Blur - Midlife
Parlophone/EMI
By Andrew P Street
Look, I'm not a grouchy, stick-in-the-mud sort of a reviewer – compilations, by their very nature, are imperfect creations and hard choices must necessarily be made – but this double-disc collection spanning Blur's career from 1991 to the present raises one very important (if rhetorical) question: what sort of "beginner's guide to Blur" doesn't contain 'There's No Other Way'?
I mean, sure: we have all the other obvious inclusions over the 25 tracks, with just about every single included: 'Song 2', 'Beetlebum', 'Tender', 'Girls and Boys', 'Parklife', 'Coffee and TV', 'For Tomorrow' et al – but not, interestingly, their first UK number one 'Country House', which suggests that the Blur-Oasis wars of the 90s have left some scars. There are also some choice album cuts like 'Sing' (given new life via a pivotal scene in Trainspotting), Parklife's stately closer 'This Is a Low' and 'Battery in Your Leg' (which was the only track on 2003's Thinktank to feature guitarist Graham Coxon, whose acrimonious departure sidelined the band for the past seven years). It even includes the hard-to-find non-album single 'Popscene', a frantic piece of guitar pop that marked the band's transition from the bandwagon-jumping shoegazers of 1991's Leisure into the arch-proto-Britpop of Modern Life Is Rubbish. However, ignoring the band's first hit – especially one that more of less called time on the "baggy" movement and is still a guaranteed floor-filled at any retro indie night – just seems downright perverse.
The flimsy inner sleeve isn't much chop either: album release dates and some context-setting world events might help rock trivia quizmasters ("Which Blur album was realeased in the year of the first multiracial elections in South Africa?") but does little to explain the music – and Blur are a band whose music genuinely warrants critical discussion. And if 'Popscene' is on there, would it have killed EMI to include some b-sides (and by that I pretty much just mean 'Chemical World''s superb b-side 'Young and Lovely', which is the greatest Kinks single that never was)? No, it would not.
The songs are still great, mind. But no 'There's No Other Way'? Really, lads? Really?
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