Blur - Best of

List Price: $8.10
Our Price: $8.06
You Save: $3.84 (32%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more new music releases

Music CD Cover

Free Music Notes for Best of

Free Music Review: A Great Place to Start (and an Equally Bad Place to Stop)
Hit: 5 Stars

The most obvious shortcoming of this disc is that it slights Blur's superb second CD, Modern Life Is Rubbish, by including only one of its tracks, "For Tomorrow". The most inexplicable omission would be the the proto-Britpop single "Popscene", but the singles "Chemical World" and "Sunday, Sunday" are also missing. As it happens, however, this weakness is turned into a strength by leaving room for the inclusion of three tracks from their more experimental (ie, less poppy, more personal) sixth CD 13. Here's how that works: "For Tomorrow" serves as a great teaser for the Modern Life CD, which is brimming with great tracks, and should be owned by anyone who likes what they hear on The Best Of. Moreover, 13 is not the place to start for someone who is being introduced to Blur. Hence, the disc both whets the listener's appetite and fills his plate. If the tracks from 13 don't quite click with him (but there is no reason why they shouldn't), at least he will have three of the best tracks from that CD here. And the absence of the singles from Modern Life gives him all the more reason to buy that CD, which anyone with more than a passing interest in the band - or in good music in general - should do anyway.

From Blur's other discs, you basically get all the singles: two of the three from Leisure, all four from Parklife (plus the album track "This Is A Low"), three of the four from both The Great Escape and Blur, and all three from 13. (Two of the missing singles, "Stereotypes" - from The Great Escape - and "M.O.R." - from Blur - are included in live versions on a limited 2-CD edition.) Also included is a decent new track,
"Music Is My Radar", which sort of foreshadows - for better and for worse - the direction Blur would take on their next studio album. While some of the hits are better than others, none of them are sub par as songs, and they all belong on what is likely to be the first Blur purchase for many listeners, especially American ones. And while some may complain about the non-chronological order of the songs, the sequencing actually does a very good job of accentuating both the variety and continuity of Blur's catalog.

The bottom line is that a compilation should be practical: it should serve as an introduction to encourage you to buy more by the artist, or it should be comprehensive enough to prevent you from having to buy anything else. That said, The Best Of Blur is unlikely to save you any money, but it will make you happy to spend the extra that you do. If this is the place you start, it is unlikely to be the place that you stop. There are simply too many terrific songs on the band's studio discs for any compilation short of a box set to be truly comprehensive. All the same, this is a great compilation to have even if you own the other discs, as it puts almost all of their hits in one place. (I had four other Blur CDs when I bought The Best Of. Modern Life, Parklife, and The Great Escape are also great places to start.)

Clearly, The Best Of Blur succeeds at being a model compilation. Now, does this model compilation contain great songs? In a word, yes. For the most part, it is catchy, distinctly British pop, with sophistication, some keen social commentary, and an impressive amount of variety considering that it contains music recorded in a span of less than a decade. The songs are alternately entertaining and poignant, and usually both. In short, this disc is an essential chapter in the history of British popular music. Sure, the lyrics may not always be terribly profound, and there may be one too many "na na na" or "la la la" sections to fill space, but if that were a crime in pop music, then many artists would have to plead guilty. But reviews of the individual records is the place to talk about the songs, and if you are interested in checking out Blur for the first time, I assume that you are reading those as well. At the same time, however, you are probably wondering if this compilation is worth investing in. Put it this way: the songs on The Best of Blur are the ones that made this group one of the most popular British bands of the 90s. As a whole, they suffice to show that while Blur may not be as great as The Kinks or The Jam (and that is too tall of an order for any band to fill), they are truly their worthy heirs.

Long Live Blur!

Best of Poster

Alternative Rock Music CDs

• Music > Styles
• World Music
• Pop
• Rock