Forgotten Songs of the '90s: Blur
Forgotten Songs of the ‘90s: Blur
Everyone knows Blur as one of the biggest British bands of the ‘90s but at the start of the decade, they were just another band trying to break their way through. After a relatively successful first album, 1991’s Leisure, they settled in to make their second album. One of the songs that was intended to be on the album ended up being one of their best songs: “Popscene.”
The sessions for the second album were harsh as the band were trying to figure out how to expand on their sound. On Leisure, they were poppy but had a bit of an edge, with this new record they were trying to build on that edge. The intro of “Popscene,” one immediately realizes they’ve started off on the right track with a swirling guitar trance courtesy of Graham Coxon that leads into one of the coolest bass riffs of the decade by Alex James that kicks the song off with a bang. Then when Dave Rowntree comes in hitting harder than he’d ever done to that point, the band builds louder and louder until Damon Albarn comes in with a better pitch than previously heard before. The band are all on the same page and going at full tilt and that helps bring the song’s energy to the forefront where it refuses to leave.
The song is about the band’s feelings towards the music scene at that time in 1992 and how it was already becoming more and more homogenized and less real. Even almost twenty years later, the song still rings true and it doesn’t hurt that the song is still among the loudest and hardest songs Blur ever did. So take a peek at the weirdly obscure video and decide what you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR7jgl1Qf3s
Everyone knows Blur as one of the biggest British bands of the ‘90s but at the start of the decade, they were just another band trying to break their way through. After a relatively successful first album, 1991’s Leisure, they settled in to make their second album. One of the songs that was intended to be on the album ended up being one of their best songs: “Popscene.”
The sessions for the second album were harsh as the band were trying to figure out how to expand on their sound. On Leisure, they were poppy but had a bit of an edge, with this new record they were trying to build on that edge. The intro of “Popscene,” one immediately realizes they’ve started off on the right track with a swirling guitar trance courtesy of Graham Coxon that leads into one of the coolest bass riffs of the decade by Alex James that kicks the song off with a bang. Then when Dave Rowntree comes in hitting harder than he’d ever done to that point, the band builds louder and louder until Damon Albarn comes in with a better pitch than previously heard before. The band are all on the same page and going at full tilt and that helps bring the song’s energy to the forefront where it refuses to leave.
The song is about the band’s feelings towards the music scene at that time in 1992 and how it was already becoming more and more homogenized and less real. Even almost twenty years later, the song still rings true and it doesn’t hurt that the song is still among the loudest and hardest songs Blur ever did. So take a peek at the weirdly obscure video and decide what you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR7jgl1Qf3s
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