It's All Such a Blur!' Nah, Not to Me

(On Remembering the Past with Potent Lucidity)

by aLfie vera mella

Many people, when asked about their youthful past, would tend to quip, "It's now all a blur to me!" Why? Maybe because they had more bad than good experiences so they didn't want to remember as much about it; or, worse, they were always pharmaceutically high during the heyday of their youthful days so remembering becomes a mental challenge for them, a sort of a mental disability.

Not to me. The 1990s to me is only like yesterday. I remember so many things, activities, places and faces, music and events. In fact, I still remember so many events in my childhood in the 1970s, what more in the 1990s. Why? Simply because I'm a very introspective and retrospective person—I love remembering and documenting things; I love music, which could be an effective bookmark for such memories; and ultimately, I never dabbled in any mind-altering substances, making my mind as naturally potent and functional as it could be.

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While waiting for the time to go to my evening-shift work today at the hospital, I'm watching on DVD No Distance Left to Run (A Documentary Film on the Britpop band Blur).

There had been a comparative competition between Blur and Oasis especially in the heyday of Britpop music. Since the start, I have always been for Blur (although I love Oasis music too; I love Britpop music, for that matter—it is simply a reinvention or a renaming of NewWave).

The reason I like better Blur's music even during the beginning is because of musicality—particularly the complexity of the song structures in terms of instrumentation and orchestration. Many people may not realize this—the angular style of Graham Coxon's guitar melodies and rhythm is what best defines Blur's music—very NewWave—which was synergized by Alex James's melodic treble-rich bass playing; and of course, Damon Albarn's whiny voice.

Blur has released seven albums so far:

Leisure (1991)

Life Is Rubbish (1993)

Parklife (1994)

The Great Escape (1995)

Blur (1997)

13 (1999)

Think Tank (2003)

My favorite remains to be The Great Escape, because of "Charmless Man," "Country House," and "The Universal." The complexity of the instrumentation of Blur's music is most apparent in this album. In the 1990s, my former band Half Life Half Death covered "Country House" and my former band Dream Kitchen covered "Girls & Boys" (from the album Parklife), during the time when Britpop was still an alternative or an underground genre of music.

My favorite song from Blur, "Country House"

Blur is an English Britpop band formed in 1988, consisting of Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James, and David Rowntree. The band was among the spearheaders of what became known as Britpop music—a genre of music which was actually an offshoot of Postpunk and New wave music—characterized by angular guitars, melodic bass, heavily patterned drumbeats, incorporation of synth, keyboards, and other Classical instruments (violin, cello, horns), and quirky vocal styles.

I first heard of Blur in 1994 via this song, "Girls & Boys."

Another favorite Blur song of mine, "Charmless Man"