some of the other tracks, but I do feel like it's one of those rare albums where the singles are the right single choices. That you know, because so often you get an album and it's like this is just some random music. Exec has picked the singles here. This why are these the singles?
Speaker 2:but I do feel like these were the singles, the singles of beetle bum, song to mor and On your Own, and that's tracks 1 to 5, with Countryside Ballyman at track 3, and you will notice that those are all the songs I've put through to the next round already because I agree with those choices as singles.
Speaker 1:So nice, nice, because that's the power.
Speaker 2:I have. That's a taste of the future for you there listeners.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's exciting. We should also probably mention that there are some omissions right from this record.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, hang on. Let me just say Countryside Ballad man goes through 3-0.
Speaker 2:Don't interrupt him, guys Writing it down. This is smooth and slick as it gets, Just hold on listeners.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've written it with him, fuck. So I've said it, I've said it and now we're going to guys point, which is that this incredibly overstuffed too overstuffed album didn't work on this draw and I had to remove not one but two songs, and neither of you objected, and I removed theme from retro and essex dogs.
Speaker 4:to be be fair, I was busy, I didn't have time, but, yeah, carry on. Well, we were also busy with doing it.
Speaker 1:What would you have said, Guy Langley?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think I'm going to guess that he likes Essex Dogs.
Speaker 4:I like the Sonics, I like theme from retro more. Oh, wow, but surely it's like.
Speaker 1:I don't actively dislike either of them, but one is a B-side and one is a hidden track.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, let's put them both on the album, because CDs, let's just mention them. But I think we can both agree they probably wouldn't have gone that far. So I hear you no, exactly, efficiency For brevity.
Speaker 2:It was right. It was the right decision. I agree. Do you know what the right decision I? I do. You know what theme we I mean considering? This is the second time we've started this podcast. We did forget to mention that. Yeah, the theme from retro and essex dogs are not in the competition. So if you're big fans of those songs, but yeah, theme from retro is like the instrumental. There was an instrumental which is fine, but it's never been that exciting to me the the blur instrumentals and essex dogs is. It started off as a poem, I think yeah, but I've read it over some music.
Speaker 3:Who?
Speaker 1:cares.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't do that, yeah yeah, I'm not so enamored with essex dogs. I think actually it's the lyrics that put me off the most, you know but again I think if you had put that as a hidden track.
Speaker 1:It'd have been a good hidden track oh, I'm an uber blur fan. I've waited for those yeah like that strange 10 minutes I wasn't expecting. Now I've got it I'm listening to it late at night. I'm 18. This is the first time I've heard a hidden track. That would be fun, yeah, but as an actual album track on a far too long album.
Speaker 4:You're wasting my time my favorite, my favorite track off think tank is actually the hidden track. That's done before track one.
Speaker 1:But I think context can be really important and I think had it been a hidden track and I had the option to find it in a sort of young person-y CD listening late at night way, I probably would have enjoyed it far more than having to sit through it against my will in the middle of an album that's going on for too long.
Speaker 1:so right, we've got to move on it's uh, our final qualifying round, which is I'm just a kid for your love. I'm just a kid for your love. I'm just a kid for your love.
Speaker 2:I'm just a kid. For your love, I love you. I mean, look inside America. I've put see Miss America slash Magic America. They, for a band that define themselves as being uber British, are fucking desperate to break the American market.
Speaker 1:But what I would take the other tack, which is that the opening is the exact same notes and opening as End of a century, and it's it's so incredibly redolent of end of a century that it then immediately suffers by not being end of a century so badly. Um, for the rest of it, and also again, it sounds so much like a track of park life. The only thing that isn't park life is that it's got the word america in it, which makes it even more they couldn't have put two on park life with the word america and it's already had magic america, because it has.
Speaker 4:It has one of my favorite little bits in, with all the harps and the little guitar side. Again, it's a coxswain thing, it's. Yeah, it's trying its best to sort of rein it into something worthy of being on the record, but it's not as good as I'm just a killer for your love. No, it's.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm just a killer for your love which is I mean, I'm just a killer for your love. Again it's. It's like death for a party. It has real vibes. It sounds like a band doing a band thing and look inside america sounds like he's brought the song in and gone. Here's the song and it just isn't a good enough song and it's too close to a song they've already done, even if the rest of it isn't. The opening is so close to end of a century it's just it.
