(B) Blur - Caramel

• published: 23 Nov 2015
• views: 4

Thom, Damon and Harry. I must open with a disclaimer. Today’s episode of BOT isn’t funny okay. I had, as requested, penned my Blur appraisal and then was left with a problem. Normally I accompany an essay with the appropriate music, either an edit or a recommendation, but when it came to Blur I had neither of these to offer. There was nothing meeting the high standards that I aim to maintain on this show. So instead I thought, fuck it, you’re a BOT and that’s the end of it. Why don’t I have time for Blur? Blur have a respectable number of memorable tunes to their name. They certainly have ability, and to that I have no doubt. But if you listen to their output from first to last there is very little in the way of growth. There is no sense of an emotional thread that guides a listener through their work, which pretty much means that the band aren’t emotionally guided themselves, at least not to the degree they ought to be. Because of this their music is over complicated with cluttered production in an attempt to give their work more weight. Emotionally charged writing always finds the path of least resistance because it’s importance lies not in the music but about the changes that the artist hopes the music will bring. Blur do with pop music what McCartney, The Kinks, Talking Heads and what Pulp do. They pick a subject matter and write a song about it in a reflective storytelling manner; and therein lies the problem. The best music does so much more than merely reflect. It presents problems and then offers solutions, a sonic salvation if you will, as is apparent in the best of U2, the Stone Roses, The Sex Pistols, Public Enemy, Leftfield and, most specifically, Radiohead, a band that Blur sound increasingly like with each successive album. There is nothing wrong with that in itself okay. There is nothing wrong at all with paying a respectful nod to a contemporary and allowing yourself to be influenced by them. It goes with the territory. The Stones did it with the Beatles and still managed to cut the mustard very much in their own right. All artists, one way or the other, emulate what have come before them but the problem with Blur emulating Radiohead is that they are doing it, as far as I’m concerned, for superficial reasons. They hear the style but not the impetus behind the style. Radiohead got to where they are by being emotionally guided. They sought salvation in their music through an inner turmoil and allowed that turmoil to steer their course, to find a solution. Blur on the other hand got to where they are because they feel it would be a good career move, or at least that is the overall impression their music leaves with me. One does not hear any trace of that essential inner voice that is needed to guide one to the same satisfactory and salvatory conclusions, and as a result Blur’s output is eclectic, directionless and ultimately emotionally limp. They aren’t in a position to inspire their listeners with a problem-solution dynamic in their music because they aren’t engaging themselves with that level of commitment. Before one can present a solution one must first see a problem. And if one sees not a problem then one has a problem. One has a big problem. And one gets the impression from listening to Blur that it is for them, above all else, a bill paying fanny magnet of a job, whereas for Radiohead and the others aforementioned, it is a searing white-hot passion, an insatiable desire to communicate and to heal. It isn’t just what you write about, it’s why you write about it. And when listening to the music of Blur one gets the impression they don’t really know why. ‘Caramel’ is Blur attempting full tilt Radiohead, failing miserably and succeeding only in demonstrating to us just how good Radiohead are by hearing what they do done badly. Don’t get me wrong, there are some nice moments in there but when one is without the necessary emotions needed to guide one through the tricky manoeuvres attempted in a composition with this level of gravitas then one, in an attempt to sound authentic, throws in every superficial drama one can think of into the pot and then hopes for the best. And this is precisely what one is presented with here; a hopeless hodgepodge of high-art histrionics. And the album as a whole isn’t much better. Ersatz emotions don’t fool me Damon; muso’s see right through that disguise. This track is about as moving as a bar of caramel. Still, Dirty Harry makes my day!