Blur at 21 : The box set, the reissues, the what.

Because if you were a big Blur fan, you'd want three CDs of rarities, a nice big book, and all the records you already own several copies of, one more time!!

Wouldn't you?

http://blur.co.uk/blur21/

£119 from Sainsbury's. Oh, and they haven't sold Rabbit for donkies years.

I just want a box set of the sessions from the s/t album

finally, a Blur thread

Are you in a foul mood or something?

terrible mood

tbf Mark you're not the only recipient. anyway yes i'll shut it.

fair enough, we cool.

can't wait. looks amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qefhT_96wYU

90 second samples on iTunes make, oddly enough, Leisure era B sides sound particularly good. no mean feat.

30 minute "i'm just a killer/essex dogs" jam included

Are EMI intending to issue the remastered albums in deluxe editions anyway?

Yes.

But, you know that 3CD 'rarities' set?

No.

I never got the singles box. This one is incredibly tempting.

Oh, I did get the singles box, it's now short of a few singles, but I can make insert discs to update it.

Does 21 collect all the tracks from the singles? Or is it still frustratingly incomplete in that regard?

I guess I could look that up. But someone here might know off the top of their head.

Yes. 2

That 2 was because new-code ILX has stopped me from saying "yes" as that's a duplicate message.

thanks Mark! That could be the tipping point that goes from maybe to yes. Now I have to find $150.

there it is it's right behind you

List of officially released tracks not on the box set (they go a bit OTT with this though):
http://forums.blur.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=70845

I don't think any of those missing cuts will cause me to lose any sleep.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/elasticaman/advert2.jpg

looks nice...

I kinda want this, I have to say. I never got the Blur box and only ever had TGE on cassette! /justification

The majority of the Blur albums are available for a quid each in my local Poundland. Poundland seems to have become a repository for mid to late 90s overstocked cds, it's all Britpop and Corrs and for that contemporary touch, the winners of Fame Academy too (bonus points if you can name them without checking Wiki)

Yes.

must be a time-out

My wife found $150 for me to pre-order this from Amazon. Definitely excited.

there's a new 'app' for ipad and amongst the bits of footage on it is this, which is of historical interest for folk of a certain age (like me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWrNWSXzE70

mmmm

http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/picture-gallery/blur-21-the-box-first-pictures/

The app is pretty cool. And the box looks solid, if a bit unspectacular for the price.

£110 quid at Sainsbury's!

$154 at Amazon for anyone Stateside.

Decided to forego the box and just get the deluxe editions instead. Picked up 'Modern Life...' through to '13" today, will get the other 2 later. Some decent b-sides from the 'Modern Life' era, however the 'Parklife' ones are fairly inessential (though that would have been easy enough to discover at any point in the last 18 years.

The boxes are nice, as are the booklets. Some quotes from the band and additional context/narrative from Miranda Sawyer.

If I'd looked earlier and seen Sainsbury's were doing the box at that price I may have been swayed that way.

I ordered the LP box, consoled by the fact I can get at the b-sides in mp3 format (which I already have, but am probably missing a few). I figured in the end I would listen to my vinyl whereas the CDs would just get parked beside their older doppelgangers. Wish the b-sides had been included on vinyl though!

Local HMV had a couple of the individual vinyl versions, but they were twice the price of the CDs so I went for quantity I'm afraid!

oh, I don't blame you! The LP box all in was about $14 per album so I was happy.

lovely to see my favourite ever piece of band sleeve credits so prominently in the Modern Life remaster CD. simple, effective.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7zikkUPs31qgsytqo3_1280.jpg

There's no way I can afford the boxed set right now but am kind of tempted by the individual albums, particularly MLIR. Gutted (though not really surprised) that the rarities CDs won't be sold separately.

Don't skip the expanded 'Leisure' on account of it being their worst as the b-sides are generally miles better than most of the album. MLIR overall has the best bonus tracks.

Bought MLIR this afternoon, not had a chance to play it yet but very impressed by the boxed presentation and inserts. Nicely done.

I ended up going back and getting 'Leisure' today, thought about 'Think Tank' to complete the set but the bonus stuff wasn't really all that enticing. Maybe if I find it cheap enough sometime.

'Inertia' is a Leisure era 'B' side yes? That song is amazing. 'Mr Briggs' is fun too.

Oh man and 'Uncle Love'

yup, their bsides were so great. Young & Lovely, All Your Life, Swallows in a Heatwave.. I can even make a case for Got Yer if anyone really needs me to.

I lovingly and carefully curated a four-disc B-sides compilation called Young & Lovely shortly after Think Tank came out. It was great listening, even if far from complete and sourced from dodgy places at many points.

If you can really make a case for 'Got Yer' you shouldn't be hanging around a msge board you should be presenting arguments to the Supreme Court ;)
xp

*gunshot noises*

Got yer.

Got my Blur box. Silly excited.

Dropped major hints that this would make a great birthday present, but I have a month to wait...

I dropped a bunch of the same (my 30th is in NOvember) but then decided it wasn't good surprise/keepsake birthday material (it's my 30th birthday and first as his wife, damnit, I want jewelery) and mentioned to A that I was going to buy it for myself and he exploded: "Damnit, Lex! I keep trying to dodge your hints so that it would be a surprise.." Anyway, it's on its way and I will be more sentimental over a nice necklace or pair of earrings.

That makes sense, its my 36th so not really a special one and I'm usually really bad at giving people ideas, so... this.

