13 Blur

"The Ballad of Darren is the first legit [Blur] album since 13," Blur vocalist Damon Albarn recently told Consequence of Sound. Putting aside Think Tank (2003), which saw guitarist Graham Coxon's exit, and 2015's The Magic Whip (which was reportedly pieced together by Coxon after Albarn threw in the towel), that's 24 years. The world has changed… a lot. The band has changed… a lot. (Check out now-sober Coxon's entertaining memoir Verse, Chorus, Monster! for more on that.) But listening to "St. Charles Square," it's like Blur picked right back up from 1999. Coxon's woozy guitar is all over the place, a stumblebum determined to lead the way to fun. Albarn opens up the song by declaring "I fucked up" and unleashes fright-show screams and haunted-house howls. It could have been right at home on 13, and it's a delight. "Barbaric" sounds crisp and sunny—maybe the sunniest song Blur has ever done, versus the blinding camp of, say, "Girls & Boys"—even as the lyrics devastate: "And I would like if you've got the time/ To talk to you about what this breakup has done to me/ I have lost the feeling that I thought I'd never lose."

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur s sixth album 13 has now been expanded across 2CDs, with an entire disc of bonus material added to the original album. Originally released in March 1999, 13 saw a departure from long-time collaborator Stephen Street with William Orbit taking over production duties, what followed was Blur s fourth consecutive No 1 album and a further, more introspective, development of their music. Accompanying the remastered album in the 13 Special Edition is a whole disc of bonus material, including b-sides to the hit singles Tender, Coffee & TV and No Distance Left To Run. Featured in this extensive collection of b-sides are each band member s own remix of the album track Bugman, the track Beagle 2 (which was sent aboard Mars landing spacecraft of the same name) and the epic Cornelius Remix of Tender. Completing the bonus disc are a demo version of I Got The Law (previously only released on the Japanese version of 13) and the Music Is My Radar single (and its b-side) released on the 2003 Blur: The Best Of.

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur s fourth album The Great Escape has now been remastered from the original tapes by Frank Arkwright, with the remastering overseen by legendary original producer, Stephen Street. Whilst Parklife took Blur stratospheric, The Great Escape maintained the band s success with their second successive No 1 entry into the album charts, with the September 1995 release going on to sell three times platinum. Accompanying the remastered album, the bonus disc of The Great Escape Special Edition crams in 18 tracks, including all the b-sides from all formats of the Country House, The Universal, Stereotypes and Charmless Man singles. Among these b-sides are nestled a duet version of To The End between Damon and Francoise Hardy, the Live It! remix of Entertain Me and four tracks taken from the now legendary 1995 Blur gig at Mile End Stadium. Completing the bonus disc are two live tracks from Blur s show at the Budokan arena in Tokyo (both of which were only previously released on the Japanese-only single release of It Could Be You), plus the instrumental Eine Kleine Lift Musik, which originally formed part of the Help War Child compilation released in 1995.

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur s eponymous fifth album has now been remastered from the original tapes by Frank Arkwright (The Smiths, Arcade Fire, New Order, Joy Division), with the remastering overseen by legendary original producer, Stephen Street. Continuing the trend, Blur went straight in at No 1 on its release in February 1997, as had Parklife and The Great Escape before it. Representing a musical evolution for the band, the album is home to two of Blur s biggest hits in Beetlebum and Song 2. B-sides taken from all formats of these two singles are included in the accompanying Blur Special Edition bonus disc, along with b-sides from the album s fourth single M.O.R. Also included on the bonus disc is a 7 mix of Death Of A Party by Adrian Sherwood, the Dust Brothers produced Cowboy Song (which featured on the Dead Man On Campus soundtrack), four acoustic live tracks recorded at Viva Niteclub (previously only released on the German-only version of the M.O.R. single) and three live tracks recorded at MC Vredenburg, Utrecht, Netherlands, which were only previously released on the Netherlands-only version of the album.

Think Tank is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Blur, released in May 2003. Continuing the jam-based studio constructions of the group's previous album, 13 (1999), the album expanded on the use of sampled rhythm loops and brooding, heavy electronic sounds. There are also heavy influences from dance music, hip hop, dub, jazz, and African music, an indication of songwriter Damon Albarn's expanding musical interests. Think Tank was well-received critically, with a score of 83 on Metacritic, which equates to a tag of "universal acclaim". Several critics saw the album as timely, in part due to its being recorded in the Arab world where US and UK policies were unpopular. The album was nominated for Best British Album at the 2004 Brit Awards, and won the Q Album of the Year award. Since its release, Think Tank received a number of accolades listing it as one of the greatest albums of 2003 as well as the decade. To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur s last (to date) album Think Tank has now been expanded across 2CDs, with an entire disc of bonus material added to the original 2003 release (which was the band's fifth consecutive No1 album). The Think Tank Special Edition collects together b-sides from the Out Of Time, Crazy Beat and Good Song singles, which include a Marrakech Mix of Money Makes Me Crazy and an alternative version of Me, White Noise (which was a hidden track on the original release).