Have Blur made the ‘perfect’ comeback?
There are many bigger ones, but revisionism is a nagging 21st century problem.
In the rush to condemn the present, society is increasingly reliant on misrepresenting the past. This applies persistently in music, manifesting itself in noisy proclamations that such and such a thing is the perfect album, a flawless work of art whose merits lie way above your uneducated palate (mate).
Blur aren’t falling for it. The older you get the more you realise that perfection is a myth, that flaws make for grain and the fantasy of ideal is solely the luxurious delusion of the idealist themselves. No, Damon, Alex, Graham and Dave know how to do it wrong, and they’re experienced enough to turn that into a loveable strength.
Take the quartet’s last album, 2015’s The Magic Whip, their first in twelve years. Assembled in the manner of a Frankenstein, it was never posited as some kind of messianic second coming, just an interesting bunch of new material rescued from the cutting room floor. And it was because of this savvy advance lowering of the critical bar that the results were easier to love, if only from a distance.
The Ballad Of Darren is, if anything, even lower key. When Albarn and Blur began considering performing live again the singer revealed he’d been working on new material whilst touring with Gorillaz. After bringing in producer-du-jour James Ford, the subsequent recording process had them as a basic unit again for the first time since 1993’s breakthrough Modern Life Is Rubbish, a potential recipe for sulks and tantrums all round.
The result though is arguably Blur’s most direct, vulnerable sounding album, although that’s not to say it lacks accessibility. Even in their now very-of-its-time Britpop phase Albarn lyrically drew people, and here characters from Blur’s thirty-five-year history lurk in and out of focus; some living, some ghosts.
Opener The Ballad neatly illustrates this dichotomy. A reflection on the winding road they’ve taken, its louche trappings – mournful piano, strings, multi-tracked harmonies – feel just like the sort of thing Alex Turner’s been roasted for, with Coxon breathily countering, ‘I Met you at an early show/We travelled round the world together’.
Far less indulgent is St. Charles Square, a Bowie-aping romp that, whisper it quietly, bears more than a passing resemblance to early Suede. ‘I fucked up’, Albarn muses ‘I’m not the first to do it’, whilst the rest of the number deals with monsters under the floorboards. You want answers? You’ll need to find an old-fashioned postcard to write them on first.
Being playful enigmas might have a ring of square pegs for round holes, but at least The Narcissist’s vague, mirror-biting cynicism loops directly into the rollercoaster of stardom, tales of motorway service stations and acid dropping over the sort of quaking riff Blur practically invented, one you felt they might never revisit again.
It’s not luck that this odd territory intersects neatly it feels with the older, wiser, chastened band of now. Barbaric sounds anything but, Goodbye Albert’s bubbling synth undertow and weird, angular guitar lines are a surprisingly snug fit jigsaw-wise, whilst Avalon and its, ‘grey painted aero planes/On their way to war’, oscillates wearily between gentle brass and Bowie (again).
Even in these doldrums a sense of theatre hasn’t deserted them however. Masters of leaving ‘em waning more, closer The Heights builds to a dissolute climax before, without the slightest hint, colliding with a brick wall. It’s an ending fit for a record which proves comebacks are somebody else’s problem and other people’s aspirations are just that.
Perfect? Not a chance. But in ten years’ you’ll probably say it was.
