by Martin Roach
Pitchfork decided that the album was perhaps a little overshadowed by Albarn himself as the man in charge and, although it was “designed to sound loose and off-the-cuff, sort of like a party – and like a party, it’s more concerned with collective atmosphere than any single performance. The result is that the lesser-known performers here end up sounding more like placeholders than specific people: male rapper, female crooner.”
Icelandic cartoon voiceovers, Afro/funk supergroups and Mandarin simian operas were all well and good, but these seemed like side dishes to many observers. What about the main dish? What about Blur? In December 2008, they got their answer. The band announced that they would be getting back together again for a show in London’s Hyde Park the following summer. One gig surely wouldn’t be enough? It wasn’t long before a second show was added, then more warm-up dates and a headliner slot at Glastonbury. For the World Music dabbler, the indie guitar hero, the would-be councillor and the cheese farmer, the time, it appeared, was right. At the heart of the decision was the relationship between Coxon and Albarn: “Ten years ago Graham and I found ourselves very uncomfortable, very over-sensitive with each other,” Albarn told the NME. “It hasn’t felt comfortable before now. It somehow feels like there’s something for us to do again, we’re not completely useless or pointless, we’ve got a reason to exist.”
Chapter 20
THE ICE CREAM MAN COMETH
Despite rave reviews for all the shows that Blur performed in the summer of 2009 – a campaign they launched at the East Anglian Railway Museum near Colchester, where Seymour played their first gig – the defining moment of the band’s reunion would be provided during their Glastonbury headlining set in June. “Wow, there’s a lot of people here,” Albarn told the crowd, perhaps unnecessarily.
Blur delivered a fan-pleasing “best of” set at the festival, including an inevitable interruption from Phil Daniels for “Parklife”. Then Blur reached “Tender”. The song ended after a rousing eight and a half minutes, only for the crowd to carry on in a moving mass singalong. Albarn would later describe the performance as being, “as beautiful a memory as I will ever have. As a healing moment, I feel very, very privileged to have participated in it. Beautiful.”
Although he indulged in his usual jumping up and down, Damon was seen sitting down and weeping during “To The End”. The tabloid Mirror would later claim that he’d had a row with partner Suzi Winstanley and that the lyric of the song became too much for the singer. Either way it provided another much-talked-about moment in a set filled with drama. “It’s hit after hit after hit,’ said The Guardian in its review of Blur’s performance. “From ‘She’s So High’ to ‘The Universal’, via ‘Popscene’, ‘For Tomorrow’ and ‘Country House’, it’s nothing short of relentless. Some things haven’t changed, of course. Dave is virtually anonymous, Graham spends the most thrilling, spine tingling moments staring at his fretboard and Alex stands on the stage amps, desperate to hog the spotlight that little bit more than his bandmates. We wouldn’t want it any other way. High point: Damon breaking down in tears after ‘To the End’. Talented but not always entirely likable singer proves he’s human after all. The best Glastonbury headliners in an age? It really, really, really did happen.”
Blur’s return generated a mini industry of associated releases: a double live album of recordings from the Hyde Park shows called All The People; a full-length rockumentary called No Distance Left To Run; and – perhaps aware of their status as the elder statesmen of the British rock scene - another “best of” album, this time called Midlife: A Beginner’s Guide To Blur.
So much momentum and goodwill had been built up that it seemed inevitable that there was more to come, maybe even new material. But those expecting more than just nostalgia from the reunion were in for a letdown. Despite encouraging words from Coxon before the gigs when asked about the band going into the recording studio – “We’ll think about it afterwards” – nothing was forthcoming. “That was what we said we’d do and we did it and it was great,” said Alex James when asked about more to come after the reunion gigs. “It hasn’t been mentioned, the idea of doing anything else, but, hey, it was great. I’ve spent the last week staring at a bonfire muttering to myself. I haven’t been able to contain the joy that it brought to all of us. [Glastonbury] was very, very emotional. Everything we hoped it would be and more. What was amazing was the band’s and the audience’s connection. Best gig we’ve ever done. Amazing.”
