"13" by Blur- C or D?

their best record.

the arrangements are the real problem. They're far too showy, way too much going on in each track. blur don't have the lightness of touch to make textural music (although the better moments on think tank suggest they might be developing it - graham's departure may have helped). They're best off writing colourful, quirky pop. Pretty moments - like the start of "Mellow Song" - are smothered and not properly developed. supposed classic blur singles "tender" and "coffee and tv" are poor - none of the playfulness of the britpop heyday.

"no distance left to run" is the only great moment..."caramel" is nice, too.

I still think it has quite a tremendous middle section (1992 -> BLUREMI -> Battle -> Caramel -> Trailerpark), although "1992" can't compare to "Sing," "BLUREMI" can't compared to "Bank Holiday," etc.

There is. Just one though. :-)

I was lucky enough to hear this again recently by accident, at a friend's house. I still say it was their masterpiece, flawed as it is. I know Parklife is a formidable foe, but something about 13 satisfies me in a modern way, at times I think they were way ahead of their time with this one. What's that song where the drums echo a lot and draw you into their own universe?

BATTLE, INNIT?

I mean some might say even New Order and Giorgio Moroder should get out of the way for that song...but *ssssshhhh*

Look I really do have coherent things to post on other threads, but this album won't let me.

TRIMM TRABB IS UP NEXT!!! CHRIST ALMIGHTY GOD.

bimble OTM, it's one of the finest albums of the 90's. Standouts: Bugman, 1992, Battle, Caramel, Trimm Trabb, but I actually like every single song. Even BLUREMI's grown on me.

It was in Pitchfork's original '100 best of 90's' list, but when they came around to revision it was cruelly excised... :(

There are times when even Can would cower...
But all the naive Blur fans who don't know things like Can are just out in the cold aren't they?

They can have their Gorillaz.

"13" was wrong, wrong and nothing but wrong. Not that their most recent effort was particularly good either, but...

Today, in reality, the good old Blur have changed their name and the new name is Kaiser Chiefs. They represent what Blur should have been.

Dud. This was the first Blur album I really disliked. Some good tracks (Tender, Coffee, Trimm Trabb), but most of it sounds like Albarn and Coxon out-do each other in pretension.

geir, how old are you? the only people i know who repeat the same bullshit statements over and over are about 80 years old. it's called alzheimer, you know. or maybe you don't believe the crap you post yourself and you try to convince yourself. i doubt you'll ever persuade anyone else here...

btw i used to love 13 when it came out. it seemed so huge. like a 70s concept album or something. have to listen to it again. and to modern life is rubbish as well. there is a kind of englishness to it i adore. all other blur albums except the first one i'd rather never listen to again.

Coffee and TV, Trimm Trabb, Caramel, Mellow Song, Battle. The rest was horrible amusical cloying shite.

Music Is My Radar seemed to do it better than half the tracks on 13, I feel. I like it, but I'm not blown away. C&TV always annoyed me.

"Coffee & TV" was the last great Blur song. It wouldn't even have been among the highlights on "The Great Escape" though.

Today, in reality, the good old Blur have changed their name and the new name is Kaiser Chiefs. They represent what Blur should have been.

-- Geir Hongro, Saturday, 19 May 2007 12:15 (6 hours ago) Link

EWWWWWWW!
wrong.

:(

oh geir

where is hueg jagger post about this

Coffee & TV always annoyed me, too, actually. I've never understood why so many like that one. It's simplistic to the point of being banal.

I kind of like it within the album, as a brief break from the weirdness, but wouldn't have picked it as a stand-alone hilight. Cute video, though!

fuck me when the guitars build and build throughout '1992' and then Albarn starts singing falsetto, that, my friends, is brilliance.

There is nothing brilliant on "13" other than the chorus of "Coffee & TV", which almost sounds like the good, old mid 90s Blur.

Coffee & TV is pretty much the only Blur song I like. It's all in the "We could start over again".

They have never written a better song than "Country House". Sadly, their own unjustified hatred against that song is the reason why most of what they have made afterwards has been so disappointing.

Bumper sticker: Do Not Rebel Against The Country House!

Mark E. Smith would approve.

tender and coffee and tv are great, I don't remember a thing about the rest.

So typical, try Can.

"Caramel" got me through a recent tough patch well, I really love that song.

jagger to thread

yeah, where is that rascal hiding

Hahahah!

This album is a jumbled mess, it sounds like they were straining a bit too hard to not be a pop band but don't quite know what to do without that pop structure either. That said I have a soft spot for it, despite the obvious weaknesses. Id get rid of all the songs ppl tend to like from it though (coffee and TV, no distance left, tender) not cos they are bad (though I do hate rock songs with gospel choirs) but because without them, it stands up better as a whole album.

This is still easily my favourite blur album, it's messy, but that's part of its appeal to me

This was pretty much my favourite album ever in my teens

One of my favourite William orbit productions - his padding made me go back to it. I never liked britpop much at the time but this, and things like pulps this is hardcore made me like those bands.

That should read; his passing

Also trailer park is like blur auditioning for mo wax which is rztttttt4tzttzsst

(my phone is doing weird things at the moment)

It is a jumbled mess, and it is the start of Damon's extended phase of writing songs that eschew obvious melodic hooks for something a lot more meandering and vaporous.
It also suffers from late-90s CD-itis in that at 66 minutes, it's way too long. Bands really needed to be reeled in back then, but no one did.
Unlike previous outings, the B-sides from this album are also pretty lacking and sound like unfinished demos and random jams.
When I want to listen to this album I reach for Terror Twilight.

That said, I also enjoy a lot of it. Battle is amazing. Coffee + TV is very sweet and catchy. Caramel, Trimm Trabb.

