DommeDamian
Imperfect, sensitive Aspie with a melody addiction
Gender: Male
Age: 24
Location: where the flowers grow. 
- #3
- Posted: 09/19/2024 21:02
- Post subject:
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Oh boy, what to say about Blur's 13. To put it candidly, it's proto-Gorillaz, but a bit more experimental even by today's crazy standards. The fact that it is not mentioned, praised, or universally appreciated as much as the other alternative/art rock albums is a crime for the musical ages, the same way it is an album for the books. It's compelling but not very friendly. Any new Blur listener, who's a pop fan, would run away from this album, screaming in fear. It sort of tricks you into easy-listening territory with the first song.
If you've heard the album many times, you'll notice that the low-fidelity acoustic intro on the first track Tender, sounds off in the way it plays the riff. My interpretation is that something IS off. And this is actually by far the most positive and super accessible song on the album, very reminiscent of their glory Britpop years. It's a gospel-y slacker rock classic, and you believe 'em both when Damon sings "Lord, I need someone to heal my mind" in his desperate, characteristic falsetto and "Love's the greatest thing" in fulfilling bass. Normally I dislike these lengthy chanty songs, but Tender is the massive exception, I just keep singing along with the guys.
Following that, Bugman smashes and squeezes the ears to the fullest with superlative abrasive guitar engineering, and sounds of machines and blenders. It basically sounds like a noise rock parody of their satirical material. After listening to the album, it's almost ethereal without ever coming close to the realms of Shoegaze. The song dares you to turn it off by becoming harsher and harsher until it trumps into another experimental slack instrumental with more unidentifiable sounds, and that exceeds into a spacey outro, that mostly sounds schizophrenic on top. Genuine masterpiece of a song.
This shadowy sequencing keeps the listener intrigued, every corner being surprising. I would say the quirkiness is the most memorable on Trailerpark, both in music and lyrical appearance. Though it's affectional when Damon rambles "I lost my girl to the Rolling Stones" it's supposed to represent a druggy state of mind because the drug in the system is coping. 1992 is a nihilistic version of Sing; same build-up, but it's drenched in depression and industrial alienation, and the song, by this lingering sound, pushes me further into hellish topography.
Half of the cuts here contain a small instrumental after its initial song. Caramel actually has two, after its wounded statement of "I gotta get better", and caramel being a metaphor for tempting heroin. (The record was recorded during a break-up because he couldn't control himself, from what I have read, this cut signals it most clearly of being trapped in your own head). After the song fades out with that guitar line that I invariably remember, there's both a vintage jazz skit and then a small electro-rock beat. Most eerie mini-instrumental is the closer Optigan 1, its own cut without a longer song beforehand, nonetheless exceeding the song paints giving up awesomely, No Distance Left To Run - certainly my least favorite song despite being popular amongst fans.
There's more of a flow in Mellow Song, starting with very moody acoustic singer-songwriter for two minutes and then breaking into an art rock instrumental accompanied by rhythmic synth, reversed guitar, and sparky harpsichord. You can hear the prototype for the song Punk on Gorillaz s/t on BLUREMI, which sounds like a destruction of their Modern Life songs, and also like classic punk rock for the Trip hop generation. It's paradoxical that the absorbed cute instrumental comes right after, followed by a neo-psychedelia veteran in Battle. For every musical strophe, a new fringe sound visits the bouquet, and Damon is even harder to follow in matter of expression. Damon channels a maniacal Robert Smith on Swamp Song, beside the musicianship whose dynamic is the quintessence of alternative rock.
Lastly, I wanna talk a little about Coffee & TV. Right off the top of my head, I can deem this as the song that has made me cry the very most. And I never cry, I wish I cried more, not many songs make me cry at all. This six-minute cut, literally indescribable to me. Both a nursery and existential composition at the same time, the lead guitar compassionately cries along with me, vividly weeps in the chorus too. Graham's voice is that of both a loner on the verge of suicide and a fundamentally empathetic angel. The bass and drum dialogue in the background symbolizes falling to pieces and trying to pick 'em up simultaneously. Throughout, there's both a distorted tortured guitar "solo" that succumbs to its desolation, an ambiguous piano line near the end that could mean anything spectacular, and a keyboard outro that's the audio equivalent of the most delicate flower in the heart blooming, as when I have cried my tears were also interior rain drops. That much iconic "Take me away from this big bad world, and agree to marry me, so we can start over again" completely indicates and embodies the childlike urgency inside me to get away from everything, from myself, from this chaotic life, and give it a new. It all says itself, my best-loved song of all time. In 13's context, it is track 3, which means at that point you could express the melancholy and inner depression very precisely, cause later deeper into the album, the devil of depression and numbness even hijacks this and gets it to an even more disturbing and nightmarish level.
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