This is their most experimental album and its a little hard to listen the first time. You should try with the self titled, it have a lot of catchy songs
It's tragicomic how this album can contain two songs that talk about love but from different positions; the joy of loving (Tender) and the bitter goodbye (No distance left to run). I freaking love this album for that~
Yeah this album is wild, but I love it. Surprised you didn't like Trimm Trabb, that has to be my favourite and I just love that part where the heavier guitars come in half way. Battle is a great pick for fav though, it's a cool song. Would definitely recommend Magic Whip, it came much later but its an incredible come back that manages to have it's own sound while paying homage to Blur's previous styles. It feels like Damon took a bit of what he learned from making Gorillaz and you can feel that influence on there as well which was great to hear as a Gorillaz fan, and all around Magic Whip is my favourite from them.
Damon albarn is a musical goat idc what anyone says. Was the leader of imo one of the best bands of the 90s, and than transitioned from that into the gorillaz. His resume is fantastic
OOOHH YES!!! I've been waiting for this one :) Thank you so much for jumping into my favorite album by my favorite band of all time. Update 1: to answer the question about Coffee & TV - the song's lyrics were written by the guitarist, Graham Coxon, who was dealing with alcoholism at the time. (Graham was also the lead singer for that song.) He was in a sense trying to replace his addiction with more socially acceptable addictions, like coffee or TV, but it wasn't really working. Update 2: So glad that Battle caught on, I had a strong feeling you'd love it haha Update 3: A bit of backstory for 13: Blur's discography is full of interesting, diverse albums, but 13 is by far the strangest, darkest, and most disjointed. There was always a creative tension between Damon and Graham, with Damon trying to bring in observational pop pieces and sounds from music around the world and Graham trying to bring in punk, chaos, and contrarian guitar work. But 13 ended up as the most disjointed effort, since the members were all in dark places at the same time and could rarely be in the studio together at the same time. Damon had a long term girlfriend (since around the year 1992) who got them both into heroin. He did his best to quit heroin in an attempt to be a better partner, but she ultimately chose the heroin over him and they broke up shortly before the recording of 13. Graham was struggling with alcoholism and had just lost his long term gf as well to Jamie Hewlett, who had just become Damon's roommate and was the future graphic artist for Gorillaz. This sort of sums up why the album contents are so dark at times and why there are so many themes based around addiction and heartbreak. As for the chaos, Blur was working with a new producer for the first time since the beginning of the 90s. This producer (William Orbit) allowed them to revel in their chaos for the first time, as their old producer Stephen Street usually tried to reign things in to sound a bit more proper. As Orbit has said about this album: "There was a battle between Damon's more experimental direction, and Graham's punk one, and Graham prevailed. If that tension had been growing on previous LPs, it came to a head here." Having said all this, almost every Blur album is significantly different from all the rest, so I hope one day you dive a bit further into the discography (especially Parklife). But either way, I greatly appreciate the reaction to 13! Sorry for the wall of text haha
Coffee and TV is a Coxon penned (for the most part) song that depicts, in the second verse, he and Damon’s experiences in their teen days in Colchester, when they’d go to ‘terminal pubs where the English army grinds their teeth into glass’ (😉 check out the self-titled for that lyric). They’d regularly get a kicking and Damon’s dad would have to rescue them. Btw the video is iconic and won awards and was featured on an episode of The Sopranos. William Orbit produced 13 and allowed the band to experiment a lot with those random soundscapes; that and Damon’s growth with the burgeoning Gorillaz gave 13 a very distinct sound from the Stephen Street produced earlier albums. He returned to produce Magic Whip in 2015. So glad to see you love Battle. I adore it so much I have the last few words tattooed on my arm
Great album reaction! If you want to, I would recommend their self Titled album "Blur", it's when they changed their sound for the first time and it was mental 😂
Yesss! One of my favorite albums of all time. EASILY my favorite Blur album. If you want another good one from these guys, their self titled album is really good as well!