It's an early 40th birthday present for me.

yeah, I'm really hard to shop for so I thought the box was a good idea too, but I was far too antsy about having to wait six months. A month is doable!

cd box was just delivered to my doorstep. listening to "leisure" now. remastering was done really well. flipped through the book real quick... just a bunch of pictures of dudes, which is not really my thing. might read through it later. it's nice to have "sing" on a cd that isn't the trainspotting soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOYvKUJO6I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEOlUqalUTQ

Argh. Is that one of the fan club gigs?

that was a show for the bbc tonight

Oh wow! I wish Toronto was more Blur-friendly. Thank god for YouTube!

6Music set:
Jubilee
The Puritan
Caramel
Trimm Trabb
Young and Lovely
Under The Westway
Intermission

Radio 2 set:

Tracy Jacks
Beetlebum
Out of Time
Young and Lovely
End of a Century
Mr Briggs
Tender
This is a Low
Under the Westway
Popscene
For Tomorrow
The Universal

wow. what a strange and awesome setlist.

The remaster job on the early records is outstanding. Stunned by how much there is to explore in the box; I've never heard many of the b-sides, let alone the rarities discs.

The book is nice, though the "new interview" doesn't shed much light on things.

think tank b-sides are a lot stronger than i remember them being.

I got mine last night. Unfortunately I had to go out so couldn't sit around all night listening but I gave 'Blur' a spin. Hoping that the download codes that came with it include the b-sides - I could use a nice, complete collection! (Some are rips from ~2001 from my friend's Special Collector box)

yeah, both the the cd and vinyl boxes come with downloads of the b-sides/rarities discs. wish i knew that before buying the cd box.

Could you return it, maybe? I figured either way I could burn a CD of the rarities. Wish they were on vinyl though! Ah well.

are there any gems on the rarity discs? or is it mostly yeah-i-see-why-they-left-that-off stuff?

Bought MLIR at the weekend. Very pleased with the package on the whole, but the mastering - it's almost too clear, makes it sound strangely synthetic in places, like a MIDI version of the originals. Also, listening to MLIR all the way through for the first time in a good while reveals it to be a very different record to Parklife whereas I'd always previously heard them as being two peas of the same pod. There's something very urgent and punk-rocky about MLIR whereas Parklife is much lusher, more poppy, bigger arrangements and a more focused concept.

Love the bonus online thing - I had no idea Young & Lovely was influenced by Scott Walker, but there you go.

there's a few that folk are saying are stand-outs

also..

http://www.spin.com/articles/blurs-21-box-set-21-key-rarities-you-need-hear?utm_source=spintwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spintwitter

Blur were the band who made me believe, as a young lad, that it was common practice to print guitar chords as well as lyrics on CD inlays, and I was disappointed to realise this was not the case.

yeah almost no one does that come to think of it.

Young And Lovely has been played on all the small tour dates this summer and looks like it'll be played at the Hyde Park Olympics gig. amazing really, they never even played it on the Modern Life.. or Parklife tours bitd; they've realised after 2 decades that it's one of their best ever songs! i think the official Blur forum has a lot to do with that too (Graham C is often on there).

They've always known..

They used to do that thing where if the label liked a particular song, they'd ignore it and put it out as a b-side at most.

Happily, I tracked down a Jap copy of MLIR which includes it.

21 tracks on that Spin thingie and no mention of the "Far Out" demo?

Anybody use the download code yet? Is there good extra stuff that isn't on the discs?

there's a rumour going round that a certain ex frontman of a Manchester band is going to guest with them on Beetlebum (always his fave Blur song)at Hyde Park. i SO hope that's true.

yeah i did. there's a reproduction of their fanmail letters from the era and an audiofile in the form of a YouTube including a snippet of an interview. You get 10% off at the Blur store... err... I think that's mostly it...

Thanks for the info, dl!

a certain ex frontman of a Manchester band is going to guest with them on Beetlebum (always his fave Blur song)

Tom Hingley?

I saw Tom Hingley do an acoustic set above a pub a little while ago - really low key thing and he was actually bordering sensational.

He puts up wallpaper too?

well he's a jack of all trades, but I wouldn't trust him to fix your carpets.

Others too have recounted Albarn’s pivotal meeting with Graham Coxon at school and discovery of Alex James at London’s Goldsmiths College, as well as the band’s early uncertain steps. It is worth briefly considering the band’s first name, Seymour, however. For decades, historians have entertained themselves by asking whether Adolf Hitler could have come to power and the horrors of WW2 unfolded if he had still gone by his family’s original name of Schicklgruber. Would the German nation have really been able to embrace the cry of “Heil Schicklgruber”? Similarly, could Blur have really become such a deep and engrained part of our pop life if they’d been called Seymour, could that name have been chanted across Hyde Park on Sunday instead of Blur?

http://poplifer.com/2012/08/16/sometimes-i-wonder-if-im-here-blurblog-2-leisure-time-to-modern-life/

the Andy Partridge version of 'Coping' is the best 'new' Blur track i've heard since Tender in 99. usually those here's-one-we-made-earlier abandoned sessions that bands put out on a box set or re-issue have a charm perhaps and maybe you'd even play them more than once or twice before putting them back on the shelf forever. but this.. this is incendiary, especially for the british guitar pop of that era. i can't believe how much better it is than the album version nor what they were thinking not putting it out as it was; baffling that it's been sat in a can for 2 decades.

I like it a lot but prefer the structure and revised lyrics of the final version, though there is definitely the bias of being familiar with it for 18 years.

So, yeah, my wife did get me this box for my birthday. I just opened it, so I haven't dug in much, but it looks wonderful.

Congrats! It is awesome.

And Happy Birthday, whenever that may be.

Today, actually. For another 90 minutes anyway.

I like that you can download PDF versions of all the copies of the Blurb newsletter, nice touch.