As if to make the point clear, Albarn almost immediately returned to Gorillaz mode at the start of 2010, with the release of a new track, “Stylo”. Everything seemed present and correct in Gorillaz-land: throbby bass, Kraftwerk synth lines and heavy-hitting collaborators – Mos Def and Bobby Womack on the audio, Bruce Willis on the shoot-’em-up video. That said, a few things were missing – a sense of buzz about the release and any meaningful UK airplay. “Stylo” failed to make much impact, though it was a Top Ten hit in Japan.
Two months later, “Stylo” was followed by a new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach. Although the album immediately went Top Three in the UK and the US, there was almost a sense of its adhering to a tried and trusted template laid down by previous Gorillaz outings. A whiff of concept album (a “meditation on the state of our oceans” inspired by the plastic detritus of society washed up at Hallsands Beach close to Albarn’s home in Devon as inspiration for modern life being, literally, rubbish)? Check. Wonky synths? Check. An eclectic array of collaborators (Mos Def, Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, the National Orchestra for Arabic Music and Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, among many others)? Check. A shouty, incongruous Mancunian (Mark E. Smith of The Fall this time, instead of Shaun Ryder)? Check.
Reviewers seemed to be largely on board, happy to follow Albarn on his latest sonic trek: “Their official Facebook page may list Essex as Gorillaz’ HQ, but this action-packed concept album finds the cartoon band on an isolated island constructed entirely of consumer detritus and exploring the melancholy beauty of mankind’s interaction with the natural world,” said The Telegraph. “It’s a great metaphor for the playful way Damon Albarn has built up the Gorillaz’ danceably eclectic sound from offcuts of hip hop, funk, alternative rock, pop, world and electronica. He doesn’t steal, borrow or lazily recycle from other genres. He lovingly salvages the things they’ve left behind, like a hip, 21st century Womble.”
“Along with a typically diverse band of collaborators, Albarn dips into Krautrock, funk, and dubstep, as well as the weary, more melodic music he’s been perfecting for much of last decade,” said the Pitchfork website. “Sort of an electronic take on baroque pop. Albarn also sounds more comfortable as a leader here than he has in some time. On the standout ‘On Melancholy Hill’, he recalls the swooning strains of one of his heroes, Scott Walker. And when he shares or cedes vocals, he has the good sense to turn things over to luminaries like Lou Reed (magnificently dry-throated on ‘Some Kind of Nature’) and Bobby Womack (good on first single ‘Stylo’, better on the twangy ‘Cloud of Unknowing’), while effortlessly integrating them into the sound.”
The Quietus seemed to acknowledge that Albarn’s eclecticism was as offputting to as many people as it was fascinating to others: “Quite what the record-buying public will make of Plastic Beach is anyone’s guess. Its flaws (overlong, stylistically jarring) are as much to do with the concept itself as the execution: it’s no coincidence that this sounds more like a soundtrack to an imaginary film then a studio record. For all of this, though, it’s a fascinating and frequently wonderful album of real depth and vision, packed with more ideas, tunes and imagination than anything else you’re likely to hear in 2010: a clarion call to the rest of the pop fraternity to raise their collective game.”
The good reviews weren’t to be repeated when Albarn took Gorillaz to Glastonbury in July, the scene of his triumphant shows with Blur the previous year. Gorillaz’ headlining slot – as replacements for U2 after singer Bono was benched with a back injury – seemed to bring out the
worst in critics. Many praised the visuals but panned the music, claiming that mass sections of the crowd walked out during the show. “While the highlights electrified the audience, we came crashing down quickly with the lengthy gaps between songs and the average, slow numbers from the latest album,” said Lucy Jones in the normally Damon-friendly Telegraph. “There may have been a superb collective on stage, but there was no united joy in the audience and people voiced their frustration and boredom.”
To his credit – and perhaps aware that Gorillaz had a world tour to perform – Albarn shouldered responsibility himself: “Basically, the difference between that and the next gig we did at Roskilde [in Denmark], which was the same-sized audience, same age demographic, was I just communicated with the audience more,” he told Radio 1’s Newsbeat. “I introduced Bobby Womack, introduced Lou Reed, introduced anyone. I didn’t take for granted that, if these people were going to be at the front, then there had to be some kind of human interaction. It evolved into something with more human interaction. I know what people were reacting to.”
