While music fans have a tendency to look back on any notable ‘movement’ (a dubious term if ever there was one) with rose-coloured glasses, it is considerably hard to fault Blur when they were at their Britpop peak.
The band’s popularity was indebted to their wry, hook-laden pop rock just as much as it was the aura that the band just seemed to channel around themselves – you simply couldn’t imagine the members belonging in any other band.
However, if we really had to nitpick, it could be argued that the band was always just a little too intelligent for their own good. At times it felt like they were dealing with a mid-life crisis whilst still in their 20s.
Perhaps that’s why the band’s new album, The Magic Whip, doesn’t feel awkward or as though it’s coming years too late. The Magic Whip sits comfortably alongside the rest of the band’s catalog, which had previously culminated in 2003’s Think Tank, which most agreed was an anticlimax.
Think Tank, which followed on from 1999’s superb 13, was Blur’s first album without guitarist Graham Coxon and it stands to reason that it’s arguably their weakest effort, since you need all the parts for the Blur machine to work.
The Magic Whip marks the return of Coxon to the Blur fold, as well as producer Stephen Street, who last manned the decks on their self-titled 1997 effort. Seemingly, all the right ingredients for a classic Blur album are in place on The Magic Whip.
In many ways, a classic Blur album is precisely what you get. Damon Albarn’s lyrics are thoughtful and tongue-in-cheek, Coxon’s guitar leads are infectious, and bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree are still one of the most reliable rhythm sections in British rock.
However, The Magic Whip is a distinctly modern album. The clues are even in the tracklist, with song titles like ‘There Are Too Many of Us’, which echoes sentiments expressed by the protagonist of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451.
Much of the album’s modern sheen comes not only from Albarn’s 21st Century neuroses, which he’s been fine-tuning in infamous interviews over the past decade, but from the projects that the respective members have been involved with over that decade.
Throughout The Magic Whip, one can hear distinct shades of Gorillaz, Albarn’s wildly successful cross-genre and cross-media collaboration with artist Jamie Hewlett, Coxon’s solo career, and James’ various interim projects.
As a result, the music often belies the sinister elements in Albarn’s lyrics. The Magic Whip is a fun album through and through, and tracks like ‘Lonesome Street’, ‘Ice Cream Man’, ‘Thought I Was a Spaceman’, and ‘My Terracotta Heart’ depict a band that’s inspired and fully regained their powers.
The album also retains the taste for genre-bending that Albarn developed during his Gorillaz days, with the album shifting and morphing between indie rock, reggae, prog rock, and soul, all bearing the internationalist charm that only a band as clever (and bourgeois) as Blur could muster.
There’s a noted maturation in Albarn’s words, which eschew the blunt metaphors of old Blur, the instrumentation is slick and professional, lacking any art school band pomp, and the album is sublime in its cohesiveness.
Still, the hallmarks of classic Blur are all there, embedded in The Magic Whip‘s textures, in its dynamics, in its moods. The Magic Whip just works, and why shouldn’t it? The band are all together again at last.
Blur’s ‘The Magic Whip’ is out now via Warner Music.
