Artist.......: Blur
Album........: Au ZΘnith de Paris
Label........: Warner
Genre........: Alt. Rock
Catnr........: n/a
Source.......: DVBS
Rip.date.....: 2015-12-20
Str.date.....: 2015-06-15
Quality......: 236kbps/48.0kHz/Joint Stereo
Url..........: http://www.blur.co.uk/
track title time
1. Au ZΘnith de Paris 73:20
* Go Out
* There's No Other Way
* Lonesome Street
* Bad Head
* Coffee An TV
* Out Of Time
* Thought I Was A Space Man
* Trimm Trabb
* Beetlebum
* Tender
* Song 2
* Girls And Boys
* For Tomorrow
* The Universal
Runtime 73:20
Size 123.97
Release Notes:
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Initially, Blur were one of the multitude of British bands that appeared in the
wake of the Stone Roses, mining the same swirling, pseudo-psychedelic guitar
pop, only with louder guitars. Following an image makeover in the mid-'90s, the
group emerged as the most popular band in the U.K., establishing itself as heir
to the English guitar pop tradition of the Kinks, the Small Faces, the Who, the
Jam, Madness, and the Smiths. In the process, the group broke down the doors for
a new generation of guitar bands that became labeled as Brit-pop. With Damon
Albarn's wry lyrics and the group's mastery of British pop tradition, Blur were
the leader of Brit-pop, but they quickly became confined by the movement; since
they were its biggest band, they nearly died when the movement itself died.
Through some reinvention, Blur reclaimed their position as an art pop band in
the late '90s by incorporating indie rock and lo-fi influences, which finally
gave them their elusive American success in 1997. But the band's legacy remained
in Britain, where they helped revitalize guitar pop by skillfully updating the
country's pop traditions.
Originally called Seymour, the group was formed in London in 1989 by
vocalist/keyboardist Albarn along with guitarist Graham Coxon and bassist Alex
James, with drummer Dave Rowntree joining the lineup shortly afterward. After
performing a handful of gigs and recording a demo tape, the band signed to Food
Records, a subsidiary of EMI run by journalist Andy Ross and former Teardrop
Explodes keyboardist Dave Balfe. Balfe and Ross suggested that the band change
its name, submitting a list of alternate names for the group's approval. From
that list, the group took the name Blur.
"She's So High," the group's first single, made it into the Top 50 while the
follow-up, "There's No Other Way," went Top Ten. Both singles were included on
their 1991 Stephen Street-produced debut album, Leisure. Although it received
favorable reviews, the album fit neatly into the dying Manchester pop scene,
causing some journalists to dismiss the band as manufactured teen idols. For the
next two years, Blur struggled to distance themselves from the scene associated
with the sound of their first album.
Released in 1992, the snarling "Pop Scene" was Blur's first attempt at changing
their musical direction. A brash, spiteful rocker driven by horns, the neo-mod
single was punkier than anything the band had previously recorded and its hooks
were more immediate and catchy. Despite Blur's clear artistic growth, "Pop
Scene" didn't fit into the climate of British pop and American grunge in 1992
and failed to make an impression on the U.K. charts. Following the single's
commercial failure, the group began work on its second album, Modern Life Is
Rubbish, a process that would take nearly a year and a half.
XTC's Andy Partridge was originally slated to produce Modern Life Is Rubbish,
but the relationship between Blur and Partridge quickly soured, so Street was
again brought in to produce the band. After spending nearly a year in the
studio, the band delivered the album to Food. The record company rejected it,
declaring that it needed a hit single. Blur went back into the studio and
recorded Albarn's "For Tomorrow," which would turn out to be a British hit. Food
was ready to release the record, but the group's U.S. record company, SBK,
believed there was no American hit single on the record and asked them to return
to the studio. Blur complied and recorded "Chemical World," which pleased SBK
for a short while; the song would become a minor alternative hit in the U.S. and
charted at number 28 in the U.K. Modern Life Is Rubbish was set for release in
the spring of 1993 when SBK asked Blur to re-record the album with producer
Butch Vig (Nirvana, Sonic Youth). The band refused and the record was released
in May in Britain; it appeared in the United States that fall. Modern Life Is
Rubbish received good reviews in Britain, peaking at number 15 on the charts,
yet it failed to make much of an impression in the U.S.