The tour also produced another Gorillaz album called The Fall, recorded by Albarn in hotel rooms largely using downloadable apps. “I literally made it on the road,” Albarn told Perth Now during the Australian leg of the tour. “I didn’t write it before, I didn’t prepare it. I just did it day by day as a kind of diary of my experience in America.”
The album was set for a December release with a free download available to fan club members on Christmas Day and Albarn was keen for people to know that this Gorillaz album was a guerrilla release – off the cuff, rough and ready. “If I left it until the New Year to release it then the cynics out there would say, ‘Oh well, it’s been tampered with’, but if I put it out now they’d know that I haven’t done anything because I’ve been on tour ever since.”
The usual roll call of collaborators weren’t in evidence this time around – if nothing else because Albarn would have struggled to get them all into his hotel room – and that edged The Fall close to being an Albarn solo effort. Despite its more humble origins and lack of stellar cast, the album still charted at No.12 in the UK.
During all this Gorillaz activity during 2010, Blur managed to slip out a little bit of product, too, in the shape of the vinyl single “Fool’s Day”, with just 1,000 seven-inch copies released to mark Record Store Day. The summery strum-along with an almost Madness-like hook featured many typical lyrical flourishes – TV, the Westway and Ladbroke Grove – but there was also mention of going into the studio. “We just can’t let go,” Albarn crooned. Would he be working with Blur again? “Yes, at some point. Definitely,” he told the BBC.
Inevitably, fans wanted more, something concrete, to show that their faith in the band at the reunion gigs hadn’t been misplaced. “[We’re] trying to put something in place,” drummer Dave Rowntree told the Gigwise website at the start of 2011. “Quite when, I don’t know … who knows what it’s going to end up like? What I do know is that we don’t want to commit ourselves to anything vast at the moment. We’re dipping our toes in the water, which is why we did the single in the way we did. We’ve got all our mates back, and that’s the main thing. That’s the one thing we don’t want to lose.”
Albarn, meanwhile, continued to give the impression of a man with plenty on his plate, regardless of whether the Blur reunion evolved into something with new output connected to it or not. He scored the music for a short film adaption of The Boy in the Oak, a children’s story written and illustrated by his sister Jessica; Gorillaz released a singles compilation; Rocket Juice & The Moon finally became active; and The Good, The Bad & The Queen performed live to mark the 40th anniversary of Greenpeace.
But a key achievement for 2011 would entail a return to the Palace Theatre in Manchester, the scene of Albarn’s critical triumph with Monkey: Journey To The West. Albarn had maintained his creative relationship with the Manchester International Festival after the success of Monkey, working on a score for an “immersive” theatre and film production for the festival called It Felt Like a Kiss in 2009. The result was Dr Dee: An English Opera. It was drawn from the story of Elizabethan renaissance man John Dee – alchemist, astronomer, spy, royal adviser and one-time Manchester resident. Dee packed a great deal into his 80 years on the planet – too much to cram into one opera, even for Albarn. “I’m just selecting some themes and episodes from Dee’s life and meditating on them,” he told The Telegraph. “One thread is the idea of the British Empire, which Dee was the first person to imagine and talk about. I wanted to use this as a way of articulating what I felt about both Dee’s Elizabethan England and mine. Also to suggest how the Reformation ripped a dimension of ritual out of religion and just left us with the tea and biscuits. Dee haunts me, literally – I can sense his spirit hovering around. I’ve been to Chetham’s [music school] in Manchester, where he was sent by the Queen to sort out the religious disputes, I’ve held his manuscript letters in my hand and felt so close to a man who was born nearly five hundred years ago. It’s as though I’m singing from inside him.”
Like Monkey before it, Dr Dee was challenging stuff – maybe more so – and the piece attracted a diverse range of reviews and reviewers. The Guardian couldn’t resist drawing parallels between Dee and Albarn himself – and take a dig at a local rival: “Latter-day polymath Albarn has created an opera based on the life of this mysterious philosopher. The pairing seems irresistible: an inscrutable but undeniably beautiful meditation on Englishness inspired by the man who coined the term ‘Britannia’ and written by a musician who made it cool. Dr Dee is an erudite affair, inspired by the philosopher’s exile to Manchester in the 1580s, where he founded the English speaking world’s first public library. It’s extraordinary to think that whereas Albarn has been bringing himself up to speed with concepts of hermeticism, Euclidian geometry and Rosicrucianism, his erstwhile Britpop rival Liam Gallagher has formed Beady Eye.”