Speaker 2:End of a Century. It's a nice blur song, but I'm just a girl, if you love it. It's a much better song and it's got a much better role to it.
Speaker 1:That gets us to the end of the qualifying rounds. Honestly, I just feel so strongly that if you'd taken off 25% of the tracks, it would be so much, so much stronger this album.
Speaker 2:I really do. It's 14 songs. That attack for you as you're into your stats tonight. It's 14 songs and it's 56. It's 56 minutes long, but people 10 songs it would be absolutely mega.
Speaker 4:This is a time where you didn't hear the album before you physically bought it and you want to again. You're justifying the price and if you see a track, it's yeah, completely it's value for money.
Speaker 1:I've given you value for money and taylor swift is taking this and running with it, and I don't think these things apply now. I think we're making an old men argument in some ways, because Taylor Swift will put out, you know, 10 tracks of 1989, but claim that the four on top are bonus tracks, and then you'll get it again released a year later with, like another, so many bonus tracks that it's twice the length, and people don't care in the way that we care in this discussion, because in the world of streaming, people aren't listening to them as albums anyway. They're listening to all the songs whenever they want to listen to them. So it's a different world.
Speaker 2:now it is. If your definition I'll leave it at that before we get to the quarterfinals if your definition of a great album is just every song's an absolute banger, then the obvious thing to do is to make it as pithy and as short and as edited and stripped back as possible but I, but I, I like so, but the thing is like there are some albums I like where they've leaned into.
Speaker 1:I love be here now because it's an enormous, great big cocaine fueled bath of enormousness. I love the wall because it goes on far, far too long, for similar reasons, you know, uh. Whereas, whereas this feels like it's, it's neither now nor summer, it neither one nor the other. It's just too many Zongs. Enough of this. The qualifiers are over. We're into the first quarterfinal, which is Chinese Bombs and, for the first time, beetle Bomb. Hey, I'm a big round love, and can't you be mine?
Speaker 3:I'm about to go off and it could not fly. It's me I'm not touching and you are the clown, can't you be mine? I'm not watching time. It's been a while Now. What you've done is even fun, and when she lets me slip away, she turns me on and all my problems gone. Nothing is right.
Speaker 2:I just slip away Chinese bombs. Well, this is very straightforward, isn't it? Is there anything we need to say about Chinese bombs before it does?
Speaker 1:bomb out. I think you're making some big assumptions there, sir.
Speaker 2:No, I'm definitely right. I'm absolutely 100% right. This beetle bomb is going through.
Speaker 1:Let's see what Guy Langley says.
Speaker 2:I can tell you what Guy Langley says, and he's going to say Beetlebum. Shall I do it in Guy Langley's voice? I don't know, but I'm guarantee you'll vote for Beetlebum. I'm going to say Chai Beetlebum Chai.
Speaker 1:Chai.
Speaker 4:Chai bar chords. When I was learning the guitar, that was the song I always tried to learn, because it's just pure bar chords. It's absolutely carnage to try and learn. Um, but beetle bum was as steve and I were saying previously to recording. Actually it was like that was the uh, that was the riff for a long, long time. Uh, that everyone learned, picked up a guitar, wanted to learn the beetle bum riff and that was everyone's party trick and it's just iconic in terms of it's a perfect blend actually of Cox and Albran, arban, arbano, albino and everything else. There's bits in it which we'll talk about in the next round that I absolutely adore, that are really clever as well.
Speaker 1:So Beetlebum is my choice. Well, I would vote for Beetlebum as well, to my irritation, because that means Brett was right, but I'm just. I'm going to do it with no grace at all. We're picking up some speed as well.
Speaker 2:We should what?
Speaker 1:don't take my vote it's blindingly obvious what you're voting for young man if you're voting for Charlie's Bums now. I'll be very cross with you. Beetlebum assumed one of those votes, so the second quarterfinal is Death of a Party which we've had come through from the qualifier versus, for the first time, MOR.
Speaker 3:It's so dramatic I need to unknown. Under the pressure the middle of the road, fall into fashion, fall out again. We stick together Cause it never ends. Here comes the love Of the boy and girl.
Speaker 2:Here comes the heart, the only ones in the world. Here comes everything. Give me the work it out. There it comes. Yeah me well, work it out OK. So MLR is a single Again. I think that's still got echoes of old Blur for me. Am I wrong?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it has.
