Blur has a love-hate relationship with America. Throughout the nineties, no matter how hard they tried, they could not “break” America. With Blur reuniting this year to release a new album, they find themselves in a different pop culture environment than they once did. Today, perhaps breaking America is not what it used to mean.
Since the 1950s and 1960s, making it in “America” had been the label-assigned goal for music groups and pop stars in the mainstream music industry.This was no different in the 1990s. America represented luxury and self-assurance. Long associated with the middle class, America was the home of the spending money. In 2015, this seems to no longer be the case.
The British band Blur, after numerous tours of the United States, grew frustrated with their limited success not in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, but in the nether-regions of the United States. They had wasted money on tours and press promotion all, seemingly, for naught.
This led Blur front man Damon Albarn to want to rebel against what he called the “Americanisation” of guitar in mainstream music after Nirvana’s Nevermind. In 1991, the Blur single “There’s No Other Way” made it into the top 10. But, then, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” changed the overlay of rock music.
Albarn instead strove to tap into British traditions. Perhaps this is the fatal decision which led to Blur barely making a dent in America until 1997’s “Song 2.” Or maybe this is the very decision which allowed Blur to be Blur. An “odd pop” band, as Albarn termed it.
“If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I’m getting rid of grunge!” Albarn told NME’s John Harris in 1993. The album Parklife lived up to this promise. A band photoshoot included English mastiff dogs. Albarn apparently toyed with the idea of calling an album England v America, according to The Guardian.
I wonder, ‘Could this beef between “America” and Britain have been one big misunderstanding?’ As Noel Gallagher once said: “I remember Nirvana had a tune called ‘I Hate Myself and I Want to Die’, and I was like, ‘Well, I’m not fucking having that’ … I can’t have people like that coming over here, on smack, fucking saying that they hate themselves and they wanna die. That’s fucking rubbish.” He, apparently, missed the part where that song title is a joke. (He’s not the only one)
Moreover, I wonder, ‘What is America?’ Academia posits basically two different Americas. One is the geographical region taking up either North America or all of the Americas (North, Central and South). Another idea posits “America” as an idea or notion, a figment of the planet’s collective imagination. The notion of America as an idea sees itself having permeated not only the geographical landmass with the name America tied to them, but, rather, the boulevards and brains of cities and people on all of the continents.
This is happening now, we think, in the very same city we’re in. Go to our twitter for link. #Blur…
“This is happening now, we think, in the very same city we’re in. Go to our twitter for link. #Blur #BlurInLA…
To learn more about Blur’s relationship to North America, the geographical region, I e-mailed Blur North America, a fan group dedicated to Blur in North America. The group was in the unique position of giving out tickets to Blur’s sound check in New York and LA.
“I think they loved America, but hated it more,” writes Marie-France Lemaine of Blur North America. “I’m American and mostly feel the same.” Lemaine tracks Blur’s struggles with America to their early tours of the country.
“When they toured here in the early 90’s nobody cared,” she writes. “That’s cause nobody knew! Blame MTV. Blame radio. Blame the label! Don’t blame us. We’re lazy and there was no Internet and we liked what we knew.” What America didn’t know, Lemaine believes, was Blur.
“Regrets? …We have a few,” she says.
How to explain Blur’s lackadaisical attitude regarding America today? The well-researched members of Blur North America think Blur’s dislike of America is a personal.
“America maybe never got Blur like some other countries do,” Lemaine writes. “Take South America, for instance: tons of very young fans worship them, know all the lyrics, wait for them at the airport… Same thing in Asia.”
#Blur #BlurLive #2DaysTil #BlurInLA #HollywoodBowl #itsReallyHappening #Its71DegreesInLA + #Blur =…
“#Blur #BlurLive #2DaysTil #BlurInLA #HollywoodBowl #itsReallyHappening #Its71DegreesInLA + #Blur = #Heaven…
Maybe it bothers the band that they don’t get that reception here,” she writes. “How many times has Damon said in interviews that they would ‘maybe tour’ the US if they felt people cared, that he wonders if people would show up at their gigs.” This, for the members of Blur North America, is proof that Blur cares about America.
“They did promo in the US, played a gig in Brooklyn, filmed it, and Damon hinted in a few interviews that he’d love to play Madison Square Garden,” Lemaine tells me. “And they will play there and we will be there, and at the Hollywood Bowl, too. Yes, America definitely matters to them, they just don’t want to go through the nightmare of their first tour here in 1992 again and face people who don’t get them.” That’s why they’ve created the social media fan group, Blur North America: To let Blur know that North America loves Blur.
