Word: blurredly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...electronica-powered new album from the British rock band Blur, resides in precisely that sort of timeless limbo. Not timeless in a positive sense, in the way that, say, Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced? is timeless, but in the way that the old sci-fi series Space: 1999 is now timeless. The series was about the moon's being blown out of Earth orbit and traveling the universe. It's 1999, and our moon is still firmly in place. There's no reason to watch that series anymore...
...Blur's last album, the eponymous Blur (1997), featured raw, guitar-driven rock and seemed to be influenced by the then dominant alternative-rock scene in America. On 13, Blur's sixth album, the band has enlisted producer William Orbit, the electro-guru behind Madonna's most recent album, Ray of Light. The result is that 13 is full of buzzing and whirring, guitar distortion and machine-generated beats. Unlike on Madonna's album, however, few of the songs here have danceable rhythms, and few have memorable tunes. Other British acts, including Radiohead and Unkle, have explored similar sonic territory...
...does have scattered moments of glory. The opening cut, Tender, is one of the album's best; it's an unexpectedly openhearted pop anthem, buoyed by a gospel chorus. Another standout song is Coffee & TV, a mellow, midtempo rocker. Blur can be a painfully smart band, and in these few songs, we come into palpable contact with its restless intelligence. However, much of the rest of the album is unfocused and fuzzy. Reportedly, some of this album was inspired by lead singer Damon Albarn's breakup with his longtime girlfriend, Justine Frischmann of the group Elastica. "It's over...
...base of Lord Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square. Beefeaters--the red-coated protectors of the queen--escort crowds through the Tower of London into centuries past, when tyrannical monarchs severed heads and placed them on sticks to line the wooden bridges over the River Thames. Streets blur with red and black--the red of double-decker buses and the black of box-like taxis. This is the London everyone knows. But there is another London, where the neighborhood green grocer and ironmonger putter about their shop windows in the early morning dawn while the butcher hangs chickens with their...
...unabashedly proclaims its own preeminence? The fact is, even though it's been on good behavior for the past couple of years, New York still breeds a culture of dizzying excess perfectly suited to those who'd like to lose the scarlet H for a few days in a blur of neon lights, rattling subways and the raunchiest late-night public access TV around...