Dont judge an album via it's singles.
You are reading my username | Adelaide, South Australia | 03/24/2008
(2 out of 5 stars)
"OK I'll admit I bought thier best of album for two reasons, Song 2 and the clever artwork and after a few listens I loved it. What I loved in particular was the songs off that album which were taken off the album "Blur", Song 2 is a given but also the amazing calm and catchiness of Beetlebum and the electronicly driven On Your Own. So on the back of those songs, I assumed this was Blur's best album and bought it.
I had high hopes on first listen and I was conflicted. How could an album with some such amazing songs be so... bad? The first few songs are great but once part 2 of the album kicks in you end up fastforwarding through all the songs until you reach the end. I've only listened to the whole album twice and couldn't again, and unfortunately the "white noise" path would be the one they followed in future years."
Classic
Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber | Mahwah, NJ USA | 10/18/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I love a band who works on a challange, even better when they don't need to. Blur's self-titled album could not be a better example.
Modern Life is Rubbish, Park Life and Great Escape showed the band mastered every cornor of Brittish 60s pop. Here, they come to the colonies, and do one of the best summeries of the Nirvana/Pavement/Beck influanced rock, then the most vibrent music in the U.S.
"Beatledom" is Brit pop, but filtered thought grungy American guitar fuzz. "Song 2," the hit, is grunge, but Blur play it in an offhand way at a point when the music was getting comercallized and compressed. Even pieces that seeem offhabnd--"Country Sad Ballad Man," beat the most plodded hits of bands like Local H or Seven Mary Three. Kind of reminds you of four other guys from England, doesn't it.
"Exess Dogs" is a long, creepy jam, augmented with eletronics. Not for the faint of heart, it contains almost an albums worth of ideas, some quite dissonenet. Love it or hate it, the piece does give you a window into A-what great players these guys are in unformatted work, and B-the avant guard edge this band had. It all seems genuine, and I wonder how typical a look it is into their workshop.
Essentail"