“That’s it. That is our mission. We really need them to hear this,” Lemaine e-mails. “At the press conference announcing The Magic Whip on February 19th, a reporter from Rolling Stone asked Damon if North American fans could expect dates.” According to Lemaine, a look of disdain came over Damon’s face.
“I can’t remember the words because I was and am traumatized, but it was something like ‘….uh, America, maybe… It depends if anyone’s interested’ at which point I was all, ‘OH NO HE DIDN’T!’ and then, ‘nooooooooo!,” Lemaine recalls her devastation.
“I almost literally cried at the thought of Blur not coming here, of Blur hating North America, of Damon Albarn having such animosity and bitterness towards us.”
After her recovery, and much discussion, the founders of Blur North America came up with a plan.
“Our plan was to somehow let Blur know that North America Loves Blur and give us dates,” Lemaine explains. “All we wanna do is love Blur, not from afar, not by travelling across the sea to see them.” The page points me towards a few quotes of Albarn that hint at his past feelings towards the US.
THE PRIMARY SOURCES
“…There’s a great question mark when it comes to America with Blur for me…I spent a long time when I was younger, traveling and doing it the right way in America, and always feeling very frustrated with the brick wall that we always seemed to hit…Partly through our own attitude, and partly through it not really being the right climate for us. I don’t know if that’s the case now. It may not be… I love America. It’s had a profound effect on me. So I’d like to come back again — but if I don’t I’m not going to lose any sleep over it… It’s really up to whether anyone likes [the new album] over there. That’s my attitude. If you like it, we might come over. If you don’t. . .I wouldn’t want to arrive with my suitcase and wide eyes to indifference. Why would you? (Rolling Stone, 10/04/15)
There is no shortage of quotables, subtly distorted by the press of course, about how Blur — and most often Albarn — feel about the United States. There is no doubt their claims are valid. As if a 2am last call isn’t something that should be alarming. What of American guitar? What of working in America?
America was in the throes of a new guitar movement…and had a real strong sense of its own identity at that time. We just came across as being slightly rude, sarcastic, and difficult. And bullshit. We never had any problem with New York and San Francisco and L.A. It was the details of America that were a little problematic. The details, shit.
There’s no such thing as not going through it. To define yourself. It clearly made us the band we are today. As a songwriter, it transformed me. I suddenly realized I had a lot to say. As opposed to … nothing to say. When we did the first record, it wasn’t really on my mind. It was just about getting a band going. The visceral energy of being in a band is what I was interested in. And during that period [in America], I realized that, being in a band, you could express things that weren’t necessarily visible to everybody. What people don’t really know about Blur is that we spent a long time in America, working…But totally under the radar. And when we got back [to the U.K.], you could see the culture — the McDonald’s and the shopping centers growing. It was the same kind of imperialistic process of the Romans with their roads and castles. It really gave us a starting point. (Grantland, 11/05/15)
On the power of the press in America and his firsthand experience with Americans through Blur’s first record label:
‘Oh yes, ages ago, ever since we started making friends there really. It was just that things went so horrendously the first few times we went there. We were on a record label [SBK, a subsidiary of EMI] with Jesus Jones, Vanilla Ice, and the Mutant Ninja Turtles. I remember they loved stickering records. Slowdive [low-grade Creation records castoffs] had one that said, “Like a hallucinogenic drug without the danger…And ours was, “The most shaggable band on the planet.” You can imagine how well that sort of thing went down. We did two tours, lost all our money, and had a fucking awful time, and that was the whole reason I was so antagonistic to America and American music — because the only Americans I really knew were wankers at our first record label. (Damon Albarn, Arena, 1997)
In Blur’s lyrics comments on America crop up from time to time. For instance, in “Miss America:”
Miss America sits in the shower
She’s plucking hours from the sky
Picks up the telephone into another home
Don’t ask me why…
For me personally, these lyrics draw up images of sterility, wasting away and loneliness. “Don’t ask me why.” In “Magic America,” there’s more details.
Bill Barret has a simple dream
He calls it his plan B
Buildings in the sky and the air is sugar free
And everyone is very friendly
Plan B arrived on a holiday
Took a cab to the shopping malls
Bought and ate until he could do neither anymore
Then found love on channel 44
Take from that what you will. The following song is perhaps the most detailed critique of America in Blur’s catalogue.
“Look Inside America”
Good morning lethargy
Drink pepsi is good for energy
The bath’s on, smoke in the bedroom
Sore throat and on my neck a nasty bruise
Where it came from, well I don’t know
We played last night, it was a good show
Look inside America, she’s alright, she’s alright
Sitting out the distance
But I’m not trying to make her mine
Looking for America
With its kooky nights and suicide
Where the TV says it’s alright
Coz’ everybody’s hung up on something or other
Where the TV says it’s alright
Coz everybody’s strung out on something or other.
