“I think, with the benefit of hindsight, that Blur, as musicians, weren’t really quite sure of which direction they wanted to head in, albeit the record label bosses very much wanted them to stay hooked to the baggy bandwagon as will be seen with the next single.”
That’s how I ended last week’s post. Three months after the Top 10 success of There’s No Other Way, this was released as the next single:-
mp3: Blur – Bang
It’s one that has more or less been totally disowned by the band, seemingly written in a hurry when the label bosses listened to the tunes recorded for the upcoming debut album and reckoning there was nothing Radio 1 would be interested in.
It was issued on 7″, 12″, CD and cassette, and sold enough copies to enter the charts at #26 in August 1991, peaking the following week at #24. Worth mentioning that when it came time to release a compilation of singles in 2000, Bang was left off.
The extended version on the 12″ is even more tortuous – and I have a copy here in Villain Towers picked up very cheap in a charity shop the best part of 20 years ago.
mp3: Blur – Bang (extended version)
Here’s the various b-sides:-
mp3: Blur – Luminous (issued on the 7″, 12″, CD and cassette)
mp3: Blur – Explain (issued on the 12″ and CD)
mp3: Blur – Uncle Love (issued on the 12″)
mp3: Blur – Berserk (issued on the CD)
I came to all these songs long after I bought a copy of debut album Leisure which, it has to be said, didn’t sound too good at the time nor has time been kind to it. None of Luminous, Explain or Uncle Love are particularly memorable – although Explain is one that would certainly have improved the flow and tempo of the debut album. Perhaps all can be seen as reactions to being asked to write tunes like Bang.
Berserk is plain weird, and possibly a reaction to being asked specifically to write songs such as Bang. It is seven minutes of instrumental psychedelia. It may well find favour with some of you out there, but I’ve only ever played it once and didn’t revisit it when putting this piece together.
Next week features the very first Blur single that I ever bought….and as I’ve written about it before on the blog, it’s going to be a repost.
JC