@therainman777 I imagine it's the same with Smells Like Teen Spirit and Nirvana. It's not really that they hate the song, it's that they hate the type of people it attracted, the type of people that became 'fans' as a result of the song, the type of people that came to the gig just to see 'that' song. On another note, 'Elephant' by Tame Impala started as a joke too, they used to jam it at their sound check for a few years, before even the first album came out. Kevin Parker was reluctant even to release it.
I "met" Graham years ago when I was working as a cook in a cafe called Revival in central Bristol. I think he ordered a baked potato with beans and cheese. Seemed like a lovely bloke. I remember acting like I had no idea who he was when I should have said "dude, if you ever need a bassist....
Hi Chris Churchill we’ve all been bashful my friend! I’ve met people who I admire and been afraid to talk to them! Everyone, absolutely everyone have people they admire! We are all fans of someone
He's a great guitarist and Blur are a great band I met him ounce in the mixer in Camden I was with two mates when a girl we knew brought him over to us I had no idea who he was if I did I would of complimented him as I like what he does, after a brief introduction the conversation was music the mod scene and taking the piss at one point he asked are you lot in a band? I replied yeah we're in the salvation army I play the triangle, after a couple of drinks we were off to a club, the last thing he said was wait for me I'm going to the club with you lot but unfortunately he was quite fucked at that point and didn't make it.. oh well..
my biggest take away is that , while the song sounds simple, there are actually a lot of little things that they have added to sweeten it (extra bass line melody, one note on guitar in the chorus, extra pair of hands on the drums...etc) and that's why it never sound right when played live. They can never recapture it with just the four of them playing their instruments. This is ultimately a imagined punk song
I mean.... that's how I feel about all live music. It always lacks the extra bells and whistles, so to speak, of studio-recorded music. Live music is "inferior" but is balanced by the energy and atmosphere in the room.
@@arkainjalex12 if i am brutally honest, there are bands that can pull off a live version that is just as good if not better than studio version. Don't get me wrong blur is a fabulous band, I saw them live in the most recent tour, but some songs they can't really do justice. Song2 is one of them
Not sure about drums but it could be performed live by 4-piece with second guitar doing that additional bass lead and one note guitar lead at the end, but from what I see on YT they always play it live with just one guitar and Damon doing vocals only.
Absolutely Alvaro and i also love how a songs sorta spirit/feel/ how they were feeling that day, can go off in the parties concerned's various directions, i always think of Grahams brilliant "dont let you man know" and the Gorrilaz short "punk" being good examples of that :)
The bass player in my old band was walking along Charing Cross Road sometime in the early 2000s when he saw a car knock Graham Coxon over in the road, it was a fairly gentle collision but apparently he got up, shot the driver a dirty look, picked up his cigarette and just carried on walking down the road.
And that tells us again: You don´t need to do a perfect record with a perfect setting and all that stuff. If the idea is catched and it fits tight, magic just happen by the way it is.
@@hhhudba4887 That's an internal wisdom I have: "The problem with imitation is that the best you ever can be, is only as equally good as the thing you're copying". The perfect copy can never be more than an identical forgery. Indeed, if I want to hear Hendrix or Bowie or the Beatles or whoever, then I can just play their records. So, in my own music, I have no interest whatsoever in sounding like anyone else and, indeed, what I'm really looking for are the sounds that have never been heard before. It's experimental and eclectic and I'm sure will never get me rich and famous at any point, but I can, if I choose, hear a completely new song every single day - by writing it - and that keeps me as happy as Larry.)
To me this is huge! Getting Graham Coxon on to talk about the actual songs is huge! He's a wonderful guitarist and I love all of blur's stuff, song 2 is brilliant and it's hillarious that the vocal was a scratch track, no wonder the lyrics are so fuzzy, but that's the feel of this whole song and to a degree the whole album. Fuzzy lo fi broken up guitar music. Beautiful.
9:01 Absolutely. It's hard to remember now but it was a very surprising and extreme track coming from Blur at the time. It wasn't what they were known for. Actually, I had a show on a small local community radio at the time, and I played it not saying who it was before the track. This guy who hated Blur was all "this is good, this!" and I went "oh yeah? Well this is Blur, you fool! I told you all along that they were good". lol
No lie, until i heard this song on this video i thought the opening line was 'i got my head shaved, by a chamochee'. I didn't even question what a chamochee was, just assumed Albarn was way more clever than me.
