FEATURE:
We’ve Got a File on You
Blur’s Think Tank at Twenty
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THE seventh studio album from Blur…
was one that sort of signalled a new direction and sense or reinvention - but, also, it could be the last thing we heard from them. Because Think Tank was released on 5th May, 2003, I wanted to celebrate its upcoming twentieth anniversary. It is amazing that Think Tank is so cohesive and extraordinary. If some critics gave it mixed reviews when it came out, there was reason or that. Guitarist Graham Coxon was being treated for alcoholism. At the start of the sessions, one of their major forces was not getting on with the band. Coxon did re-join Blur was their follow-up album, 2015’s The Magic Whip (which is also their most current album). It is the only Blur album without Coxon. A lot of Blur’s brilliance stemmed from Coxon’s guitar brilliance and songwriting. Maybe because of that, Think Tank leans more heavily on genres like Jazz, Electronic, and influences of African music. The band’s lead, Damon Albarn, expanded his musical palette. With sessions beginning in November 2001, it was split between London, Morocco, and Devon. Produced by Ben Hillier with additional production by Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) and William Orbit, I think that Think Tank is one of Blur’s top three albums. Maybe the third spot, but it is one that pushes away from the more guitar-driven sound they were working with up until and including 1999’s 13. That was four years before a completely different-sounding album. In 2000, the greatest hits album was released. It seemed like a point to look back and celebrate this band who put out their debut album, Leisure, nine years earlier. An album that discusses peace, an anti-war stance and love, there is something blissfully together and embracing when it comes to Think Tank. I love how there are so many textures and sounds running through the album.
Graham Coxon does feature on one song: Battery in Your Leg. Many felt that a Coxon-less Blur was missing something weighty and definitive. Maybe a little lacklustre and damaged because of his departure, others felt Damon Albarn was running amuck and using the opportunity to dominate. It is clear that Coxon’s loss is big, but Think Tank succeeds and adapts wonderfully. It is not the same as previous albums, but I think it is more focused and satisfying than 13, Leisure, The Great Escape, The Magic Whip and even Modern Life is Rubbish. Whilst Parklife will always be king, and the 1997 eponymous album is very special and gets the runner-up place, Think Tank deserves that bronze medal. Twenty years after its release, I don’t think it is discussed and explored as much as it should be. From the sublime opener, Ambulance, to the haunted Battery in Your Leg, there is not a weak moment! The weirdness of Crazy Beat sits easily against the aptly-named Sweet Song and Good Song. We’ve Got a File on You is sixty-three second thrash of paranoia and silliness. On the Way to the Club and Moroccan Peoples Revolutionary Bowls Club see Blur doing something they have never done in terms of sound and direction. Jets is a long song, but it is one that draws you in and earns its place. My favourite song on the album, Caravan, is gorgeous and puts your mind in the Moroccan desert.
I want to bring in a couple of reviews soon. Before that, and providing some backdrop on Think Tank and the disruption and changes Blur faced in the ranks, Albumism celebrated fifteen years of Blur’s seventh studio album in 2018. Think Tank is such a rich listen where Damon Albarn, Dave Rowntree and Alex James are from alone! Joined by some incredible session musicians, they are given these extra layers and colours that means you have a wealth of wonder and diversity to behold:
“The meteoric rise and rule of Britpop in the 1990s could be aligned with the reign of its greatest sons, Blur. The four puckish boys—Damon Albarn (lead vocals/keyboards), Graham Coxon (guitar/backing vocals), Alex James (bass), Dave Rowntree (drums)—formed in 1988 in London. Out of their union came Leisure, their 1991 debut LP. Five more albums followed—Modern Life is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994), The Great Escape (1995), Blur (1997), and 13 (1999)—yielding an endless stream of hits, sales and renown. Then suddenly, the Britpop bubble popped. Blur, wisely, sensing the shift in public sentiment toward the rock sub-genre they helped build issued a customary singles retrospective in 2000 and went quiet for a moment.
In that space of time, the quartet split off to pursue personal and artistic endeavors. Most notably, Albarn founded Gorillaz with digital artist Jamie Hewlett. The outfit’s inaugural effort Gorillaz was released in March of 2001 to acclaim and newfound notoriety for Albarn. However, in the second half of that same year, Blur reconvened to discuss a new record and its intentions.
Think Tank, Blur's seventh album, was an appropriate title as the effort was to serve as a space for all four members to come together and brainstorm about how to move the Blur brand forward into a new decade. There were complications ahead for Think Tank though. Coxon's battle with alcoholism had come to a head and led to his inability to commit to Think Tank. Friction between Coxon and the three Blur men ensued. Excluding his contribution to “Battery in Your Leg,” Coxon stepped away from the project, entering a rehabilitation center to treat his illness. He wouldn’t rejoin Blur until 2015's The Magic Whip.
