I am not a big fan of the camera in my iPhone. I wish that it had better low light performance, better optics, and a flash. I mean if Motorola can make a phone with a real point-and-shoot camera crammed inside, so can Apple. That said I have seen some decent pictures taken with an [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Blur’
Blur Greatest Hits Collection
July 24th, 2009 |
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Capitol/EMI TO Release Career-Spanning Blur Collection
Midlife: A Beginner’s Guide To Blur, On July 28
25-Track 2-CD & Digital Collection Spans Band’s Seven Studio Albums
 Blur |
On July 28, a new 2-CD and digital collection of 25 tracks spanning Blur‘s seven studio albums will be released. In addition to presenting the band’s standout album cuts and singles together for the first time Midlife: A Beginner’s Guide To Blur also includes a long out-of-print track, “Popscene,” a single from 1992, which is exclusively available on the new collection.
Blur was formed in Colchester, England in 1989 by singer and keyboardist Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. In 1990, Blur signed with Food Records and the band’s debut single, “She’s So High,” reached Billboard’s Top 50, while the follow-up single, “There’s No Other Way,” hit the Top 10. In 1995, Blur won an unprecedented four Brit Awards and went on to win the Ivor Novello Award for songwriting. Two of the band’s albums, Parklife and 13, have been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.
Midlife: A Beginner’s Guide To Blur Track List
CD 1
1. Beetlebum
2. Girls & Boys
3. For Tomorrow
4. Coffee & TV
5. Out Of Time
6. Blue Jeans
7. Song 2
8. Bugman
9. He Thought Of Cars
10. Death Of A Party
11. The Universal
12. Sing
13. This Is A Low
CD 2
1. Tender
2. She’s So High
3. Chemical World
4. Good Song
5. Parklife
6. Advert
7. Popscene
8. Stereotypes
9. Trimm Trabb
10. Badhead
11. Strange News From Another Star
12. Battery In Your Leg
Katy goes native for Scottish festival
July 13th, 2009 |
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Katy Perry dons tartan as Blur and the Pet Shop Boys rock Scotland’s biggest music event
Blur provide the magic moment
June 29th, 2009 |
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The best Glastonbury headliners in an age? It really, really, really did happen
Opera writer, farmer, lawyer, musician, but when they reform as Blur it’s a joy, says Laura Barton
Who: Blur
Where and when: Pyramid stage, 9.50pm, Sunday
Dress code: Damon’s going for the Mike Skinner geezer look with his gold chains and Fred Perry shirt. Alex James has finally sorted himself out with a haircut and a wash. Dave Rowntree looks like he’s taking time out from legal work to drum with his old schoolmates (funny that …). And Graham? He’s still the coolest Blur member by a few dozen miles.
What happened: And so this is what it’s come to. The man who once masterminded grand Chinese operas. Who boasted of writing compositions in the pentatonic scale. Who spent the last decade striving to be noted for his serious musicianship. And here he is, rolling around the floor screaming “woo-hoo!” over crackling cartoon punk-rock and looking like he’s having the time of his life. Tch! He should be ashamed! Did Blur not see the serious, studied musicianship of Neil Young? Can they not remember the lessons set by the Boss, that all Glastonbury headline sets must involve seven hours of sturdy rock while the crowd crosses their fingers in the hope of hearing Yawn in the USA? I mean, just who gave these guys permission to have the time of their lives?
Because, tonight, Blur are sticking their fingers up to dad-rock by falling in love all over again with the dumb art of playing pop music – and playing it loudly. Girls and Boys literally throbs with sordid energy, Song 2 sees the crowd threatening to pogo themselves off the earth’s axis, and Parklife turns every man, woman and anarcho-crustie into a cockney geeza.
It’s hit after hit after hit. From She’s So High to the Universal, via Popscene, For Tomorrow and Country House, it’s nothing short of relentless.
Some thing’s haven’t changed, of course. Dave is virtually anonymous, Graham spends the most thrilling, spinetingling moments staring at his fretboard and Alex stands on the stage amps, desperate to hog the spotlight that little bit more than his bandmates. We wouldn’t want it any other way.
But for all their energy, it’s the sad songs that work best: To the End, The Universal, This is a Low. Weirder still is the reaction to Tender, a song never really rated (at least by me) as a classic, transformed into a joyous hug-a-long that reverberates around the crowd after the first encore and the second encore.
