A few random thoughts about 13, 23 years old today apparently

[John_d]

Tender and NDLTR are fabulous. I recall absolutely loving the power drill section of Bugman. My tastes were developing along with Blur. Nice feeling. They dragged their feet about making the lovely Coffee & TV a single. Amusing. I had the Sonic Youth CD single ("Sunday") whose rhythm it rips off. I remember Trailer Park being disappointing vs the Glastonbury 98 version. I thought BLUREMI could have been catchier if had used that wee hook at the start of it more. Overall, I thought a lot about Blur when I was 19

[jonathas]

I was in the opposite situation; having bought MLIR, Parklife, TGE and Blur on day of release, I was mid-way through university when 13 came out. I loved Tender but was pretty down on the rest of the LP at the time. My tastes had graduated beyond guitar music and I was listening to a lot of hip hop at this point (Dr Octagon, MF Doom, Mos Def). I went and listened to 13 on the listening post in HMV in Brighton, and found it swampy and soupy and kind of underwhelming.

I videoed them doing a live show off the telly and watched that quite a few times, so I was still a fan, but it took me weeks to buy the LP and even when I did I was listening to it only a few times a week, rather than many times a day like I'd have expected to.

It remains my least-favourite of the original run of LPs, but obviously over the years I have played it hundreds of times and I'm a big fan of most of it. A few months later Pavement realeased Terror Twilight and I repeated the experience - seriously down over the fact that my two fave bands had made (what I wrongly thought of as) underwhelming records. I was a little down on music that year, I think; the only guitar LPs from 1998/99 that I thought were stone cold classics were American Water and XTC's Apple Venus Vol 1.

Happy to recant now - 13 is pretty wonderful.

[stephen]

I was a bit late with 13, only discovering it really from 2001 onwards. I obviously knew Coffee and TV as that was on repeat on MTV at the time. I didn't have the brain capacity to understand that this was the same band that did Parklife, mostly because Graham sings on it, it was only after the best of album that I started to piece it all together (and then the best of DVD with all the music videos on) and their back catalogue blew my mind. I think a lot of people my age probably had the same take, don't underestimate what that best of album did for the band.

It's funny looking back from 2001, I thought I was really late with the band I guess I was really but 1994 - 2001 is only 7 years apart but their music progressed so rapidly as did the culture. I couldn't distinguish the last 6 years apart, even maybe 10 now. Politics a side we are losing the understanding of decades because we do what we want when we want it now, and not a select few channels telling us what to do and what to wear. It's really hard distinguishing ages too which is why I think nostalgia has had a big part because everything merged together once the internet was born into the mainstream.

Anyway.....

so 2001 was when I really started to listen to 13, I think it probably didn't help my depression at the time but it was comforting as it felt just as chaotic as my mind, and it was crazy to switch between Gorillaz and 13 because they felt so far apart. 2001 was of course when the band announced they were doing another album and I was fully expecting a kind of thrashing pop/dance record somewhere between Gorillaz and 13 somewhere where Music is my Radar was but obviously we didn't get that.

[bugman]

since 2000 when i heard it first time. its masterpiece. my fav record ever! love every track on it (yeah also donald duck voice in bluremi) caramel, battle, trimm trabb, bugman are outstanding!

[semi]

Probably one of my least favourite blur album. I didn't like it at the time. But there are gems in it. Still love Bugman, although I preffered the live version at the time, it should have been the second single. For me, the singles for this album should've been:

1- Tender
2- Bugman
3- Coffee & TV
4- Trimm Trabb

[northernmonkey]

Probably one of my least favourite blur album. I didn't like it at the time. But there are gems in it. Still love Bugman, although I preffered the live version at the time, it should have been the second single. For me, the singles for this album should've been:

1- Tender
2- Bugman
3- Coffee & TV
4- Trimm Trabb

I couldn’t agree more on your choices for singles, would have been a fantastic representation of the album. This would have covered so much of a variety of styles with the promotion of 13. I have always felt despite it being a great song NDLTR was a bad choice for a third and final single. Obviously songs like Battle, Mellow Song and Caramel are outstanding but they wouldn’t have been great for the radio or TOTP’s at the time.

[Daysleeper]

I think a lot of people my age probably had the same take, don't underestimate what that best of album did for the band.

Totally agreed with this.The best of was my route in to the band.

In terms of 13, it was for many years my favourite Blur album. I’ve never really been a fan of Tender, but the rest of the album I loved. It was one of those albums that every time you listened you heard something new, which in turn had my favourite songs changing frequently. More on the nose songs like Bugman and the more conventionally structured (In 13 terms anyway) No Distance Left to Run and Trimm Trabb we’re initial favourites. But the more I listened, the more every song offered something to me. 1992, Battle and Mellow Song are songs I have never tired of. Even Optigan 1, a song that may sound like unnecessary filler on another album, works perfectly as a closer for what had preceded it.