Modern Life Is Rubbish turned out to be a dry run for Blur's breakthrough album,
Parklife. Released in April 1994, Parklife entered the charts at number one and
catapulted the band to stardom in Britain. The stylized new wave dance-pop
single "Girls and Boys" entered the charts at number five; the single managed to
spend 15 weeks on the U.S. charts, peaking at number 52, but the album never
cracked the charts. It was a completely different story in England, as Blur had
a string of hit singles, including the ballad "To the End" and the mod anthem
"Parklife," which featured narration by Phil Daniels, the star of the film
version of the Who's Quadrophenia.
With the success of Parklife, Blur opened the door for a flood of British indie
guitar bands that dominated British pop culture in the mid-'90s. Oasis,
Elastica, Pulp, the Boo Radleys, Supergrass, Gene, Echobelly, Menswear, and
numerous other bands all benefited from the band's success. By the beginning of
1995, Parklife had gone triple platinum and Blur had become superstars. The
group spent the first half of 1995 recording its fourth album and playing
various one-off concerts, including a sold-out stadium show. Blur released
"Country House," the first single from their new album, in August amidst a
flurry of media attention because Albarn had the single's release moved up a
week to compete with the release of "Roll with It," a new single from Blur's
chief rival, Oasis. The strategy backfired. Although Blur won the battle, with
"Country House" becoming the group's first number one single, they ultimately
lost the war, as Oasis became Britain's biggest band with their second album,
(What's the Story) Morning Glory?, completely overshadowing the follow-up to
Parklife, The Great Escape. While The Great Escape entered the U.K. charts at
number one and earned overwhelmingly positive reviews, it sold in smaller
numbers, and by the beginning of 1996, Blur were seen as has-beens, especially
since they once again failed to break the American market, where Oasis had been
particularly successful.
In the face of negative press and weak public support, Blur nearly broke up in
early 1996, but they instead decided to spend the entire year out of the
spotlight. By the end of the year, Albarn was declaring that he was no longer
interested in British music and was fascinated with American indie rock, a genre
that Graham Coxon had been supporting for years. These influences manifested
themselves on Blur's fifth album, Blur, which was released in February of 1997
to generally positive reviews. The band's reinvention wasn't greeted warmly in
the U.K. -- the album and its first single, "Beetlebum," debuted at number one
and quickly fell down the charts -- as Blur's mass audience didn't completely
accept their new incarnation. However, the band's revamped sound earned them an
audience in the U.S., where Blur received strong reviews and became a moderate
hit, thanks largely to the popularity of the single "Song 2." The success in
America eventually seeped over to Britain, and by the spring, the album had
bounced back up the charts. 13 followed in 1999.
Albarn stepped out with the hip-hop/pop cartoon group Gorillaz in 2000, a
collaboration with artist Jamie Hewlett that soon eclipsed the popularity of
Blur internationally. Coxon departed during the recording of Blur's next album,
with Albarn stepping in on guitar. One last album, Think Tank, appeared in 2003
but the bandmembers went their separate ways after its release, with Albarn
turning toward Gorillaz and other creative projects. Blur wound up reuniting for
a tour of the U.K. in 2009, preceded by the career retrospective Midlife.
From there, Blur pursued a halting reunion. They played a number of high-profile
gigs in 2009, including headlining Glastonbury, then in 2010 a documentary of
the band's history called No Distance Left to Run appeared. Along with it came
"Fool's Day," a limited-edition single timed to coincide with 2010's Record
Store Day. 2011 turned out to be quiet, but 2012 was a bustling year for Blur,
with the band delving deep into their past for the exhaustive box set Blur 21,
which contained double-disc reissues of all of their seven studio albums plus
four discs of unreleased material and three DVDs. Along with this box came
"Under the Westway/The Puritan," a single to support the box and the group's
headlining spot at the closing Olympic ceremonies in August 2012. That concert
at Hyde Park was released digitally the following week as Parklive; it later
came out as a physical release that year.
Blur continued to play shows into 2013; one of these included a gig in Hong Kong
that was cancelled. The band used the downtime to record a bunch of material
that lay unused until Coxon started working with producer Stephen Street to turn
them into completed tracks in November of 2014. Soon, a full album came into
shape. Blur announced the release of this record, now entitled The Magic Whip,
for April of 2015.
RLS-Crc: 51554245:34F23BC24222