Focus pocus? As if by magic, blur are poised upon the trembling
lip of greatness thanks to the attention-grabbing girl on a
hippo promotional gambit for their debut single and now the follow-up, 'There's
No Other Way' - back-to-basics visonary pop for now people.
The British charts have gone bonkers. Offical. Not since the halcyon post-punk days of the early '80s
has so much (in)decent music infiltrated the mainstream.
No longer content to scurry in, fleetingly, at the arse-end of the Fab 40, James, The Wonder Stuff,
Ride, The Charlatans, and Ned's Atomic Dustbin are going straight for the
upper echelons like a clutch of Hackney crusties on a tea-time trip to The Savoy
and, incredibly, BEING ALLOWED IN!
Only Chesney Hawkes stands, mole-modelling, between satisfying compromise and
statistical domination. But then, hey, he did lower himself to the gutter level of
The Little & Large Show.
Now it's Blur's turn, the Next Big Thing from the claustrophobic Camden Falcon.
After the Top 50 placing of last year's debut 'She's So High', all that
its wily successor 'There's No Other Way' needs is an early Chart Show slot,
a Radio 1 'A' Playlist spot and a soupcon of EMI's corporate muscle
to break bigger than 'Nellie The Elephant'. It's got all three. It can't fail. Blur are going to be massive.
THE BEST thing is, Blur know this. Roughly halfway through the interview, mild-mannered guitarist Graham
Coxon, sitting cross-legged on a sofa in a West London recording studio, mutters something
about "sleepy euphoria" and inadvertantly hits the nail on the head.
Blur aren't concerned with superfical sprits or headline-hogging verbal wanks.
Warmed by lethargic enthusiasm, the quartet is ambling towards inevitable stardom.
To Blur, time is anything but tight. That's why it's taken them a whole six months to get around to
releasing their second single in an enviroment which actively encourages the get-
rich-quick ethos.
"It hasn't done us any harm, has it?" beams singer Damon Albarn, he of the blond Dulux dog bowl-cut.
"Last year wasn't our year, really. We were just sort of beginning, we hadn't
really established in our minds what it was we were playing and how we were playing it.
"Now we've got it together, so we can relax with the fact that all this is
happening to us. And it is happening now - there's no question about that."
'There's No Other Way' is an irrefutably fine catalyst for this 'happening'; a classic, floppy single with a heart
of groovy guitars and a headful of irresistible hooklines. Superfically, at least, it's
a pop song. Pure and simple. It may not be stunningly original, but then again....
"I don't claim that we are stunningly orginal," protests Damon. "I firmly belive in just writing
brilliant songs that have an incisive message. I don't like using more than ten words in a song if
I can help it, so I can create one little ball of emotion.
"It's like 'Freak Scene' by Dinosaur Jr, the only few words that mean anything
to me are 'Don't let me f--- up will you / 'Cos when I need a friend it's still you': that's what
makes that song so powerful, and that's what every song should have, some
little moment when the f---ing world opens up and everything becomes completely...OK.
"This band is about very basic things, and just playing with those basic things - there's nothing else
to us. and think, 'God, what a mastery of words, what incredible muscians', it's all just crap!"
Filmed in a thoroughly hospitable Georgian mansion, the video for 'There's No Other Way' features Damon, Graham,
snake-like bassist Alex James and mute drummer Dave Rowntree taking dinner with a nuclear age
family. The best bit is when the mother brings out a gargantuan, famine-absolving trifle amidst
sinster flashes of lightning, although none of it makes much sense. Least of all to ten million Chart Show viewers.
"We like confusing people," admits Damon. "If you can understand us it makes you a kind of cool, clever person."
Underneath that 'Wow, we're so basic!' exterior lurks an inflammatory little Blur beastie,
an outrageous, attention-seeking sprit which used to manifest itself during live shows,
when Damon would throw himself around the stage and on top of his colleagues like the very
last lunatic in the asylum. In prime (ie suicidal) form, the singer could make Archaos resemble Chipperfield's Circus.
He's calmed down recently, worried about Blur being percieved as merely a 'stunt band',
but that dangerously cheeky streak remains, uplifting some and upsetting just as many.
"It's because we're honest," reveals Damon, honestly. "We're just hideously honest about everything.
It's the way we are, and that's what's gonna make people either love us or hate us.
We're just doing our own thing - the difference between us and other bands is that we're just so
dissatisfied with sounding the same two months in a row.
"We change quite regularly, and that's what we're gonna keep doing.
So there's gonna be very few people in that grey area 'cos you have to have reasons why
you like us apart from a generalised, 'Yeah, Blur are part of that scene'."
Damon is scared of being misrepresented in print, of having his ideas distorted
by the media filter. Alex lives in fear of Milton Keynes: "I was served tea in a
plastic cup with powdered milk by a load of people playing indoor cricket
in Milton Keynes!" he complains, righteously. "What's happening to this country?"
Whether they're upsetting promoters and venues by being 'over
-enthusiastic', angering feminists, by sticking a naked nymphette on a hippo on their debut
single sleeve or simply generating mistrust in suspicious circles, who see
the band's sudden transformation from Seymour (as they were known) into the Food label's Great White Hopes,
Blur are content to blithely weather the storms, like a drunk, T-shirt-clad holidaymaker
determinedly unaware of the rain.
Confidence is one thing Blur don't lack.
"I think I'm probably over-confident all the time," ponders Damon.
"I don't know my limitations yet, which is probably quite dangerous."
"We don't really lack confidence," agrees Alex. "But we don't actually go around
like bigheaded, arrogant f---brains."
Just some of the time then, Alex?
"Yeah!"
"I can get pretty offensive," murmurs Graham. "I get helpless.
I'm perfectly charming and then at the point where I start forgetting
what happening I get drunk and that's when I turn into a horrible bastard.
But that dosen't necessarily make me an offensive person. People need space and respect -
they shouldn't be judged immediately on everything they do."
Blur's judgement day is imminent, that's for sure. Once 'There's No Other Way' has done the business and
pinned Blur up on teenage walls around the country, there will be another casual, devil-may-care gap
before their album - currently being recorded with Stephen Street - hits the shelves as "the leaves start to fall".
Then Damon can claim to be even righter than he already is, Blur can twist themselves into even more subversive shapes, and pop
music can finally take a deep, deep breath and rest in some kind of peace. Saved at the bell.
You bet. Fame is the Blur.
