The first album on this listening marathon that wasn’t bought by or given to me. This was originally Tessa’s, existing in my collection only through a copy on minidisk before we got married.
‘13’ was an end-of-an-era album for the band themselves, being the last full album they would record together as a four-piece band, though they weren’t to know this at the time. Never-the-less, it sounds like a bit of an ending, and it’s hard to imagine where the journey it takes them on would have progressed to if circumstances had been different.
Having moved away from their Britpop sound with ‘Blur’, ‘13’ sees a further digression into a more experimental form of music making, and as such, it’s an album of contrasts. First single and opening track ‘Tender’ is a gentle acoustic strum-along, made rather lovely by the accompanying gospel choir, and ‘Coffee + TV’ is a fairly conventional pop song (though a fine example of the genre). The rest of the album, however, is a combination of fast, angry blasts of frantic noise (‘Bugman’, ‘B.L.U.R.E.M.I.’) and dense washes of sustained chords and multi-layered guitar noise from Graham Coxon. Of these, most are very effective – only ‘Caramel’s too short on structure or tune to make much of an impression.
Only ‘No Distance Left To Run’ stands out as separate from the main body of the album. A bleak, sparsely accompanied song about the breakdown of Damon Albarn’s relationship with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann, it’s a track which eye-wateringly confessional, but beautiful with it. Rarely has someone’s dirty washing been aired in public so effectively.
‘13’ was an end-of-an-era album for the band themselves, being the last full album they would record together as a four-piece band, though they weren’t to know this at the time. Never-the-less, it sounds like a bit of an ending, and it’s hard to imagine where the journey it takes them on would have progressed to if circumstances had been different.
Having moved away from their Britpop sound with ‘Blur’, ‘13’ sees a further digression into a more experimental form of music making, and as such, it’s an album of contrasts. First single and opening track ‘Tender’ is a gentle acoustic strum-along, made rather lovely by the accompanying gospel choir, and ‘Coffee + TV’ is a fairly conventional pop song (though a fine example of the genre). The rest of the album, however, is a combination of fast, angry blasts of frantic noise (‘Bugman’, ‘B.L.U.R.E.M.I.’) and dense washes of sustained chords and multi-layered guitar noise from Graham Coxon. Of these, most are very effective – only ‘Caramel’s too short on structure or tune to make much of an impression.
Only ‘No Distance Left To Run’ stands out as separate from the main body of the album. A bleak, sparsely accompanied song about the breakdown of Damon Albarn’s relationship with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann, it’s a track which eye-wateringly confessional, but beautiful with it. Rarely has someone’s dirty washing been aired in public so effectively.
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