Thursday 18 March 2010

No Distance Left To Run - DVD - 18/3/10

It's difficult to explain to people who weren't there.

When Nirvana released "Smells Like Teen Spirit" back in 1991 the whole world changed. Of course, it didn't really but to me, an 18 year old boy, it seemed like it had. Everywhere I looked there were people in dirty clothes with even dirtier hair. The radio was filled with the sounds of American bands...none of them any good at all; Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden and dozen of other "grunge" bands all peddling music that said nothing to me about my life.

I felt completely outside of youth culture. When you're young that's not a good feeling.

Then Blur arrived.

I'd known about Blur before as a sort of faux Madchester group who had had a few hit singles and then disappeared. But now they were back and they were back with a record that would become as important to me as any other album ever would be; "Modern Life is Rubbish". A record that was defiantly British and proudly, loudly so. They had also adopted a very British image. It was perfect.

Damon Albarn.

Graham Coxon.

Alex James.

Dave Rowntree.

Blur.

They were the best British group of the 1990s and they made some of the best British albums ever. They were worthy heirs to The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Specials, Madness and The Smiths.

I loved them.

"No Distance Left To Run" tells the story, in their own words, of how it started, how it developed, how it went a bit pear shaped and how it all came gloriously back into the spotlight. I can't be objective about it because I love them so much. If you love them then you'll love this, if you don't then you're probably the sort of person who thought that Oasis meant something.

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