It’s at this point – when previously dismissed tracks acquire a new life of their own – that you realise something truly magical is going on. Because tonight’s headline slot is not just about the music. It’s not even about nostalgia. It’s about friendship – and the truly heartwarming sight of two best friends throwing aside their differences and starting afresh.
It’s also the cherry on the cake of a trend that’s defined the weekend. Despite talk of the “dad-rock” lineup, Blur made sure that the real winner at this year’s Glastonbury was pop music. They weren’t alone, of course. Earlier in the weekend, La Roux packed a tent out with glitter-strewn girls who clearly wanted to be just like her. Dizzee created a Pyramid stage frenzy by unleashing a series of b-b-b-bonkers mainstream hits. And Lady Gaga showed that a 20-minute guitar solo can’t really compete with straddling a motorbike and baring your arse. Battle lines had been drawn – it was the pop scenesters who triumphed.
So sure, Young played a great gig for his fans. And Springsteen put on a fantastic show for Boss devotees. But Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave? They put on a show that touched every heart in Pilton.
Who’s watching: Seemingly everyone apart from the most obsessive Black Eyed Peas fans. And we’re all hugging each other.
High point: Damon breaking down in tears after To the End. Talented but not always entirely likable singer proves he’s human after all.
Low point: Just the one tiny flaw: Alex James’s sweat patches.
In a Tweet: Blur: the best Glastonbury headliners in an age? It really, really, really did happen.
• Read Laura Barton’s take on Blur’s performance
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Universal acclaim
June 29th, 2009 |
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Delirium greets the revival that festival steeped in nostalgia had longed for
It began this week at Goldsmiths College in London and swiftly led them here, to a Sunday evening in a drizzly field in Somerset, before a vast crowd still dazed by the sun and giddy with the sheer spectacle.
Glastonbury 2009 was not short on reunions – there were the Specials, and the Prodigy, and there was even – very nearly – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. But of them all, it was arguably the Britpoppers that were most keenly anticipated; the chances of a Blur reunion tour seemed minuscule when the band split six years ago — a rupture prompted by, yes, musical differences, drugs and general angst, during the making of their 2003 album Think Tank, when guitarist Graham Coxon was asked to leave the band mid-way through the recording sessions. Even though the wounds had begun to heal, it seemed even less likely as the band members continued to pursue their own post-Blur projects.
After all, while their great rivals Oasis spent the intervening years churning the same ground, Blur have used their time more productively: Alex James upped sticks to the country and learned how to make cheese; Dave Rowntree pursued a career in law; Graham Coxon has enjoyed a successful solo career, and Damon Albarn has whiled away his days writing operas, researching the music of Mali and dreaming up fictional primate-themed bands.
Still, they evidently felt there was some unfinished business, or at least a few loose ends to tie up and late last year Albarn announced that the four would reunite in 2009 for a limited run of dates. While it seemed inevitable that the more intimate club shows would be a success, the big question that hovered over this reunion was whether the band could prove convincing at a festival.
Impish intelligence
The sight of fortysomething year-old men sweating is admittedly somewhat different to that of four twentysomethings glowing with youth and invincibility, but the years have been kind to the members of Blur and they have happily retained that look of impish intelligence. James still plays with cigarette clamped to his bottom lip, Albarn still pogos about the stage, if a little less exuberantly than all those years ago. But Coxon is the hero tonight, playing ferociously, frantically, and at one point lying low on the stage for a guitar solo.
The audience, elated, even a touch delirious, wills them on; when Albarn’s voice gives way a little in Beetlebum, the crowd rushes to catch it. Tender, one of the set’s many highlights, is greeted with a warm rush of approval. “I’d forgotten they’re a singalong band!” says the man to my right, as the band stops and starts, revs up the chorus once more and then falls silent, the sudden quiet filled by several thousand festival-goers softly singing the song’s chorus: “Oh my baby,” they lilt, “Oh my baby. Oh why. Oh why.” It is one of the sweetest moments of the festival. Their efforts are duly rewarded with an ebulliant rendition of Country House, a song which acquires greater resonance here tonight for the muddy-booted masses. And for Alex James of course.
They haul out the hits: Parklife, This is a Low, To the End, to an increasingly enthusiastic reception. Returning to the stage for a rousing rendition of Song 2, and then again for The Universal, the band looks genuinely delighted as they look out over the flags, over the crowd with its sunburned noses and glitter-smeared faces, and peacock feathers in its hair, and far off to the countryside of Somerset and the floating candles flaring up into the sky. There is a pause as they seem to take in the magnificence of what they have done. And then comes the guitar, and the great singalong continues.
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