Speaker 2:There's bits of stereotypes in there yeah, now, this is the song that bowie um had an issue with because or legally, because there was this experiment. I presume it's a song you're talking about that bowie had it. It is, yeah, there there was an experiment, wasn't there that that bowie and eno did with two songs that had the same chord progression?
Speaker 1:well, yes, it was, yeah, they. They tried to use the same chord progression in a number of different ways to see how many songs they could get out of it. And I noticed this when I was listening to it. I was like, isn't that Boys, boys Keep Swinging by David Bowie? And I could hear it, and it was so you know. So the argument goes that Blur were trying to sort of in homage, were trying to continue the experiment.
Speaker 2:And they use the same chords. So they use the same chords, use the same chords.
Speaker 1:But also, it's not just the same chords, it's the same, because I mean a million songs use the same chords. Nobody sues anybody over that. It's the same chords and the same melody line in certain sections. That's what is surely the issue. I haven't checked that out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's normally a kind of it cut more than a coincidence in terms of two or three things combined to happen at the same juncture in a song. That, yeah, if they both happen in the chorus, then the chances are it's not a coincidence I think mor is the weakest single here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree oh really interesting yeah interesting.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean look it is. It's between two of them, isn't't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we know two singles are massive and it's between. The other single just is on your own.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go early and vote for Death of a Party because I think it's got major vibes and I find it hard to relate to the MRR lyric because Middle of the Road is it's about a relationship isn't it, Isn't it?
Speaker 4:I think so. This is the album where he starts writing primarily about himself, as opposed to a Tracy Jacks or a quirky character. I've got a feeling, especially in Beasts of the Bum and some of the others as well, that there's a bit more of him talking about himself.
Speaker 1:Well, the issue I would take with that is if you're going to write about yourself and be personal, then go down the no Distance Left to Run or Tender route and give us the lyric. Yeah, I think he's getting there. Don't bury the lyric in a way that I can't hear.
Speaker 4:I think this is the stepping stone album, though that's where this album helps him get to, but for me, I'm going with MOR.
Speaker 1:Okay. So that's one each, Brett, you've got the deciding vote. Death of a Party to MOR oh, love it. Oh, love it, okay, I like that. That's the first single that's taken. A dive, yeah, okay, which takes us to quarterfinal three, which is Countryside Balladman versus, for the First Time, on your Own, I'm a balladman, I feel the same.
Speaker 3:I feel the same. I feel the same. I feel the same. I'm a. I'm a, so take me home, don't leave me alone. I'm not that good, but I'm not that bad. No, psycho kid, I'm a booty guy. Gorilla, I dream to ride. Oh, you should try it. I read the road you go console.
Speaker 2:My joy of life is on the road Now, On your Own. I do really like, as do I. I think there's a great vocal rhythm on it. So, yeah, I'm definitely voting for it. So shall we talk about it when it goes in the semifinals, I think, Because it's going to yes, so On your Own is on your own.
Speaker 1:What are you voting for?
Speaker 4:Guy, I would probably agree, although I do actually think On your Own is the most stereotypically blur blur song on here. On your own, we'll go on your own goes through.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else to say about country south balaban?
Speaker 2:uh, do you know what? No, there isn't. Let's move on by that side.
Speaker 1:He's quite right. It was a perfect, it was a well-placed sigh, right. So so, and our final quarterfinal is uh, I am just a killer for your love versus, for the first time, a little ditty that you may have heard called song time.
Speaker 2:We'll see you next time. Obviously, it's obvious, isn't it? So I'm just a killer for your love. I mean, it is obviously rubbish.
Speaker 3:I mean, what do you?
Speaker 1:want to it's I'm Just a Killer for your Love, I mean. Song 2 is rubbish.
Speaker 2:It is obviously Rubbish, rubbish. I mean, what do you want to say about? I'm Just a Killer for your Love before it goes out, is there?
Speaker 1:anything. You're making some big assumptions this evening. I'm not making any big assumptions.
Speaker 2:This is just obvious. Have you got a pair of ears?
Speaker 4:Yes, going through we all know it. I know, I know, but the thing is I've heard so again.
Speaker 1:You're probably right, but don't do a wonderwall syndrome.
Speaker 4:I've never heard. I thought you were doing a wonderwall syndrome. I thought for a minute there you were gonna swing. I've heard this song too much.
