10 Musicians You Love For The Wrong Album
3. Blur - Blur
What You SHOULD Love Them For: Blur: The Best Of
Hi, my name is Jason Jones, and welcome to my TED Talk entitled: “The only properly good Blur album is their greatest hits”. Now, let me preface this with a couple of things before I go on. Firstly, Blur are great. This is not some kind of hatchet job from an Oasis fanatic with a score to settle 25 years after the fact. And yes, this might sound very Alan Partridge / Best of the Beatles this sounds, but hear me out.
Of course, with any band, their greatest hits should probably, theoretically, be their best album - I mean, the clue is kind of in the title - but a lot of the time that’s really not the case. Whether it’s because it feels disjointed or like one final commercial death rattle before a group wheezes their last and conk out, retrospective compilations never really match the material from which they are gleaned. They’re like fun-size selection boxes - everything’s there, but there’s not enough of any one thing to properly satisfy you.
With Blur, however, things are a bit different, and the reasons are threefold. Firstly, and most importantly, Blur: The Best Of is bloody fantastic. Every song is an absolute knockout, from the bouncing daftness of Charmless Man to the morose contemplation of No Distance Left To Run to the unhinged aggression of grunge pastiche Song 2, there isn’t a bad tune here. Secondly, it’s not chronological. This may seem like a minor point, but by refusing to order the album in, well, order, the band are able to piece together a new lineage for their best work that allows the songs explore new identities in relation to each other.
Thirdly though, and this is key, Blur: The Best Of is the only consistently good Blur album. That will no doubt seem blasphemous to some, but on every single one of their proper releases, there comes a point where you find yourself checking your watch and wondering how much longer is left.
Maybe that’s a reflection on their willingness to test boundaries, or maybe it’s because they insisted on giving people bang for the buck by packing out track lists in an era when the only way to access music was to go and buy a CD for a tenner, but either way, the truth remains - the best way to appreciate Blur is to listen to their greatest hits. Sue me.