Sunday, September 14, 1997
By JANE STEVENSON-- Toronto Sun
It suddenly seems very cool to be British again.
Vanity Fair recently published a 25-page special on
"swinging London," while Details offered their own
"insider's guide" on the British capital.
But Blur frontman Damon Albarn and bassist Alex James -- in town
Tuesday night with guitarist Graham Coxon and drummer Dave
Rowntree to play Varsity Arena -- reject the current media hype
about their hometown.
"When you've lived in London for 10 years it's a bit
insulting to have people tell you that London swings," says
James, during a recent interview in Toronto.
Adds Albarn: "Just the way it's decreed -- sort of a taste
consensus."
Despite their protests, it should be pointed out that both Albarn
and James posed for the Vanity Fair piece, while Albarn posed
for, and gave a detailed list of his hangouts to, Details.
"To sell records," sniffed James.
Albarn, meanwhile, says he was making a statement in the Vanity
Fair piece.
"I dressed up as Texan so I hardly was going with the flow.
My interview I did was completely anti-Britain."
Blur's biggest statement, however, seems to have been made with
their fifth and latest self-titled album.
The distinct Britishness that flavored their last three albums --
including 1994's critically acclaimed Parklife -- has been
replaced with a more American indie-rock sound after listening to
such groups as Beck and Pavement.
Well, at least the previously Kinks-obsessed Albarn -- who hosted
Pavement leader Stephen Malkmus at the London house that he
shares with Elastica's lead singer-guitarist Justine Frischmann
-- was listening.
"We've all got very different tastes," says James, 28.
"I think Pavement are dreadful. I don't think they've got
any tunes. But that's good. It's good that we all like different
things really. If it was just me, we'd probably just sound like
the Bee Gees."
Albarn has his own explanation.
"Our previous three albums have been quite sarcy
(translation: sarcastic) about British culture, they haven't been
celebrations of it," says the 29-year-old singer-songwriter.
"The whole thing that arose from Parklife was a kind of
slightly incestuous celebration of really flimsy nostalgic
things. It wasn't really saying anything about Britain except we
live in the past. It's just perfectly natural really for us to go
and do what we've done because we've always sort of seen
ourselves as slightly left. It wasn't fun arriving one day right
at the centre of popular culture. It was very confusing. It
didn't do us any good as people. We're basically too intelligent
to be happy with that."
Whatever the explanation, Blur has "done a bit of a
change," as James puts it.
A change that has apparently gone over well in both England and
North America.
Blur, the album, has spawned the hit Song 2, was No. 1 at home
and is the band's best-selling album in the U.S. with 250,000
copies sold. (About 80,000 copies have been sold in Canada.)
"The biggest change really is that Damon started singing
about himself," says James. "It's quite a visceral
record, so in that sense if you're trying to make music about the
way you feel there's only really one record you can make, isn't
there? It doesn't really rely on any big arrangements or any
gimmickry; it's macro-music really. It's stripped down to the
bones."
Adds Albarn: "It's really weird. As soon as you start saying
England's s---, places like Germany and America start buying your
records. It's brilliant."
Albarn, who found his band involved in a heated rivarly with
Oasis in England a few years back -- "He thinks I'm a
wanker, I think he's a wanker," he says of Oasis frontman
Noel Gallagher -- also clarifies his recent declaration that
"Britpop is dead."
"The British press has pathological interest in their bands
and you do fall out and fall into fashion and you feel it so
acutely. After the whole thing with Oasis, I was actually
considered public enemy No. 1 in Britain. I know it sounds
ridiculous, but I couldn't walk down the street without someone
being abusive to me, as opposed to six months earlier it being
completely the opposite. That's how wildly it oscillates in
Britian. You have to make big, bold statements, otherwise you
don't survive."
Things got so bad for Albarn, who suffered through a bad bout of
depression following the 1995 release of The Great Escape, that
he now divides his time between England and Iceland.
James, naturally, has a different take on things.
"We're so pissed off with Britpop," says James.
"You start off with the Beatles and you end up with Herman's
Hermits. Our second album was reasonably parochial. We toured our
first album in America the week that Nevermind came out. America
has suddenly found a voice with Nirvana. After eight weeks of
touring America and getting pretty fed up with being ignored, we
got back to Britain and the whole British media was saturated
with American music. Nirvana were okay, but there were lots of
sort of second-rate, terrible grunge bands. We just felt like
Britain had turned into a horrible satellite territory like
Sweden or something. All the bands were just trying to copy the
grunge bands. We just felt that British culture needed to
re-assert itself."
Boy did it ever -- from the Spice Girls at one end of the
spectrum to Radiohead at the other.
"I saw something in Spin where it had the 50 most important
bands in the world and it had Oasis, Elastica and Pulp,"
says Albarn. "Now none of them would have gotten as far as
they did if it hadn't been for Parklife. In Britain, it was kind
of a complete watershed. It totally re-energized the music
business. British music was successful again."