@@itsMrNoble I guess that this is the real lyrics. I always heard like this too. And well the song is a joke on grunge, so a nonsense lyric makes sense. O.o
Graham, was my next-door neighbor when I lived in Camden London. I'm quite certain I pissed him off greatly because my studio was in the house and I was blasting it all times of the day and night. Thought he would come in and ask me to turn it down a bit. Never did. Great channel Warren
It never ceases to amaze me how many songs become classic by accident. It's a mentality I keep in my music to this day. Never take a song seriously. What happens, happens. If it sounds good but not necessarily 'professional' or technically correct, just go with it. I made a tune many years ago where I based the hell out of a kick drum and turned it way up, just to see what would happen. Never did anything with it and all that's left is a raw version. Maybe one day I'll use it, as is, to test the hypothesis that music doesn't necessarily need to adhere to production standards.
@@valabadeer4155 I saw them at the NYNEX in Manchester 1997 was a cracking show my second gig I went to I think after the Charlatans same year, picked up the blur album on cassette after the show.
It's being done more and more. A lot of audio production is breaking "Industry Standard Rules" these days, and that's a good thing. For example, "analogue recording sounds "warmer" than digital" (something I was convinced of for years) is actually horseshit.
Blur will always have a special place in my heart! I even played Coffee & TV on bass during an audition for a music academy which I eventually got accepted into!
“I liked that squeaky guitar” dude, same! When I record my guitar parts, I love those squeaks and minor imperfections. I’m a sucker for that alternative sound full of fuzz & distortion. That bass is so crisp too 😍
There is a certain art in just making guitar noise and weird harmonics and stuff.. I love that thruston Moore thing where he demonstrates some of his classic moves.. wanna say it was for Namm
Warren, I am just a consumer and I have zero musical skill or technical knowledge, but i absolutely love your channel. The smile on your face during this is just awesome
Incredible song. Knowing it was a joke at the label's expense makes sense... the band having a 'Fuck it' attitude to the recording gave them license to let go and just throw raw untempered anger at the track, which created this monster. I love it.
For all the people wondering and trying to decipher the lyrics understand Blur made this song as a parody of the grunge scene in America. The song is actually a parody of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the lyrics are meant not to make any sense. Blur was basically trying to say Americans dont care about substantive lyrics and will fall for any song with “dumb” lyrics as long as the melody is good. The hilarious thing is at least they were proven right at least for this song lol as this is their biggest song in America.
I always felt like the best songs weren’t songs that took months to finish with fine tuned tracks of a multitude of instruments. They’ve always been best with actual friends fucking about and making something for themselves. That’s what they did. It fucking worked
I would have to agree that very often this is the case! It’s a combination of course, some are immediate and some take time! This song is a great example of amazing energy captured!
Blur had fans in the US too, mate. There's no other way was huge in the discos I frequented back then. A whole lot of Brit Pop and Manchester made over here and we loved it. Great video.
"Modern Life" is also one of my all-time favorites. I just love every track on the album and the whole feel of it. Blur was one of my all-time best bands and I'm lucky enough to have seen them live twice. They were and still are brilliant.
I truly love how little he seems to care about gear! Beyond refreshing! Made for an oddly short track breakdown, but his entire energy is well worth the watch anyway! lol Thanks always!
My first Blur song. I was a huge grunge, pop punk and thrash metal fan and I loved this song from the first Woohoo! I was so thrown for a loop to discover that (A) no other Blur song sounds like it and (B) it was a send up of the stuff I normally listened to and (C) I still loved them anyway.
To me was the other way round. I've always preferred pop songs and obviously the Brit pop movement and then I heard Blur's "13" album (which turned up into my favorite album of the band) and the firsts Coxon solo albums and found it that noisy and distorted guitar it isn't that bad to me. This band is amazingly eclectic!
This was really enjoyable. Song 2 is one of my favorite tracks, much to do with its sense of immediacy and attitude and it having been thought up like this just makes it make even more sense. Thank you Warren & Graham!
By the way, if Modern Life is Rubbish is being covered, I'll be delighted. It's woefully underrated and has a lot of personal memories for me. I'll be thrilled to see it being deconstructed
This song takes me back. And 1997 was quite a year for me. I was 12 years old, my love of music began, started playing drums and went to my first concert: RUSH. Looking forward to the album breakdown and thank you for the upload.
Graham is brilliant, I love his work on blur but also his solo music. I can't wait to see you talking about Modern life is rubbish!one of my favourite albums. Very underrated.
here is how i presented it to my now 21years old son. There is only one song in the world that is 1-Rock 2-Punk 3-Metal 4-Pop in the world, it's song2 by Blur, a band that is none of this stuff. Gosh i worship this masterpiece. From what i have learned in this video, the unsung heros of this story are the label execs... for once!