Speaker 1:I definitely wasn't going to say wonderwall singer, I was going to say that that's exactly what I was afraid to um, because I've heard Song 2 150 times and I've never heard I'm Just a Killer for your Love before.
Speaker 3:So it's completely fresh to me, so this is genuinely hard for me.
Speaker 1:I've never heard that song, and I really, really like it. It's one of the songs that, for me, should be on this album, and so this is genuinely a difficult decision.
Speaker 2:I am going to vote song two because I see the point but I I it's harder for me to listen to than than killer, because killer's fresh and and it's really I you know what all barns really good at crooning. He doesn't get. He's got a really good crew and on him he does this and some other stuff. You know tender, he's got a really nice crew on that he's and he's croons really nicely on this. I love it. It's a really nice vocalon on that and his croon's really nice on this. I love it. It's a really nice vocal.
Speaker 4:Yeah, nice falsetto, isn't it? Yeah, and the bass is great too, the sort of weird envelope filter, the sort of squelchy bass, and it's just a. It shouldn't work, but it kind of does. Yeah, I really like it, okay, nonetheless.
Speaker 2:I For someone who's telling me off for making a lot of assumptions. You should, then let us vote.
Speaker 1:Brett, what are you voting for? Song two? Of course you are Guy. What are you voting?
Speaker 2:for this is taking too long. You should have just put Rap Jab quicker than that, Steve. I should have just used it and gone through with it.
Speaker 1:That's fine Right, which takes us to the semifinals which means we've got Beetlebum in the first semifinal.
Speaker 3:This is the only non-single to get this far, which is Death of a Party. He's on, he's on, he's on it. The death of the party Came as no surprise. Why did we bother?
Speaker 2:Should have stayed away, Wow, so well. So what is Beetlebummer about? It's a it's a heroin song. Yeah, it's about. It's a heroin song. It's about when you, apparently, when you inhale the smoke from which?
Speaker 1:I always, I always. I was very familiar with the phrase chasing the dragon. And what's the? Phrase for that activity which is which is uh either. It is basically taking opium or one of its related uh permutations, like morphine or heroin, and uh, putting it in a bit of foil and putting a lighter underneath and inhaling the smoke, which is obviously still class a drug taking and very dangerous. But he's not injecting it with a needle. So it's a bit at the beginner end of heroin and I always remember I was familiar with it.
Speaker 1:A starter pack for heroin Starters, heroin, yeah, and I always remember the phrase because it's very prominent in the opening track, so young, of Suede's debut album let's chase the dragon, so I was always very familiar with that phrase from that. But apparently it's also let's chase the beetle, which I've never heard.
Speaker 2:Well, no, chasing the beetle is when you inhale the smoke. Now it's interesting you mentioned Suede because Well, that's what chasing the dragon is.
Speaker 1:It's just that there's two phrases for the same thing.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Heroin Chat and same thing, welcome to heroin chat. And this week we're discussing the difference between chasing the dragon chasing, as I understood it, I believed that chasing the dragon is actually properly inhaling it as you smoke the is smoke the um the heroin. But chasing the beetle? Chasing the beetle is just taking the puff as it comes out from someone else, from.
Speaker 1:It's the secondary heroin okay, maybe there are different things, it's heroin light.
Speaker 2:That's what it is heroin light it's heroin for the conscious calorie counter.
Speaker 2:Okay, got it, but you mentioned in this incredible digression into the minutiae of heroin um, im imbibing. The guy looks really bored. Wrap it up. Yeah, I'm, I'm struggling. I know this must be extremely boring. I'm so sorry, but you did mention suede, and who's the link between suede and blur? Justine freshman, yes, she used to be a member of suede, went out of brett anderson of suede and then, of course, went out with with damon albin as well, and this is apparently, um, something written about, about their relationship and heroin use and also the, the long-forgotten feud.
Speaker 1:There was actually an enormous feud between Suede and Blur long before the Oasis-Blur feud. It's just that neither of them were big enough for it to make headlines at the time, yeah big, I mean God.
Speaker 2:He likes to dust up, doesn't he old Albon?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's really fascinating actually knowing that, because it's one of those songs that I never really knew what it was about in terms of the heroine thing. I didn't realise that's where the Beatle thing came from. I thought it was because, I don't know, he would like the Beatles and everyone thought he was a bit of a bum.