Such a great time checking out this project, am keen to check more out from them soon. In the meantime ill be checking out Gorillaz new album in the next couple of days which im super exited for
Thank you! What a wonderful post chrismas gift! This album... well, it's definitly the hardest Blur album to get into but also the one that grows the most, the songs are so filled with different sounds that it takes a few listens to pack it all in. Like Demon Days, I think of this one more like a whole listening experience than an album with individual songs. You start with Tender and end who knows where. Blur have a really similar career path to Radiohead, they started with a mid album, Leisure, then turned into the biggest pop-rock band on the country with the Britpop trilogy, until they were surpassed by Oasis in 1995 and decided to move away from pop into alt rock with their self-titled, followed by 13, wich is completely experimental, leading to Gorillaz debut and guitarist Graham Coxon split from the band. They then made an album as a 3 piece, Think Tank, wich is the kinda the bridge between Gorillaz self-titled and Demon Days. In 2015 they reunited and made The Magic Whip, a mashup of all their previous styles with a more mature aproach. I've already seen like 5 different Blur albums recommeded in this comment section, wich proves that they're all extremely cohesive pieces of art (except for Leisure) PLEASE react to more Blur albums, you will not be disappointed, whether the Britpop ones or the experimental ones.
I'm so happy to see someone giving Blur a chance, they are so cool, you got me when you mantioned they sounded like a Gorillaz/Oasis mix ( Oasis and Blur have a fun nemesis story) , you should totally check out their "Blur" album too!
YEEESSSS!!! I think my profile pic speaks for itself 😂 I’m so happy you checked Blur out. This album’s one of my favourites. Tender has got to be one of the best red herrings in music history😂 As you’d expect from the man who created Gorillaz, there’s a lot of variety throughout Blur’s discography. I think 13 definitely was the most experimental and pushed the boat out in terms of form and sounds, so it won’t be for everyone…but Blur’s the type of band that had something for everyone so I’d definitely recommend checking out more of their albums. Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife, Self-Titled, Think Tank, or The Magic Whip…take your pick, they all have something different to offer. Keep up the great work man, can’t wait to see more from you whether it be Blur, Gorillaz, Radiohead or others, your vids are always a good vibe!
@@jensmartin3266 At one point TGE was my favourite Blur album. But it’s not like it’s gone down in my estimations, just everything else went up. I still love it.
@@theimpossiblesomething6773 yeah, and of course it's nothing but an opinion. But I would really like Jack to listen to the Britpop albums, and if he does, then he has to go TGE first, cuz the only people that find TGE boring are the ones that listen to it immediately after having already heard two other Britpop albums.
My mate from school got me into Blur. He moved from here in the UK to Australia when he was 14/15 so he's technically more Aussie than Pom at this point given that we're 33 now. Forever thankful that he made me listen to their music years ago. I'm seeing Blur live at Wembley in July 🤘
Jack, I think you’d like Think Tank it’s more of a Damon Albarn album due to disputes amongst the band that are worth reading up on. It’s a great album. Nice to see you getting into Blur though.
It's best to listen to earlier blur albums first to get an accurate feel for the group's music, leisure, modern life is rubbish, Parklife and blur are the real standout albums
Mental that no one in the comments has mentioned 'Parklife' one of the most important albums of the 90's in Britain. Defined the Britpop era and is a masterpiece and excellent social commentary of british middle classes. A remarkably different sound to 13.
Or its successor The Great Escape, which has been bashed by critics for not bringing anything new to the table, but to me was where they perfected their original sound and killed off the filler that was very present on their earlier stuff. That first half of the album is scarily amazing (to me it's the strongest opening half in music history).
you should do blur's new album # "the ballad of darren" it came out just a few days ago and it's a very different sound from 13, and i think it would be cool to see your reaction
Coffee and TV had a strange music video attached to it. Check it out one day. This album though was forgettable unfortunately for me as I owned it with higher expectations.
Underrated album - Battle and 1992 are my favorites. You should check out The Magic Whip if you haven't already, basically a Gorillaz album. Think Tank is similar. Basically proto-Gorillaz.
This album made me love music when I was in Middle School, every single song blowed my mind, the first song I ever learned in guitar was tender, so, I'm glad you listened and gived your opinion as a producer.
