Officially A Yuppie

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Underrated Classic: Blur 'Think Tank'

By the turn of the century, Damon Albarn was expanding his musical tastes. Maybe he always had but by the time 2001 rolled around, he wanted to experiment with everything but Britpop. In that year, he formed Gorillaz with Jamie Hewlett, and started working with the world's first animated band which was a alternative rock / rap hybrid. Little did anyone, including the creators, know how big it would become. But Blur was Albarn's first band and first love and he had some unfinished business with them. At that start of what would become their seventh album, Think Tank, guitarist Graham Coxon went into rehab for alcoholism, and Albarn and the band tweaked their sound. Instead of just guitar driven music, Think Tank features electronic sounds and songs produced by William Orbit and Fatboy Slim. It features African influence, something the leader would later explore in his solo work and with Africa Express and Rocketjuice and the Moon, it also had elements of dub and jazz -- styles Albarn would play with in The Good, The Bad, and The Queen. Basically, Think Tank was becoming his resume for a solo career and it wasn't a Blur record the way the band had put out in the past. By the time Coxon got out of rehab, the band had some internal strife and he split. It would take two years for the album to arrive and once it did it was hit with mixed reviews. The artwork was done by a rising British street artist named Banksy, maybe you have heard of him now. Everything about the album didn't feel like a Blur record even though it said it was. After the release of the album, the band toured, then split. The would reform six years later and in 2015 released the brilliant, Magic Whip. While everything about Think Tank at the time wasn't as good as it should have been, in hindsight, it was Albarn telling us where music would go as if he had some Magic 8 ball, it also showed the directions he wanted to explore.

Listen to Our Essential Blur Playlist on Spotify

Listen To Our Essential Gorillaz Playlist on Spotify

Movie of the Month: 'Before Sunrise'

While 2014's Boyhood brought Richard Linklater film's highest achievements with Oscar nominations, the director has been doing things his way for decades before. In 1994, he had no script, just two actors and the idea to have them walk around Vienna and discuss life. While it sounds like a boring and bland concept, it is anything but. Linklater brought on Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The story of Before Sunrise centers around Hawke, who is backpacking through Europe and meets Delpy's character on a train headed to Vienna. From there we see a romance blossom. The American tourist who thinks the glass is half empty and the French woman who thinks the glass is half full. They walk and talk and discover the city, themselves, and each other. What blossoms is one of the most natural romance films ever to grace the screen. The movies became such a cult hit that they spawned two sequels which we will be exploring in the next months (hint: those are the next two movies of the month).