轉自97~98年的官網舊資料
As anyone who has followed their career closely will be fully aware,
BLUR are a particularly multi-faceted band - intensely musical, melodically
poppy, teeth-grindingly abrasive or swooningly lush, as the case may be.
There is probably only one group in Britain who could have recorded songs
as dissimilar as 'The Universal' (from 'The Great Escape'), 'Oily Water'
(from 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'), 'Bank Holiday' (from 'Parklife') and
'There's No Other Way' (their second single from 'Leisure'). That group
is BLUR and they have now delivered their most surprising, courageous and
intimate album to date. Their fifth album - entitled simply 'Blur' -
is that rare feat (so easy to claim, so hard to actually effect): it is
a new beginning. You'll hear for yourself. 'Blur' has a completely
different sound, approach and attitude to its predecessors. It puts a
considerable distance between BLUR and their British pop-and-rock
contemporaries, and this is intentional. In the words of Graham Coxon,
"I don't think there'll be so much muddled thought about us now. It will
set us apart from everybody."
The facts are these. In September 1995, BLUR released 'The Great
Escape', the follow-up to their classic 1994 album, 'Parklife'. 'The
Great Escape,' which included the hit singles, 'Country House,' 'The
Universal,' 'Stereotypes' and 'Charmless Man,' debuted at No. 1 in the
charts and took the band's fixation with British culture to its grandiose
conclusion.
After the release of 'The Great Escape,' and the tours that followed,
BLUR decided on a radical change in their musical approach. Among other
considerations, they believed that something of the original spirit of
BLUR had been lost. Not everyone in the band was getting along terribly
well. There was too much emphasis on fame and not enough trust being
given to the instincts on which the band had been formed in the first
place.
Gradually these problems were taken care of. In the meantime, the
listening tastes of Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon had converged with one
another. Bored by English pop, they much preferred the maverick talents
of Americans (such as Beck, Pavement and Tortoise). While this might now
seem something of a seismic shift on Damon's part - he of Kinks fetish
and the grunge-was-shit beliefs - this shared love of American guitar
noise and experimentalism actually pulled BLUR back in the direction
they'd been heading in 1992, between their 1991 debut album, 'Leisure',
and its 1993 follow-up, 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' (many peculiar and
excellent B-sides attest to the power of this era of BLUR.)
While ruminating and plotting their next move, the band disappeared
from view in 1996, playing only one show in Britain and Ireland (in
Dublin on June 22, where two songs from this new album - 'Song 2' and
'Chinese Bombs' - were debuted). Damon knew that he had reached the end
of his "character songs" period, which had taken BLUR from 1991 's
'Mr Briggs' - the B-side of 'There's No Other Way' - to 'Mr Robinson's
Quango', 'Ernold Same' and 'Charmless Man' on 'The Great Escape.'
He wanted to start with a clean slate. The feeling within the band was
that the new record should be unpredictable, if necessary even
uncommercial, and reflective of one of BLUR's original house-rules:
to be wilful, slightly out of control, and constantly changing.
Therefore, on 'Blur,' there are a lot of things missing from
'Parklife' and 'The Great Escape.' There are no brass sections, no
eccentric English characters, no ascerbic social commentaries and,
crucially, no pristine pop production. The new BLUR revel in their
oddness, without worrying about neatness or facade.
Indeed, with 'Blur', their method of recording was so spontaneous and
instinctive as to be arguably un-English, probably closer in procedure to
the underground American style. "The way people like Pavement and Beck
record is all about freedom," says Damon. "And I know that our demoes
sound like that. I wanted our records to sound like that too. I knew it
was within us. lt's an attitude: going into the studio, doing it, not
worrying about it too much. And once you're in that frame of mind, you
write songs that are a little less fussy."
Of the 14 songs on 'Blur', the vast majority are internal and
personal. They don't try to be clever, and they end up being all the
more likeable for it. "With the lyrics," says Damon, "I just went with
my demo instincts. l didn't try to be witty." The lyrics are even, in
places, indecipherable. (The artwork will not include a lyric sheet.)
And the music is warm, slightly scruffy or "unshaven", as bassist
Alex James puts it), occasionally barmy and often lovely.
'Blur' was written and recorded in London and in Iceland. Produced
by the band's longterm friend and collaborator Stephen Street, it is
described by BLUR as the least stressful record they have ever made,
"It's like starting again, really," says Damon Albarn. "It's a new
relationship."
The album includes many surprises and treasures. There is BLUR's
first venture into what might be called trip-hop, 'Essex Dogs,' the
lyric of which Damon recited at the 1996 Poetry Olympics in London.
'On Your Own' was conceived as a cross between Bob Dylan and Happy
Mondays. 'Chinese Bombs' is a very abrupt hardcore track. 'You're So
Great' was written and sung by Graham Coxon, his first lead vocal on
a BLUR album. 'Death Of A Party' is a song BLUR demoed in the early
1990s, which they felt would be ideal for this album.
The album starts with the new single, 'Beetlebum'. Damon: "I'm not
sure what a 'beetlebum' is. It was just a word I sang when I played the
song to myself. l asked the others if I should change it, but they said
no. That's pretty much how we worked on this album. If it felt right, we
wouldn't try to tidy it up like we'd done in the past. A few of the songs
are us jamming. Vocals were done through tiny amplifiers, and we fucked
about with them even after that. 'Strange News From Another Star' has
four drumkits playing on it, things like that..."
Graham Coxon: "It's a lot rawer than our previous albums - soundwise
and emotionally. lt may shock some people, but a lot of people will really
love it. lt's a lot to do with our 'world'. lt's quite intimate in that
way."
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