Blur - Song 2 (Official Music Video)
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The official music video for Blur - Song 2 Taken from Blur’s 5th studio album ‘Blur’ released in 1997, which featured the hit singles ‘Beetlebum’, ‘Song 2’,...

A bit on the later end of the “Classic Rock Timeline,” this album to me represents a key point in the transition from 80s-90s garage band movements (like the various waves of Punk Rock, alternative, grunge, Britpop and News Wave) to the 2000s “post-punk” era. You can hear the reckless, stripped down early punk inspiration going all the way back to the likes of the Ramones and the rollicking baseline of alternative rockers like Smashing Pumpkins. This accents the production and fuzziness of the 2000s Strokes and - of course - Gorillaz. Blur frontman Damon Albarn would go on to found Gorillaz, a connection which can really be heard on tracks like this, but also on more experimental Blur tracks like Music is My Radar. That’s my personal take on it. What do you think?

  • bstix@feddit.dkEnglish
    2·
    4 months ago

    I never paid much attention to them at the time, though I actually had that cd. My wife (whom I met later) is a huge fan, and she managed to turn me over. I’ve seen then live 3 times and it’s been really great to see these songs performed live.

    Song 2 was written as a joke. You can tell from Wikipedia or by looking at how they play the instruments. The bass is distorted, which sound-wise is a huge no-no, the drummer is playing the rims of the bass drum as a hi-hat and the guitarist is playing the main riff above frets 10. All of which is exactly the wrong thing to do. And it works fine.

    I don’t think it has much meaning to it compared to their other songs, but it along with Beetlebum from the same album points back in time. Before there even was britpop, there was a bunch of these semi-punk bands in the UK. Try to compare Beetlebum to the song “That Petrol Emotion - Catch a fire” which predates it by some 5-10 years and you’ll see it.

    In this way, Blur has a similarity to Gun’s’Roses, who also got huge recognition from “sweet child of my mine”, which originally was a joke, and their catalogue which it basically what the band Hanoi Rocks was never allowed to achieve.(due to the death of the drummer).

    I don’t mean this in any demeaning way. Everything builds on something, it’s just that the influence isn’t always clear because many things don’t reach the mainstream like these bands did.

    Also, there never really was a britpop war. In hindsight… blur is greater than pop music.

    Everyone knows how to play Wonderswall. How many do you know who can a single blur song?