Graham’s guitars on this album are just incredible.

I have to say in recent years I have stopped listening to Blur in general and 13 wasn’t as enjoyable the last time I listened to it,
but I’ll definitely be giving it another listen today.

[John_d]

Probably one of my least favourite blur album. I didn't like it at the time. But there are gems in it. Still love Bugman, although I preffered the live version at the time, it should have been the second single. For me, the singles for this album should've been:

1- Tender
2- Bugman
3- Coffee & TV
4- Trimm Trabb

EMI had switched at this time to 3 singles per album. Not sure why. They did the same with Radiohead. Can't really argue with Tender and Coffee + TV. 2 pretty big hits. I recall hearing Coffee + TV on Virgin daytime radio and the DJ being like "wow it's like the Rolling Stones have just fallen out of bed and written an amazing song". Bugman would have been divisive. The guitarist in my band at the time described it as "noise". And this was a guy who loved Hendrix, Bowie (including Suffragette City, which Bugman nods to), The Jam, The Clash, The Beatles, and earlier Blur..

I think there was a Q review which called NDLTR "the jewel of 13 which maybe shouldn't have been a single". Trimm Trabb is a highlight but I'm not sure it's a single either. NDLTR definitely belongs on any Blur Best Of though.

[dparrott]

I like a few songs, but the production bothers me. These songs sound much better live. Coming from PL and TGE, it's mostly a sad, depressing album. Quite a change and I don't like it.

[Sledge Hammer]

I like a few songs, but the production bothers me. These songs sound much better live. Coming from PL and TGE, it's mostly a sad, depressing album. Quite a change and I don't like it.

Exactly this, Bugman so much better live, Orbit dated self indulgent production has dated a lot...."Blur" album before my fave with the pop and experimental sensibilities done a lot better by Stephen Street.

[jonathas]

I was listening to Tender today and for some reason it hit me that beautiful though the song is, it's quite reasonable to assume that it's as much about heroin as it is Damon's lovelife, or indeed the F Scott Fitzgerald novel. I think people tend to think of Beetlebum as Damon's heroin song, but I wonder if his other big song on the subject is hiding in plain sight.

I'm waiting for that feeling
I'm waiting for that feeling
Waiting for that feeling to come

and

Tender is the ghost
The ghost I love the most
Hiding from the sun
Just waiting for the night to come
Tender is my heart you know
I'm screwing up my life
Oh lord I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind

Just a thought - obviously the list of pop songs which use both love and heroin references to create lasting metaphors is rich and varied. There She Goes Again by The La's is another beautiful example, as is Dead Flowers by the Stones.

[John_d]

The ghost I love the most, hiding from the sun, waiting for the night to come

I never thought that was very subtle. Justine probably didn't appreciate that, or when you're coming down, think of me here.

I struggle with the timings as I think Missy was born in summer 1999, so you would assume Justine was long gone and he had also kicked certain habits by then (perhaps hopeful assumptions). But Beetlebum was obviously written in 1996. Blur toured really hard in 1997. So when did Damon actually do this dabbling? Mid 1996?

[daii]

or indeed the F Scott Fitzgerald novel.

I've always wondered if damon read the novel and took inspiration from it, he probably did because the book is about a woman with mental health problems and the lyrics of tender fit so well

(same thing with "sing" and the baby scene from trainspotting, it feels like it was written for the movie "if the child is in your head if the child is dead"

[jonathas]

The ghost I love the most, hiding from the sun, waiting for the night to come

I never thought that was very subtle. Justine probably didn't appreciate that, or when you're coming down, think of me here.

I struggle with the timings as I think Missy was born in summer 1999, so you would assume Justine was long gone and he had also kicked certain habits by then (perhaps hopeful assumptions). But Beetlebum was obviously written in 1996. Blur toured really hard in 1997. So when did Damon actually do this dabbling? Mid 1996?

Yeah, good point re timings. But I think Damon often has songs kicking around for a good while before he drafts them for inclusion in records, and perfectly possibly to write about past experiences as well as current ones.

But 13 was recorded in June 98, and D&J split the same year. Her heroin usage was still a thing at that point, so it's unlikely that Damon had disentangled himself from that world entirely. But probably that's just salacious speculation.

[jonathas]

or indeed the F Scott Fitzgerald novel.

I've always wondered if damon read the novel and took inspiration from it, he probably did because the book is about a woman with mental health problems and the lyrics of tender fit so well

(same thing with "sing" and the baby scene from trainspotting, it feels like it was written for the movie "if the child is in your head if the child is dead"

I'm sure Damon's read Fitzgerald. I don't recall him ever mentioning it, but he's been highly complimentary about a number of 20th century writers (often modernists): Amis, Calvino, Hesse, Coupland, Rilke, Salinger, Kureishi etc.