Down to a trio for the first time, Albarn, James and Rowntree were united by the struggle born out of Coxon's departure. Written and recorded in studios in Devon, London, and Marrakesh, the musical and lyrical treasures of this collection are vast. Musically, with production aid from Ben Hillier, William Orbit and Norman “Fatboy Slim” Cook, Blur infuse their already rhythmic rock stylings with club, jazz, dub and worldbeat motifs.
A part of Blur's appeal at their zenith was that they never stood totally still within the Britpop framework that they defined. Demonstrable risks, like Parklife's pseudo-dance-punk homage “Girls and Boys,” were immediate examples of this. The difference with Think Tank is that it sought to expand their experimental appetites across the entire span of an album, not just limit them to a few tracks.
Blur augmented their band sound with a wealth of session musicians, but they kept their hands on the record's reins as heard in the respective exercising of the trio's abilities as songwriters, arrangers, producers and instrumentalists. James' bass pumps and prowls on every cut on Think Tank, but the album's rousing and filmic opener “Ambulance” and the lolling groover “Good Song” really show off his chops. Alongside James' bass lines are Rowntree's own familiar drumming patterns, notably active on the biting, punky “Crazy Beat.” But things get really interesting in listening to Rowntree sitting among the miscellany of other percussionists employed for the LP—their unification births the smooth and smoky “Out of Time,” later elected as the set's first single.
Lyrically, the songs alternate between the supposedly dichotomous subjects of romance (“Sweet Song”), anti-war pieces (“Good Song”), informal social commentary (“Brothers and Sisters”) and more. Regardless, all of the songs here are soaked in Albarn's sexy, woozy croon that, effectively, mesmerizes the listener, driving him or her to dive deeper into the depths of Think Tank's contents”.
There are a couple of reviews that are not that kind. There are plenty of positive ones. I do think there has been a lot or re-evaluation and revision since 2003. Maybe there was this negativity towards Blur continuing without Graham Coxon in the fold. That said, many publications named it among their favourite albums of 2003. This is what NME wrote in a review from 2005:
“Due to some weird accident of timing, we’re currently getting a masterclass on how – and how not – to sustain a long career in pop. Jarvis is back under new (dis)guise Relaxed Muscle, Radiohead return with an album that disappointingly occupies the same musical space as the last two, Oasis bestride the world like an arthritic Colossus and then there’s Blur.
They’ve always known the value of keeping one step ahead, of having a new ‘concept’ for each record, which has always made them objects of suspicion by the rock authenticity police. This time, however, change has been forced on them by the departure of Graham Coxon, and the ‘concept’ is not Damon’s daughter (as Justine Frischmann once tartly claimed it would be – actually, maybe that was Gorillaz) but Africa and anti-stardom.
Now that Gorillaz have sold millions of records without Damon even having to show his face, Blur claim to be disdainful of the pop process, of presenting themselves as personalities. This makes sense when contrasted with inescapable pop trasherati like Victoria Beckham, and the fact that Blur are no longer the fresh-faced sex symbols of yore. But it’s really no different from attitudes of snooty Seventies prog rockers, who thought the normal pop modes of communication (being on Top Of The Pops, releasing singles) were somehow beneath them. So ‘Out Of Time’, their most straightforwardedly touching single for ages, has a video Blur don’t even appear in, two gorgeous ballads are given the dismissive titles ‘Good Song’ and ‘Sweet Song’ and the album opens with ‘Ambulance’, which on first listen sounds exactly like something from David Bowie‘s dreadful ‘Heathen’. “We could have made a pop album,” Blur seem to be saying, “but that would have been too easy.”
Sigh. But despite Damon removing two “potential radio smashes” from ‘Think Tank’ because they “didn’t fit in” (because he was saving them for Gorillaz, more like), it’s still accessible and enjoyable despite, you often feel, the intentions of its creators. While ‘Jet’ is toe-curling free-jazz toss and the Norman Cook-assisted ‘Crazy Beat’ sounds like four old yobs making an exhibition of themselves in a disco, Norm’s other track ‘Gene By Gene’ is an effortless pop gem (with a title which probably doesn’t refer to Liam Gallagher’s youngest child). Then there’s the summery, Arabian side of the album, with ‘Caravan’ and ‘On The Way To The Club’ both luxuriating in the kind of grace and mystery which dissolves cynicism on impact.
Blur’s “and this is me” moment is the closing ‘Battery In Your Leg’, the only song still featuring Graham Coxon (‘Blur featuring Graham Coxon’ – how R&B). “I’ve got nothing to rely on/I’ve broken every bone,” sings Damon frailly, as Graham chimes out the saddest-sounding guitar riff ever, so loud it obliterates the singing. It’s a hugely apt and moving epitaph.
