Blur
13

On March 15, 1999, Blur released their sixth work, "13".

Recorded between June and October 1998, the album arrived two years after the highly successful eponymous release and also achieved great success, immediately topping the UK charts. All this despite the band's choice to delve even deeper into the purely experimental aspect of their music, a process that began with highly positive results in the previous work.

In this sense, the choice of a producer like William Orbit was fundamental, crucial in helping the band to definitively distance themselves from the britpop clichés (the first attempt being the "pavement-esque" turn of the previous LP) and move towards more complex and elaborate sounds. Even the album cover is an original choice, with the image being a painting by guitarist Graham Coxon, titled "Apprentice".

Yet, the first tracks act a bit like an "accommodating" factor, preparing the listener for what will come in the second part of the album. "Tender", a slow and long gospel-oriented litany (over seven minutes!) and the first single released, has rightfully become one of the band's great classics, more due to certain radio overexposure than any actual artistic merits. In fact, the track, besides not being the best on the album, doesn’t represent it at all. "Bugman" is a bizarre rock 'n roll underpinned by noise at all costs (there’s even a kind of electric drill at the end), "Coffee & Tv" (famous for its milk carton video) is a great guitar pop track entirely by Coxon.

The first signs of change come with "1992", placed between a skewed "Swamp Song" (also branded by Coxon) and the punk 'n roll of "B. L. U. R. E. M. I.". From here on, the album navigates between a deep deconstruction of song form and a deliberately over-exaggerated production by Orbit; the pinnacle of all this is the monumental "Battle", seven minutes and forty-three seconds of pure sound delirium. However, the problem is another: the gimmick doesn't always work, and the insistence on extremely heavy experimentation repeated at all costs produces a disorienting and, above all, tiring effect. The album, in fact, offers a faint breath of fresh air on introspective ballads like "No Distance Left To Run" (splendid, inspired by the end of Albarn's relationship with Justine Frischmann of Elastica) and on more "canonical" numbers like "Trimm Trabb"; this is certainly not a good sign.

In short, at a certain point in their career, Blur wanted to prove at all costs that they weren't just a band for three-minute britpop hits; fair enough, especially if they have the ability and talent to do so (Albarn has plenty). But sometimes the experimentation carried out in "13" seems forced or, worse, exhausting in its insistence.

"13" remains more than a sufficient and appreciated work by the public and critics, but Blur has done better both before (eponymous) and after ("Think Tank").

Key tracks: Bugman, Battle, Trimm Trabb, No Distance Left To Run