Speaker 1:He did say Is it a play on words?
Speaker 4:fan and it was also about that. Yeah, yeah, but that's, that's the beauty of the song. It is enigmatically sort of obscure and it's got a mystery to it. It's kind of got emotion in there, but it's also got a bit of a deeper meaning. It's got those easter eggs. If you want to dig for it as a super fan, it's a very well-rounded kind of concept. I think.
Speaker 4:Like I've alluded to before, the riff and the guitar work is is iconic it's one of the iconic brit pop guitar things, which is again him just playing around with a delay pedal and sliding to the notes, um, but it works really really well. My favorite part of it is that little reoccurring little synth line that comes in in verse two. It sort of just pans around your headphones. Um, there's lots of really clever little sonics in the record which again, uh, elevate, elevate their sort of singles at this time where sonically they're just fascinating. There's little hidden weird sounds and radio sounds and the outro is kind of like you know, um, I'm the walrus. It's kind of got that cacophony of yes repeating, repeating, repeating.
Speaker 4:Maybe not as out there, strangely enough, but um, yeah, I love the record and it's just got one of those when that chorus kicks in, it's just got a really clever dynamic to it, hasn't it? When, you know, it sort of opens up into a really straightforward kind of soaring chorus where the verse is a little bit tense and twisted um, so, uh, so yeah, it's a banger, it's an absolutely iconic record of, uh, sort of the latter britpop period, I think, can I just say. Actually it's also a sex record.
Speaker 1:I think it's a banger, it's an absolutely iconic record of uh, sort of the latter brit pop period, I think. Can I just say, actually it's also a sex record. I think it's a. What makes it as an interesting heroin record is it? It's, it's um, it's a sex and heroin, or more more specifically, sex, heroin, heroin, uh record. Um, because you know all of that, you know she your thumb, she makes you cum, you get nothing done, stuff. It's very much that thing of lazy, smacked out, warm, glow-on-heroin sex. That's such a specific thing to write about.
Speaker 1:But once you know it, you can't unhear it because actually it's so well done and I think that's unique.
Speaker 2:It's got that lazy feel to it. It totally takes you to that feeling. He did say it's a song about feeling kind of sleepy, feeling kind of sexy. It's complicated and beautifully realised.
Speaker 4:I mean just yeah, it's perfect which is weird when you go to like Wembley recently and you see 90,000 people sing along the chorus of what is an arguably extremely dark, menacing record.
Speaker 1:Well, again, lets me slip away. I mean, that doesn't get more heroin, a lyric, than that. So yeah, I agree completely. It's weird, isn't it? But then that's off the rails.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, even the producer didn't know what it was about until Damon told him when they were coming back from a club one night and he was really pissed off. So you know it's well hidden, if you know, unless you're looking for it.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't know unless you were on a middle-aged man podcast where you'd have to go and look it up.
Speaker 3:Here's the truth.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, so is Beetlebum going 3-0? 3-0, for me too alright good stuff, which takes us to the other semi-final, which is On your Own vs Song of.
Speaker 3:Tune and is this Video Live as Loaded? Taurus Shot in shots Of when I feel Heavy metal and I feel that I need when I'm lying and I'm lazy All of the time and I never show why I need you.
Speaker 2:I really do like it. I really like the rhythm of it.
Speaker 1:Do you like all the electronic-y bits?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do. And interestingly, Damon Auburn said it's the first Gorillaz song. He said it's the first.
Speaker 3:Gorillaz song.
Speaker 2:He said it's the first Gorillaz song Now what is really interesting is that if you characterize this album, perhaps unfairly, as Coxon leading the way and pushing or pulling them to embrace lo-fi alternative rock as opposed to a kind of cool Britannia revivalist idea of britain and its cultural heritage, then the biggest winner for that is damon alban, because this gorillas would never, ever have happened without this album and what he learns here and how he learns to make music on this album. So, and gorillas is streaming wise, far more successful than blur are. They've got double the streams, their numbers are much bigger and I know that's not important and doesn't really indicate the cultural heft or the meaning or the the depth of how people feel about music. But it's interesting to know that they are, um, you know, more listened to more regularly.