Because of Albarn’s presence, the piece got the kind of coverage that an opera wouldn’t normally get close to, including a review from the NME: “The songs are sombre, stark and beautiful, close in tone to The Good, The Bad & The Queen,” stated the rock music weekly. “And though Albarn has said there’s no reason why someone else shouldn’t sing them, his voice and voyeuristic meta-presence is integral to the opera’s success. Indeed, watching him grin at a well-executed set-piece is as much a part of the show as the events unfolding onstage. The strange, esoteric visuals laid on by director Rufus Norris, meanwhile, complement the music perfectly. One stunningly realised scene sees Dee and his wife making love under the majestic spectre of Elizabeth herself, suspended overhead by flowing golden finery, while another finds him conversing with angels as Albarn conducts his band by dementedly pumping his fists. Even if you’re left wondering what it all means, you can’t help but doff your cap to the sheer spectacle of it all.”
The British Theatre Guide by contrast, felt the show’s selling point was, in a way, its biggest distraction: “Albarn is a constant presence, sat on a step for most of the time with his guitar on the musicians’ platform above the stage watching over the action and singing some of the songs. He looks like a man who is not used to being on stage while someone else is the centre of attention, so when he isn’t singing he is rocking in time with the music, playing air drums or mouthing the words of the songs, which can be a little distracting. When he is singing, it is the familiar warm, Essex tones familiar from his other work with some very nice songs, but the action on stage seems to be illustrating the songs in the manner of an abstract pop video rather than the songs carrying the onstage story forward, and as neither pop singers nor opera singers are generally good at putting across the words clearly it can be difficult to link the two.”
Blur, meanwhile, had finally reached the status of elder statesmen of the British music industry, born out by the decision at the start of 2012 to award the band a BRIT award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. But the award – and what the achievement represent
ed – would be totally overshadowed by an incident at the end of the BRITS show.
Singer Adele – having seemingly kept the UK music industry afloat thanks to the success of her album 21 – was in the process of giving her speech for winning Best Album when host James Corden was told to cut her short to let Blur perform their closing 11-minute extravaganza. Adele gave all and sundry the middle finger and walked off. “I was having the best night of my life and then I was told to cut her off,” Corden later told ITV2. “She’s the biggest star in the world and I love her. I don’t understand what happened. I’m really upset.”
Indeed, everyone seemed to be upset, and Albarn and the band were in danger of looking like the villains of the piece. Don’t blame us, Blur said, blame the TV schedulers and their love of adverts. “We were standing behind a curtain waiting for it to lift,’ Albarn later told the BBC. “And [then] we’d get on with it. I’d have been happy to wait another ten minutes.”
If the cock-up caused a few glum faces at the after-show party, then one thing happened that seemed to cheer Albarn up: he bumped into Noel Gallagher. The two, it appears, got on famously: “It’s funny to think Blur were last here 17 years ago when we were big rivals,” Albarn told the Evening Standard. “Isn’t it funny how we’ve both mellowed after all these years? We’ve buried the hatchet.”
Despite the row over the BRITS debacle, Blur regained their place on the shelf marked National Treasures within a matter of months by headlining the closing ceremony show for the Olympic Games in London. The Olympics had electrified the capital; it was the 1990s all over again; London was the centre of the universe once more; Britannia was cool and Blur seemed the perfect choice. Albarn had dropped hints that this might be the perfect time for the band to bow out again – he even suggested that a new recording, “Under the Westway”, might be the final time Blur would go into the studio, particularly as the song didn’t dent the Top 30 when released as a single. But, still, Albarn hedged his bets. “I don’t know,” he said when asked by Newsnight if this was the end for Blur. “We’ve got a lot of shared history, we still get on very well, it’s still a magical experience. I don’t know what’s round the corner.”