Midlife: A Beginner's Guide to Blur

surprisingly enjoyable for someone who didn't really like them at the time

Like that they've stopped sulking and put "Popscene" on it.

Also, nice they've recognised "Strange News From Another Star" as a neglected highlight.

They could have added "Young and Lovely" but maybe it was too, um, cute?

In spite of the exclusion of 'to the end' I actually think that all in all this is a much decent introduction to the band than that 'best of' album that came out almost 9 years ago.
Also I've never been particulary fond of neither 'Charmless Man' nor 'Country House' nonetheless I'm very surprised they left them out. Did the band themselves decided which songs would end up on this compilation?

Blur singles are, like, the worst representatives of the band. I feel like being perverse and voting for Sing because it seems to be the only thing even semi-representative of my favourite period of Blur.

kate OTM. They're an example of one of these bands that are misunderstood by the wider populace simply because of the obnoxiousness of their singles. I always like Country House, but not Charmless Man. To the End was the track that most affected me (and apparently Damon) when they played at Glasto this year.

This tracklisting is okay, but def not what I would've picked. Still, a good cross section of their work.

I don't feel it's fair to do Blur down by their singles; only really the Great Escape era singles were obnoxious, pretty much everything else has been good-to-great. Beetlebum! Girls & Boys!

Well, fair enough - but I really quite liked Country House (and sort of the Universal), and I thought Girls & Boys was way more irritating. Plus Great Escape was when the band were at their most ubiquitous.

Did the band themselves decided which songs would end up on this compilation?

Yes and no. iirc Damon and Alex did most of the choosing, then the label/a&r/management etc did their bit and snuck 'Popscene' in when Damon wasn't looking. By many accounts, he flipped out when he saw it on there...

Aside from personal gripes about what's missing and what ought not to be there (similar to many comments above... 'Bugman'??? Jeez) I think this is a fantastic compilation and 100x better a reflection of the Blur I've loved than the singles comp.

My vote? 'Trimm Trabb', just because.

The Universal's awesome.

Soooo close between Trimm Trabb and Beetlebum; I picked the latter.

haha this thread explains somewhat why "Out of Time" did so well on my Genius playlist poll

(I picked "This Is A Low" just because there are three Blur songs that I've played on endless loop and that's the only one on this list.)

Blue Jeans deserves a vote.

if i'd seen it, i'd have voted "this is a low", which to all extents is Blur's best and most affecting song. But I think I went for Coffee & TV.

blue jeans is a weird one to include, great song though!

This from the Pitchfork review surprised me, and I live in the US:

Mythbuster: Despite Blur being commonly called U.S. one-hit wonders, "Song 2" was the third-highest charting single of their career here, behind "There's No Other Way" and "Girls & Boys".

Coffee & TV?! Seriosly Dog Latin? You surprise me; I hate that.

Thank fuck somebody's finally had the balls to poll these guys.

BUGMAN YOU MOFOS

Voted "This is a Low", obv.

"Coffee and TV"'s up there tho,

"This is a Low" then "Tender" is weird and/or brutal sequencing.

^^^this, Tender really isn't necessary

btw To The End is shit and Trimm Trabb is great! If they'd thrown any one of Essex Dogs, Battle, Caramel or 1992 on here too then I'd probably consider buying the thing out of sheer goodwill

and yes, Blue Jeans most certainly deserves a vote.

as does Chemical World, for being the second-best song called Chemical World behind VDG's soul-scorcher

Don't you be hatin' on "To the End", atonal boy.

To The End is one of their 5 worst songs ever, and by far the worst thing on their previous best-of. Urgh.

There's a whole load of awesome stuff on The Great Escape missing from this compilation as well (even if He Thought Of Cars is happily present)

To The End is lovely, atonal boy.

and Parklife is their worst album apart from Think Tank

*departs in a huff*

Beetlebum FTW, but it's a very difficult choice - a lot of good stuff there. FWIW I love Coffee & TV and Bugman. Also, strange fact: me & my wife's first dance at our wedding was to To The End (some of the least appropriate lyrics we could possibly have chosen).

Axing "Country House" is unforgiveable, but at least there's "This Is a Low" to vote for.

Why does Damon hate Popscene so much?

He's not the sharpest.

the universal

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Yeah I don't get why they've been so against putting Popscene on anything, when both times I saw them live they played the song! It's been available on imports but never reissued in the UK before now.

He doesn't hate it, on the contrary...

He's still on a 'promise' that because it was not a hit, it would never appear on any 'best-of'.

That's why.

it wasn't a hit because of grunge blowing up on the other side of the atlantic at the time. they've always blamed nirvana signing to geffen, therefore dulling the impact of some cockney indie-pop band's attempts at punk. of course they got their own back by going all nirvana-lite on song 2.

It's a bit annoying for fans who like the song. Or at least it was pre-mp3 era anyway. You had to buy an import version of Modern Life Is Rubbish or the Australian version of the On Your Own EP (which is what I did)

This is a Low, best song they ever did (er... Not that I've heard their last few albums).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow, only one vote for Trimm Trabb?