When interviewed by Addicted To Noise (ATN) during their second tour for the 1995 album The Great Escape, the interviewer asks “Why a second tour?” Albarn responds: “Good question. Well, I suppose it’s because we’ve been told that’s what we should be doing by our record company.” He expresses at the time that Blur doesn’t make the right kind of music for America. Albarn thought at the time America had boring taste.
“I think they do like the blander side of things generally, on a mass scale, not on this level,” he said at the time while in San Francisco. “But if you take it to the next big level, and you look at all the bands who sell a lot of records here, you can see that they’re slightly bland in the way of content. Even if they’re rock, they’re the blander side of rock.” What does he make of this divide drawn between British and American culture?
“Well, it’s ridiculous because we all speak the same language. It’s mad really,” he said. He also intones the politics of the 80s, the period in which he grew up, were similar in Britain and the US. In my opinion, similar could be said during the Bush and Blair years.
What I’m actually singing about is effects on me, ‘me’ being my generation. The sort of characters that have come out of the 80’s. You had Reagan in the 80’s and we had Thatcher, they are similar sort of things so there must be some similarities between us. There must be some point where the experiences are the same. All my characters are completely alienated and in routines which they can’t get out of and they have psychotic thoughts trying to get themselves out of that. They’re all just fucking materialistic wankers.
ATN asks, “Do you want to be mainstream in America?”
We like to think our records could get heavy rotation here, as long as they’re good and we’re not playing the game and the songs aren’t bland. That would be great. Nirvana’s records were sort of…I don’t know why (Kurt Cobain), got so pissed off about them being so popular. Well, I suppose he got pissed off because they just got completely listened to.
Blur finally broke America with “Song 2” in 1997. They had turned in British odd-pop for a melange of hip hop, American indie and good ole fashion Blur on their 1997 self-titled album.
Why Blur’s — and particular Albarn’s — dislike of American culture? In his book Coca-Colonization & The Cold War, Reinhold Wagenleiter explains a bit about Europe after World War II.
The Marshall Plan was in full swing. American culture was being imported into Europe ad-naseum, from cosmetics to televisions to microwaves to cars. Europe, while being rebuilt by the United States, received quite the makeover towards American ways and means.
Hollywood had much to do with dividing nation-states between each other. Wagnleiter suggests that Hollywood sent anti-South America films to Europe and vice versa. It is perhaps this process that has resulted in a sort of blow back, a rebellion against American ways in a time in which American Empire has overwhelmed nation after nation on the planet. Albarn, always a bit ahead of his time, was simply anti-American before it was cool; before the United States invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on. When they did, Albarn only stepped up his critique of America, condemning and openly opposing war.
By this time, he was creating Blur’s final album, Think Tank, land was already having major success with Gorillaz. Well-known graffiti artist Banksy drew the cover for Think Tank.
Anti-war themes recur throughout this album, in the artwork as well as videos. Albarn stated the album is about “love and politics.” Albarn, a pacifist, spoke out against the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and took part in widespread protests against the war.
Around this time, as Albarn’s outward critique of America reached a peak, so too ironically did his success in the US. His group, Gorillaz, had already enjoyed success with the popular single “Clint Eastwood,” which received a Grammy. Recently, Albarn played with Gorillaz at the closing of Banksy’s Dismaland, a dystopic art installment parodying Disneyland, continuing in his tradition of critiquing America.
This October, Blur has its only two dates in the United States for their recent tour; they are, Los Angeles and New York. They made it all around the world before coming to North America. Still to this day, the members don’t really know what to expect from their former nemesis, America.
In a recent Rolling Stone article, Albarn expressed wonder at whether anyone would show up to the upcoming performance at Madison Square Garden: “Is anyone going to come see it? I wonder. Will anyone bother?” he remarked. Tickets in Los Angeles sold well and the show was well-reviewed. As for New York, Albarn will know October 23.
The Los Angeles show was much enjoyed and made its rounds on the Internet thanks to the band bringing out comedian Fred Armisen (Portlandia), who made the band’s 1994 single, “Parklife”, a bit more California.
“This song could be about Griffith Park, or Echo Park,” Armisen said as he took the mic in a white suit. Then came a torrent of riffs on cold-pressed juices, fitness crazes and a schedule where “I go to the dog park, and then I go to the cat park.”
It was beyond funny, and proved that Blur’s fundamentally British wit and affections are actually pretty universal.
Whether or not anyone shows up, however, doesn’t seem to be a major concern for him. He’ll just keep doing what he has been doing all along: enjoying worldwide success as one of the mot influential songwriters of recent generations.
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