13 (album)

List titles

Tender
Bugman
Coffee & TV
Swamp Song
1992
B.L.U.R.E.M.I.
Battle
Mellow Song
Trailerpark
Caramel
Trimm Trabb
No Outdistances Left To Run
Optigan 1

The title

The title of the album is the name of the studio of Damon Albarn in London, where the sessions took place (for the first time for Blur without the production of Stephen Street). It can also refer to the number of tracks on the disc, or more subjectively symbolize the bad luck and the torments which overpowered Albarn at the time.

The small pocket

The small pocket of the album is the detail of a table of the guitarist Graham Coxon entitled The Apprentice . For the anecdote, the real table is longer but not so much larger than its reproduction on small pocket. Graphics of the three individual ones are also the work of Graham Coxon.

Detail of the tracks

The album opens by Tender , first individual left on February 22nd in advertisement the album. On more than 7 minutes, the group offers a song " with the ancienne" , well far from their songs pop, and recorded with the reinforcement of the choruses of London Community Gospel Choir.

Bugman follows which is a violent rock'n'roll, réminiscent of Song 2 on their preceding album, with the sques accents Bowie ( Suffragette City ), where Graham Coxon develops a sound exaggeratedly saturated.

Coffee & TV , second individual published on June 28th, 1999, are sung by Graham Coxon, which shares the paternity of the song with Damon Albarn. One could retain this song like typical his Blur, with a marked influence of the rock'n'roll-folk of the years 1970 and one solo of guitar bruitist and tarbiscotté. The video clip, telling the adventures of a small milk brick through the city, was several times preceded.

A small interlude of organ, strange, comes to make a pause before Swamp Song then makes penetrate the album in badly explored grounds. The sound is saturated, watery, and in spite of choruses which point out their song-anthems of youth, the experimentation takes the top, with layers of white vibration and distortion which show the pop song under another day. A recorder shifted appears with-medium, announcing other instrumental drifts later in the disc.

1992 is an old song that Blur has " redécouvert" , although it is not certain that she was written in 1992. In a hypnotic and cyclic rate/rhythm, repetitive agreements of guitar install a lugubrious climate, on which come to develop solos bruitists, including one Mélodica saturated which sounds curiously. The song could refer at the end of the relation that Damon Albarn had entrenait with Justine Frischmann of the group Elastica for this year 1992, rupture which was one of the emotional engines of the writing of 13 . The piece is only completed by leaving the low one, while the noise of the guitars seems to make burst the thunder. The following songs also give in this type of emotional illustration.

B.L.U.R.E.M.I. is an almost parodic repetition of their tube Song 2 of 1997 (). The voice is adulterated on the refrain, which is not without announcing Crazy Beat on the following album. A solo of mélodica confirms the adoption of this instrument by Damon Albarn.

After another small interlude of organ, the synthetic rates/rhythms of Battle are announced then at the horizon. Pouring in the trip-hop, the piece interferes a framework techno and low prevalent with the plays bruitists Graham Coxon. It remains like one of the best pieces among the experiments of 13 .

Small a jam is included after Battle , starting on a rate/rhythm of organ, for then accommodating low, guitar and battery. One goes well far, but no doubt that it is about a live performance of the group in studio.

Mellow Song is the only song which one can describe as acoustics on the album. After a small old story with the dry guitar sung by Damon Albarn, one falls suddenly into étoffement from the play in group, with once more an esthetics very lo-fi. The sound is not very defined. The mélodica remakes its appearance as well as an inevitable solo of saturated guitar.

Trailerpark is the piece on which the production of William Orbit is felt more. One very precisely hears joinings which were made to condense interminable oxen in a 4 minute old piece. The cascade of atonal guitar of Coxon, the use of loops and the improvisation of the words (Damon Albarn repeating) also make this title a hybrid and strange piece.

Caramel is one of the most discussed pieces of Blur. 7 minutes length, it explores a loop in Am//G/F inlassablement. Layers and layers of instruments are superimposed, are erased, appeared. One briefly passes by climates trip-hop, bruitists, and after a short unhooking the piece is completed in a beautiful jumble. sing Damon Albarn on this title, and the opinions are divided on this piece: the fans tend to regard it as one of their best titles all albums confused, going until him to dedicate a worship, even to canonize it, whereas the critics readily describe it as their more obliging moment.

The interludes of the album have probably the role to restore the side impromptu of the sessions of recording. The two pauses which follow Caramel insert the nail, but with a debatable opportunity.

Wrongfully dirtied and distorted, a first small interlude wants to make us believe that Blur plays of the jazz. A second insert in the tread presents to us an extract of hard rock M.O.R. of a doubtful taste.

Trimm Trabb starts the end of the album and remains like one of the best tracks of the album. On a front of guitar resolutely Coxonien, the piece offers a false experimental beginning before developing a slackened and touching song. A station-wagon of piano divides then comes to divide the song: the second part is a resumption of the first, saturation ahead: the voice is distorted and the battery one--can-more lo-fi. Oppressive saturated guitars then come to abuse the song and make it finish under strange low frequency noises mingled with superimposed voices.

No Outdistances Left To Run is one of the " vraies" songs written for 13 , and was the subject of an exit into individual on November 15th, 1999. The guitar of Graham Coxon, désaccordée, develops a strange front around whose a delicate ballade with the accents drunk person is articulated. Choruses on the bridge point out the key gospel introduction of the album.

Optigan is an instrumental conclusion. Around a repetitive reason for organ given rhythm by a bell Tibetan, a piano shells distances arpeggios, the battery seems typed on a drawer or a bag, and the crackling binds the whole in a strange amalgam.

Charts

The album will be well accommodated by the British press, which qualifies it album " more personnel" that the group recorded. 13 will be first of the British, Greek and Norwegian charts. On the other hand, the impact on the other side of the Atlantic was mitigated with painful a 80e place in the United States. In France, it will enter in the 12th place of the charts, to leave there in 4 weeks. The sales on the world are estimated at 1,5 million units, including 300.000 in the United Kingdom, 133.000 in the United States, and 40.000 in France. The individual ones pointed respectively 2nd, 11th and 14th place in the British charts.

Remixes

The side impromptu of the pieces of 13, as their slightly electronic approach (with the production of William Orbit) gave place to multiples remixes of pieces of the album, in particular by Cornelius ( Tender ), UNKLE ( Battle ), the Pafnouties ( Trimm Trabb ) or Control Freaks ( Bugman ). It is as to note as the piece Bugman was remixé by each of the four members of the group, under four different names: X-Offender (remix by Damon Albarn and Control Freaks), Metal Hip-Slop (remix by Graham Coxon), Trade Stylee (remix by Alex James) and Coyote (remix by Dave Rowntree).

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