God knows what will happen next – there’s certainly no sense of urgency and ambition in Blur themselves. Yet against the odds, ‘Think Tank’ is a success, a record which might not mean much to Strokes fans but which shows Blur’s creative spark is undimmed even while their stomach for the pop fight fades. After all this time, they still demand to be heard”.
I am going to round things off with a review from Pitchfork. There is a lot of focus on Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon. Maybe seen as the two leaders and most important members in the band, Think Tank is actually made stronger and defined by Alex James and Dave Rowntree. Their incredible instinct, musicianship and interaction is key when it comes to Think Tank’s wonderful depths and extraordinary moments. They create so much nuance and groove:
“Which brings us to Blur and their long-developed Think Tank, recorded in Morocco without founding guitar icon Graham Coxon. Rock 'n' roll precedent begs certain questions. Will the loss of Coxon equate to the loss of Brian Jones (or Mick Taylor) or a hypothetical loss of Keith Richards? Will Think Tank be another Cut the Crap, The Final Cut, Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde, Carl and the Passions (So Tough), Good Stuff, And Then There Were Three, Wake of the Flood, Mag Earwig, Stranded, One Hot Minute, Face Dances, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, Other Voices, Squeeze, Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age, Ultra, Drama, Slow Buildings, Road Hawks, Now and Them, or Chinese Democracy? Or more along the lines of Sticky Fingers, Back in Black, XTRMNTR, Adore, Up, In the Studio, Movement, Everything Must Go, Soft Bulletin, Power, Corruption & Lies, First Step, Damaged, Green Mind, This Is Hardcore, Coming Up, Full House, and ...And Justice for All?
With the exception of a year back in 1995, Blur have never rested on their laurels. Unlike their peers, they've delivered each album dipped in a drastic new element while keeping a consistent melodic heart. Albarn has always taken his shots, and thirteen years on seems to savor the challenge. Take, for instance, 2002's Mali Music, his rich, ethereal solo equivalent to Brian Jones' The Pipes of Pan at Joujouka: not content to simply document the musical heritage of the locals, Albarn stepped in alongside Afel Bocoum, protegé to Ali Farka Toure, humming his melodica during Niger-side jams and later reassembling the results in London as a montage of British-pop sensibilities with post-production special effects and punches of guitar, bass, and keyboard. The ambience and dust of the Malian excursion settles heavily over Think Tank, and notably, Albarn seems to have picked up more guitar skills from Bocoum than Coxon. The majestic, snaking "Out of Time" relies less on the lugubrious, Gibraltar-docked solo than the vast, four-dimensional environment surrounding it. One gets the sense that even if Graham Coxon had caught the flight to Marrakesh, Think Tank wouldn't have turned out much different.
Of course, all this focus on Damon and Graham discredits Alex James and Dave Rowntree, who really push Think Tank through the sand. The two both preempted the critics by perfectly describing the new music in interviews. James claimed Think Tank "has hips," while Rowntree simply said it's most similar to Parklife. James goes the furthest in giving Blur hips, beyond often posing with his protruding-- with the focus off Coxon, his brilliant bass playing will finally be seen as the vital element in Blur. It gave "Girls and Boys", "Parklife", "Coffee and TV", and "Song 2" their major hooks, while Graham hammered away on minimal riffs. If you're air-playing anything along to those tracks, it's the air-bass you're wriggling your index and middle fingers to. Likewise, Think Tank is laden with creative bass leads.
Like being plopped down in Morocco for the first time, or Covent Garden for that matter, Think Tank takes some reorienting. To answer the questions posed earlier, the album is laughably miles better than every album on the first list, and surprisingly better than, or just as good as, every single one on the other. But don't just judge it as an album by a band coming off a major line-up change. You won't need to”.
On 5th May, Blur’s Think Tank turns twenty. Many assumed that it would be quits for them after the album was released. Their next studio album did not arrive until twelve years after Think Tank. The band are playing a very special show at Wembley Stadium on 8th July. They are strong and together after all of these years. There are no plans for them to follow-up The Magic Whip. The four members have busy live. Damon Albarn always has music coming out! Dave Rowntree released a solo album earlier this year, Radio Songs. Graham Coxon has released solo material. With his wife and fellow musicians Rose Elinor Dougall, they are The WAEVE. Their eponymous album is among the year’s best. Like Radiohead, if the busy band members come together again, it might not be for a while yet. I also have another Blur album feature coming soon, as Modern Life Is Rubbish turns thirty on 10th May. In pite of Graham Coxon missing from the band and there being this sense of having to quickly refocus and reconfigure for their seventh studio album, Think Tank stands up as…
A glorious revelation.