Speaker 2:For me, blur are a very, very important band. I thought it in the 90s I I knew really as soon as modern life is rubbish came out and it's confirmed with parklife they were going to be really pivotal to defining the decade, certainly for british music. So that's what's interesting about on your own. Is is what it's interesting that it was coxon's idea and then you know, certainly in lots of ways auburn's been the biggest beneficiary of that yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I I agree.
Speaker 1:How do you feel about this?
Speaker 4:one guy yeah for me on your own has the, you know it has the drum machine and which kind of reminds me of, like, girls and boys. It reminds actually I said earlier, it reminds me of sort of earlier blur personally, uh, even though it may sort of hint towards the gorillas as the future prospect, but I think it's really cool. I mean, I love the stuttery guitar effect is amazing. The video is great as well and they kind of use that to sync up the footage which I remember seeing at the time just thinking it was incredibly cool.
Speaker 4:It's a solid sort of stompy sort of blur song with a bit of swag and a bit of attitude to it, but unfortunately it's up against probably the most fascinating pieces of sort of end of brit pop music that was ever made, which was made as a joke, um, because do you know the story behind song two? Do you know this sort of thing?
Speaker 1:no, and we haven't talked about it at all yet. So so let's, let's I. I have a suspicion it may be going through, so there's a bit more to say in the final, but.
Speaker 4:I don't. Yeah, starting off now on it, I think the basics as I understand it is it was recorded. There was an A&R meeting due to be happening at the studio. They thought it would be funny to make a trashy spoof of grunge and impress the A&R person with an absolute nightmare of a piece of music that they would love. His reaction and watch his face sort of turn as he came down to whether it was Iceland or North London to hear what they'd been cooking up, bashed it together.
Speaker 4:Damon's not even made it, he's just mumbling into a handheld sort of microphone in the control room whilst the band sort of just jam it out, finish it, don't think anything of it. The guy and our guy comes down. They go, all right, this is our, this is we think this is the first single. As a joke, they play it to him and he goes yeah, that's fucking awesome, yeah, that's definitely it. And their faces absolutely dropped because they just didn't, they couldn't get their head around it.
Speaker 4:So they tried to re-record the, the vocals to redo it, to polish it up, to kind of build on it and it just that very first sort of version that you hear, that sort of bare bones not even like, couldn't give a fuck, really shit. Guitar, the intro, all that sort of stuff is the magic and they weren't thinking about writing a hit song. And, like many bands have done before, the joke songs that they do is a bit of levity or a bit of spoofness, a bit of humour in the studio go on to become some of their biggest songs. It has that attitude by accident, it seems, but of not giving a fuck, and it comes across really, really, really well and it happens to have a vocal hook that advertisers, brands, movies, whatever else, for better or for worse, absolutely love. It captures that. You know it's what you want to be, isn't it? When you grow up and you get an electric guitar and you get a foot pedal and you can go from clean to distorted, that's the loud, quiet, loud thing.
Speaker 2:It's an extraordinary piece of music. It's just amazing.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that story, but is it not true that there was a bossanova demo of it?
Speaker 4:I do. Yeah, I do believe it was. It was started. It's much slower and then I think was it, was it cox? And I think it was cox and sort of.
Speaker 2:They just decided to really speed it up and he said, let's, let's, let's speed it up, let's crunch up, let's make it dirtier, but like it's one of those songs I might have got that there's that's been amalgamated from many, many bits, bits. No, that is true, it was started off as a bossanova thing that Auburn brought in, and then Coxon said let's dirty it up, let's crunch it up. But you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great story. That's a great story, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's an amazing piece of music.
Speaker 2:Well, he wanted Coxon said at the start of this when he was talking be able to scare people. When we just started out, when they were formed at goldsmith's college they're art students all of them they met there and they wanted you know he, coxson wanted to be angular and cool and like these bands and by the time of great escape they'd become fucking tabloid news. They had like really like he hated the video to country house. It becomes super naff, they become like almost like something out of loaded magazine and he must have been absolutely literally hated it. So the only real reason urbanurn, I think, managed to convince him to do this album and stay in the band probably was because, you know, he agreed to do something that would scare people or thrill people in a way that they hadn't done before. So this is pure Coxon's influence on his album, the way this has gone from being a boss and overtune to one of the most exciting, thrilling pieces of rock music that's ever been put on tape for two minutes and two seconds.
