CNN's Worldbeat: 10/4/99

blur in cnn's worldbeat

- flipside segment with steve wright

Transcribed by Aida

(Opens with intro about blur/britpop)..... it was a heady time for drinks,parties & rock n roll & of course the much publicised feud with oasis. Blur soon became disillusioned with the trappings of cool britannia celebrity...

Damon: Became synonymous with labour as well and another whole (?) They're completely high tech, took everyone's sort of energy & managed to associate themselves with it.

Steve Wright:Now Blur are back with their 6th album confusingly titled 13

Damon: The last song was song 2. 2,6,13 aaah, does it make sense, no? The last song, song 2 sold too many, so this is called 13. Suddenly it's 13. It's sold 13 millions. That's 13 records.

Steve Wright: flimsy isn't it?

Damon: It is flimsy. but you know. What are you looking for there? (everybody laughs)

Steve: What about tender? That's a really unusual song. Damon: but i just wanna write a simple sort of folk song and if you look at most folk songs from the last century, they're religious. They've got something religious in them and I listened to a lot of smithsonian, the whole smithsonian, kind of catalogue, early manchester, kind of, yeah it just probably feels a little bit unusual 'cos it's a very very old style, very traditional, yeah.

Steve Wright: The most striking thing about 13 is the wide variety of sounds .... r they turning into mavericks or is it simply because they're no longer under the britpop umbrella they no longer know where to turn?

Alex: When you play old material you really just try to reproduce something and when you play new stuff there's still kind of a feeling that you can be, i don't know, it's still quite creative process so it's ... rush,rush (mumbles something, couldn't clarify)

Dave: Yeah, it's a feeling of freedom, I think, we're one of those bands who have done that sort of thing in reverse & become more aware of how free we are.

Couple of Notes: That was all. Very short interview- approx. 5 mins. The words are exactly what I've heard. Notice- they're very relaxed. All 4 drank coffee. Graham didn't utter a word (busy biting his nails). Alex looked stoned ,smiling to himself all the way through and staring at the wall or something. Dave was cool with glasses on, Damon looked messy with orange shades on.

Back To 99 Back To Archive