Product Description

It's okay, America, you can come out now! We don't sound like Duran Duran anymore! Me and the rest of the lads had us ameeting and decided it was time to give the eighties thing a bit of a rest. Don't worry, we didn't throw away all our fab analogue synth gear, we just updated things a little. We moved out of that expensive umpteen-track studio and into our mate's mum's garage to get just the right feel for this one. We were so busy reinventing our sound that we didn't evenhave time to come up with a proper name for the album. What's in a name, though, as long as we've still got the pop hooks coming out our ears? We've been listening to some of thatlo-fi Yank stuff and hanging out with some of the blokes from Stereolab in between reading all those fan mags that makeup imaginary battles between us and Oasis, who care more about being the Beatles than we ever did. So the stage is set for our big American takeover. Now all we've got to do is get that bugger at the record company to stop calling our singer "dude".

Track Listing

1. Beetlebum
2. Song 2
3. Country Sad Ballad Man
4. MOR
5. On Your Own
6. Theme From Retro
7. You're So Great
8. Death Of A Party
9. Chinese Bombs
10. I'm Just A Killer For Your Love
11. Look Inside America
12. Strange News From Another Star
13. Movin' On
14. Essex Dogs

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13971 in Music
• Released on: 1997-01-17
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Having found himself at a creative cul-de-sac with 1995's The Great Escape, Damon Albarn bought a flat in Iceland and set about re-evaluating his role in Blur. What emerged was a more soulful, democratised sound. Gone were the Kinks-influenced vignettes about life in suburban England, to be replaced by a more cathartic approach. Grunge influences, for so long off-limits, were now detectable in the loose, angularity of tracks like "Country Sad Ballad Man" and "Song 2". Sensing that this might just be his moment, Blur's resident hard-core fan Graham Coxon is the driving momentum behind much of the band's fifth album. And yet, accidentally or not, some sense of Englishness lingers--be it the Specials' "Ghost Town" on "Theme from Retro", early David Bowie on the desolate "Strange News from Another Star" or the Beatles on "Beetlebum". Ambitious it might have been, but the sheer quality of these songs made Blur their biggest seller to date. This truly is the great escape. --Peter Paphides

Customer Reviews

Awesome
From the opening chug of Beetlebum to the final weirdness of Essex Dogs this is the most accomplished blur album of all time making it possibly the best album ever committed to tape.

Sounds hinted at in the Great Escape (He Thought Of Cars, Globe Alone) are brought to the fore, and some of the craziness of Seymour (Blurs incarnation, know for there mental art rock) is mixed with some of the best song writing ever, with Grahams Your So Great pointing towards the awesome Sky Is Too High.

After this Blur had no rules, and could create anything... and did with the less focused 13

just for that track
I've never heard anyone say this is a great album. I've heard people say I thought it was going to be good, but thought it was not worth the money when I bought it.

The only reason anyone would buy this album would be because of song 2. If they did more tracks like that on this album then it would have been a classic. The other tracks are rubbish, and you force yourself to believe they are great just because it's blur, and blur are supposedly one of the best bands to come out of the British clock work over the last decade. When Graham Coxon was working on this album, he was cracking up (still is) but his meltdown started at the peak of they're fame- his intention by rumour was to create something a song/album that noone liked just to try and get out of the lime light. Beetlebum only reached number one because it was blur- the song about Albran's girlfriends heroin addiction, and what the NME critics say- the demise of Brit pop (oh so ironic, yah!) is hardly something you would want to replay as a fave unless your a stupid enough indie kid to believe all the hype. Do yourself a favor and download song 2, or buying the single- Bustin and Drowning is an okay piece of follow up durge to the song, and Country Sad Ballad man serves as average effortless thought material.

I give it 4/5 just because of song 2. woo hoo.

Awesome
This album brings out the best in Coxon. Songs like the singles M.O.R, On Your Own, Beetlebum and Song 2 show his unique guitar playing style. This is the best blur alternative album. If your looking for the best British blur album then look into 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'. Other strong tracks are Death of A Party, Movin On, Essex Dogs and Your So Great which was written and sang by Graham. Damon talks about his ex gf Justine from Elastica's addiction to heroin in Beetlebum which is the best ever blur song in my opinion and a merited number #1 in the uk singles charts in 1997.