Speaker 1:It's not long, is it? No, that's for sure. Yeah, all right. So how are we voting? Song two, guy. Song two for me. Song two, yeah, well, yeah, it's got to be song two, hasn't it? Yeah? Song two, yeah, well, yeah, it's got to be song two, hasn't it? Alright, which takes us to the final, which is slightly, inevitably, but fair enough this is so inevitable, isn't it?
Speaker 2:could we ever see it is a little bit.
Speaker 1:I do get a bit depressed by inevitable finals, but again it is fair enough. It's Beetlebum versus song two what you done.
Speaker 3:She's a girl. Now what you done.
Speaker 2:What you done. I mean someone's probably the hardest final.
Speaker 4:I've been privy to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well this is good because. So what we'll do in that case? Because we know this is one of Guy's certainly, if not favourite albums I'm sure it's in your top 50, but it's certainly one of your most, probably got one of your biggest emotional connections here. Because it's such a pivotal point, we will give you the privilege of the final vote.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, steve, a pivotal point we will give you the privilege of the final vote okay, okay. So, steve, how are you voting? I'm going beetle bum because I think it has a a certain je ne sais quoi.
Speaker 1:There's, there's something mysterious about beetle bum. It's one of those songs where it never quite rolls over and lets me rub its belly because I can't quite get inside it. You know, it's like even after finding out what it's quote, unquote it's about, which, of course, is still nebulous and still possibly him fucking with us. You know, it's like. There's just there's something off kilter about it which I find very attractive, and I still find that attractive, however often I hear it. Uh, and so for me it's definitely the one that that has an emotional reaction. That's. That's still very positive to this day, whereas song two I I find hard to have that you've, you've, it's worn for you.
Speaker 2:It's worn a bit thin, as you've heard it so much Song 2 or Song 2 Bloody Match it is brilliant.
Speaker 1:Song 2 Song 2 often it is and that is fair.
Speaker 2:It is incredibly ubiquitous because it has been covered by absolutely everyone. Loads of people drop it into their set list now if they just want to pick up the audience or just drop in a cover of Song 2. Loads of artists have covered it. It has, it has been really it's it's hugely popular in that sense. It's been used in so many adverts, like for super bowls, for advertising anything. The american uh, the us army wanted to use it to advertise stealth bombers. They were going to not advertise that was. They had a video to to launch the new stealth bomb and they wanted to use song two and blowur went. Oh how much money. It went, no sorry. I mean they were offered a lot of money but they said we just can't. I think they did like a double take at the figure. It went, no sorry.
Speaker 1:Still no Shit.
Speaker 4:But you had our attention. It has been their biggest hit, right?
Speaker 2:That is their biggest hit in America. They did nothing in America. They did nothing in America. They were ignored in America. And then they did this and it was fucking huge, huge. Although the album only got to 61 in the US Billboard as its highest weekly one, it was still in the top 200 for the yearly, so this song really helped them sustain.
Speaker 1:Well, they used it on so many sports programs as the linking song on all the American football and baseball stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, For years I know we've been stat-heavy on this episode, so apologies for that if you hate the stats, but this is on a scale of five to one, their biggest streamer on Spotify, to the next song, I think it's got a billion and the next one's got 200 million. So it's it's huge for this band, as in it's it's the biggest song, it's the biggest impact I've had globally, without a doubt, do you?
Speaker 1:want to hear my my other reason why I'm voting voting against it, which is the most me reason ever gone. I don't like it when people English is a stress-based language. French is not a stress-based language, so you can stress wherever you want in the word, but english, you know you're. You're going to say photograph, stressing the photo, and if you say photographer, it's going to move to a different bit of the word, the stress, where the stress is important. Nobody pronounces jumbo jets. You pronounce you, you, you focus on the jet. You go jumbo jet. You don't call it a jumbo jets by a jumbo jet. Who? Who is going around stressing the o of jumbo? Hello, how did you fly here? I came on a jumbo jets, did you? Well, I don't know what one of those is. Can I make an?
Speaker 3:admission right, how, when did?
Speaker 2:97. What are we now? 20, 25, 25 that, according to that, according to my maths, is 28 years For 28 years. We're about six days into the year, for 28 years and five days. I've always thought that was that lyric was John Bocek, I thought it was Ichimocek. What?
Speaker 1:I've always well.
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, I mean it could have been that mad.
Speaker 1:I genuinely. I was like I thought it was like a cool Japanese company. It was like I got my head checked by Ichimocheck. I was like, who are they? They sound great. Yeah, japanese therapy, that would be amazing, ichimocheck checking your head out for you.