My "God Mode" version gets rid of the irritating attempts at punk, which worked on songs like Bank Holiday and Chinese Bombs, but in this context stick out and ruin the vibe.
I also removed trudgy rubbish like Swamp Song and the overlong and bloated Tender. I can't believe No Distance Left To Run was a single FFS. I replaced it with Black Book, which isn't amazing or anything but not such a bummer end note.

This album works best when it's forlorn and spaced out.

1. Optigan 1
2. 1992
3. Coffee + TV
4. Trailerpark
5. Mellow Song
6. Trimm Trabb
7. Caramel
8. Battle
9. Black Book
10. Beagle 2

55 mins

(Beagle 2 included for now to bookend things - I may remove)

I don't much care for 1992 but it works quite nicely as a proper "opening" song - sets the scene and theme for the album and lets everything just creep and crawl into the mix nicely

"bugman" is the best idk how you could cut it

if i was going to cut tracks i'd cut "swamp song", "b.l.u.r.e.m.i." and "trailerpark", those are the weaker ones, but it's fine as the sprawling mess it is

I don't like Swamp Song at all. Bugman... I dunno. I considered leaving it in. But it doesn't really fit.
Always felt like it was inserted into the album as a concession to those who only listen to the band for Song 2. It doesn't really fit the theme and tone of the record for me, which I guess adds to the "messiness" people like

The alternate playlist I posted does swerve that messiness, and there's a distinct lack of fast tunes. But it turns 13 into this sort of spacey mogadoned krautrock record which, if they'd released it like that would have been a fitting career suicide

Coffee + TV is a stone cold jam

13 is perfect

i like that configuration dog latin, kind of how i feel about the album. i don't really think there's a way for this album not to be all murky and messy.... but that's a lot of its charm.

there's a longer weird version of "caramel" that's on this one rarities box that's pretty cool.

The version of Trimm Trabb on the Live at Wembley album is incredible. Be sure to watch the footage to witness Coxon playing the guitar with his pants.

It's cool to revisit this. It took me a while to really get a handle on it as not heard it in years. Previously I think I got too into the production of it and didn't really listen to it closely. I don't know why bug man (out of control but fun) has the second part with Damon singing space is the place? it should have ended already (in a similar way why ruin trailer park with 'i lost my girl to the rolling stones'? Banal). I like swamp song too. Both just have great guitar lines. It's a weird album with lots of ideas, and trim trab and coffee and TV (too light compared to the other tracks here though) are great, battle is good, but a lot of it feels tossed off like it should be on a b-side. they really could have used a better editor.

1992 is great too. And BLUREMI is similar to swamp song and bugman, just a blast, but a bit detached and not entirely serious.

I don't know why bug man (out of control but fun) has the second part with Damon singing space is the place?

Arguably that counts as one of the album's exitludes, separate from the main bodies of the songs they're attached too (cf. the ones at the end of Coffee, BLUREMI, Battle, Trailerpark and Caramel x2)

attached to*

I would say Swamp Song fits perfectly. It sounds very infected ('stick it in my veins' et al), teetering on the edge of disaster, imagining its having a good time only to wake up the next morning in pieces (the sobering outro), leading into the mounting Sing Redux surge of 1992.

Exitude it might be but this album doesn't need them that much. I don't think blur are that strong when working outside pop song forms.

I haven't listened to this in forever but good lord "Swamp Song" and "BlurEMI" are annoying, like positively "Crazy Beat"-level bad. Tender fits in with The Universal and To The End, big "moving" songs that have never moved me. The rest is great, though!

I played this to death at the time, but I'm not sure there's much I would choose to listen to now. It feels a bit sprawling, like a lot of ideas that don't necessarily go together well, and songs that start off good enough but outstay their welcome. I never had any problem with Bugman or Swamp Song back in 99 - I thought the album started really strongly but lost its way a bit in the middle: 1992 is annoying self-pity, B.L.U.R.E.M.I. is yet another one of those Bank Holiday throwaways, Battle starts off OK but goes on way too long. The only two I listen to nowadays are Coffee & TV and Mellow Song.

They did play a bit of the Bugman exitlude live - it's definitely the one that feels like it could easily be part of the song

What does the line space is the place have to do with the rest of bugman though? It has no connection. One of the dumber parts on this album.

it sounds cool as an outro, it doesn't need to make sense

All those weird off-putting grotto-ish interludes are great, imo, I would not be mad at a whole weirdass album of that stuff

I like the lo-fi breakbeat thing "i got law" on the deluxe version. And "so you" has some really nice sounding guitar

Why does this album remind me of Druqks? Maybe it is the "messiness" mentioned above. Like, it feels like a very cool mini album with tracks from a totally different EP thrown in.

And it's not like the average Blur album isn't a massive hotchpotch of different styles and lots of quirky moments. Parklife and the s/t album are like that. But for some reason they have enough punk/pop energy for everything to cohere nicely. Whereas 13 feels almost of a piece but never quite feels like it settles into any sort of groove. I feel like MLIR, Parklife and TGE are all really smartly sequenced, almost as though they're little stand-alone vignettes that come together to paint a wider picture.
But 13 is 70% sad, soul-searching, trippy, spacey songs about breakups and coping mechanisms, and 30% songs that are totally not that at all.

I like the "Space is the place" part of Bugman. At least it's a concession to the fact this is a sci fi album

Incidentally, I have a playlist called "Space 2000" with Battle on it. Also has stuff like the title tracks from Deltron 3030, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Also Page One by Lemon Jelly, Rings Around The World, Intergalactic by the Beastie Boys, bits from 10,000Hz the Legend, Discovery etc... the millennium was a good time for "spacey" alt-pop

No, definitely, the sharp contrasts and the weird ‘Ludes make me think of druqks last night as well.