Speaker 2:So I've always wanted to hear Bocek, but I mean, the lyrics are mad Like eye pins and eye needles. This is all because he recorded it, and this is my vote is coming down to this. I love both songs. Right, they're both incredible. But Beetlebum invokes so much atmosphere and it's incredible the mood it sets. But song two is just one of those golden moments where you can try they try to re-record it. You can try and capture something, but they caught lightning in a bottle in that moment when they're trying to piss off the anr man, which is a lovely reason to do anything. Um, yeah, and he. They tried to re-record the vocal because there's so much bleed on. It wasn't a guy. He recorded it on an sm57, which is a handheld microphone which you use for performing. It's not what you would use really that much in the studio, is it langers?
Speaker 4:no, it's a kind of workhorse microphone typically. You know a lot of people use on podcasts for recording for speech. But yeah, it's wouldn't necessarily have the fidelity that you'd use for uh normally, but then that's there's no rules.
Speaker 2:It's not an expensive mic, is it? You can pick them up for about 120 quid, you know. So it's not expensive, but that's. They recorded it on that and they tried to re-record it and they never got the vibe. It's all about the vibe, that song. It's just so purely about the vibe. There's loads of bleeders. From a production perspective, it's about pretty much everything you wouldn't do with a recording. Would that be fair? To say so are you voting for song?
Speaker 4:two.
Speaker 2:So for that reason because it's so vibe heavy and it's just so hard to reproduce, like I said, loads of people have covered it, but probably no one's covered it that well it's just so good. And also because when I saw Blur at Glastonbury I did a massive scissor kick to the moment where it went woo-hoo in a very thick and busy crowd. So I'm definitely voting it for that reason. So I'm giving Guy the deciding vote and sitting back and enjoying his pain as this happens live in front of me.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much in front of me. Thank you very much. Ah, okay, so it's actually quite easy for me.
Speaker 3:That's disappointing, I know, but I will try and build the tension, please.
Speaker 4:Like I said before previously, one of these has an iconic guitar riff that everyone learned, but there was one that was even better. It was the one. It was quite a good attempt, it was quite a good attempt. I know I lost confidence halfway through to it.
Speaker 4:I felt it going Annoyingly. Brett has actually taken the words right out of my mouth. The reason why Song 2 is so good besides the fact that it's track two on their record, it's two minutes and two seconds long and it's called song two um is the absolute just stream of consciousness, just them being themselves I do love that yeah it's, it's, it's quite.
Speaker 4:You know, there is a reason why some bands make it and some bands don't because there is a certain chemistry between everybody in that room that can make something that no one else can make. And when you you get a song like Song 2, you're just essentially dialing it back to the pure minerals that are Blur, the elements that constitute that group, and that's why it is amazing, because they're not even trying and it's fucking awesome. It's probably their biggest and arguably to some maybe not myself, but their best song, and it's not even really a. Arguably to some, maybe not myself, but their best song, um, and it's not even really a song, it's a demo.
Speaker 4:Uh, and that's you guys, you've got to say well done, chaps, yeah, uh, if you've achieved that with that, so um, for that reason, I am gonna vote for song two and make it the worthy winner what do you, what have you learned from that now as a producer?
Speaker 2:like from when you listen to it and realise, oh it happens all the time.
Speaker 4:You know what it's called demo-itis. Everyone knows it, talks about it. But you can do a song on the day. You send it off to them. You then go, great, let's do some more work on it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you go, yeah, it not quite as good as the demo.
Speaker 4:The demo you weren't really enunciating the words, or, but there you know, there's something about it just coming to you in your head. Or the first time you do something it has a raw power to it that you can't recreate. And it's that's the beauty of recording music. You get to capture those moments, um. It's very hard in other art forms to kind of redo the first thing, um, or to capture that first thing because you've already ruined it by working over it. If it's a painting, you add extra layers and then you can't go back, whereas music you've always got that document of that time. So again, yeah, maybe there is a connection for me there, because I've experienced that every day, where you kind of go back to the demo vocal so many times and there are so many songs that have that. Songs have when you, when you first record them sometimes, and song two has that in buckets.
Speaker 2:yeah, it really does. A worthy winner, woo-hoo, woo-hoo, woo-hoo.