u/TechnicalTrash95

I was just listening to the recently released Rubber Soul deluxe edition and all the rehearsal material that's included and thought that officially there hasn't been a lot of that sort of material released by blur. There's a few bits in the 21 box set but not on a comprehensive scale like what they've done with the Beatles. It would be an interesting listen hearing all the rehearsal material assuming that it does exist.

View Poll

Being a casual wet leg fan from the beginning I can't help but think that Rhian doesn't need to wear next to nothing in order to promote her band. I liked their early look but now the image is taking over the music.

I always wondered who does actually play the sporadic synths you do hear scattered throughout the album.

Kinda ridiculous post this but does anyone have a favourite or worse haircut that Patton has sported over the years?

My favourite of his was definitely the angeldust era. I never thought the shorter style he went with for kfad really suited him that much although the current one definitely takes the prize for his worst hairstyle.

As a kid discovering FNM in 1992 as an 11 year old my world was opened up to what you could do with rock music. Discovering them at this point in their career was a blessing as they were just about to drop their magnum opus Angeldust which is still one of my favourite albums ever. However it's really been downhill since then. King for a day was okay as a follow-up but it wasn't as good as Angeldust IMO and every album since has been average at best. Being inactive for so much of the past 25 years and releasing barely average new music didn't help.

I hope the upcoming tour is a really good retrospective of all their highs and deep cuts with a rotating setlist. I can see this being their last tour mainly due to age.

For people who have actually been to one what have they been like? From the few reviews there are it seems to be a mixed affair. After so long not doing hardly any shows I'd imagine fans including myself are quite excited for these shows especially the ones at the end of the year

What does everyone think of this album now that a bit of time has passed?

It only feels like this record was released less than three years ago but my opinion of it hasn't really changed much. I still think they should have put a few more rock tracks in like st Charles square and written less samey songs like it ended up with. It's not my favourite album of theirs and I hope they write a record which has a lot of variety next time.

TT is a frustrating album simply because its almost excellent. There's no escaping the hole Coxon left in the group and it's a mostly excellent set of songs to follow-up 13 with. But it's almost 25 years later and I was thinking about the occasional album that gets reworked on decades later. With blur a complete band again and on part-time hours rerecording TT would be a dream but is unlikely to happen. You could keep most of the songs and just readjust them with any changes Coxon would have made. Perhaps ditch crazy best, jets gene by gene. And write three new songs to fill their places with.

An interesting concept with a 1% chance of ever happening. But it would make blurs discography complete.

They've been wearing suits on stage for near 30 years. I just preferred their 92-95 look. And also Patton's hair needs rethinking. Just my opinion.

I've often thought about this. There are simply a lot of good songs that were either very rarely played or simply never played. A couple of the songs I wished were played more are:

​

I'm just a killer for your love (I was actually very lucky to see this one played in front of me at a fanclub gig and live it's more grungy and fast. Unfortunately it was only played on their 97-98 era)

​

Never Clever (very lucky the people who got to see this performed live. It was a total beast as heard on the thankfully good chemical world b-side. Unfortunately the studio version was a disaster.)

​

Starshaped-was this ever played live? It's a completely forgotten lost gem and I don't know why the band hate it so much. It's great to at least hear Graham talk about it a bit on that modern life studio YouTube vid.)

How did I get to this point? Well...

Firstly I'm M45 and all my life I can remember when I sniffed hard I felt my ears get "tighter" and the sound decreasing a tad. Somewhere I think I probably managed to retract my own eardrum. Fast forward to about five years ago and I wake up to a drip drip dripping noise in my left ear in the morning. Also that certain frequencies messed with my hearing and that I had a whistling sound in my ear. At the time I thought I'd caused this by heavy usage of wearing headphones. Since then I've the ENT doc and it turns out I've got a retracted eardrum. This is probably the cause of the PT I've been suffering with for the past few weeks. I wake up in the morning to the sound of my heartbeat and occasionally the whooshing/air sound and a muffled full feeling in the ear.

I've got another ENT appointment coming up sometime hopefully soon where I will explain to the doc everything. They've mooted the idea of having tympanoplasty to sort out the retracted eardrum. Maybe that'll sort out PT too. I hope things will get a bit better going to forward whatever happens.

It's a bit of a long shot this but I'll try here for this. I've got a retracted eardrum on one side which has caused mild tinnitus in the past. It's been suggested that I might possibly have to have tympanoplasty but nothing is planned yet. However the problem I get is sleeping on the side that the buggered eardrum is on. I get pulsating tinnitus about 4:30 in the morning which is bloody annoying. Sometimes turning over onto the opposite side can help but not always. It has crossed my mind if my eustachian tube is fully working or not.

Has anyone had anything like this?

This isn't new at all but I recently rewatched this video where Graham and Warren Huart go through Modern Life is rubbish track by track. I love these kind of videos where artists go through their own albums in detail. I'd love it if Graham did a video like this for 13 or the self titled album although he did do one with Stephen Street for the self titled album. Huart seems pretty easy going but it's a bit annoying the way he bops his head up and down whilst listening to the tracks. I like it when tracks like Star shaped or turn it up come up as you never hear a member of the band talk about these tracks as they're barely ever played. Graham sometimes makes out that he doesn't know a lot about the technical side of guitar playing but it's quite obvious that he knows a lot more than he let's on.

Does anyone else like these kind of technical videos?

Lots of bands from the 90s have had various reunions over the years but as Mansun fans we'll never get that. Or a comeback album or frankly anything. Does anyone who was in the band like each other now? Probably not. I think even Andy wants to disassociate himself from Draper. I've no idea what happened to Stove. He simply vanished never to be heard of again. It must be slightly weird as people are working alongside the ex members in whatever jobs they do now possibly completely unaware that they were once part of Mansun.

With the state of Draper now I think the time for any reunion is long gone. They might have been able to have pulled it off 15 years ago but not now. This is a pretty pointless post really so I'll stop here.

Reading that recent article about companies whose job is to stir up hype for an artist that doesn't quite deserve it yet is slightly concerning and even worse for the artists that actually deserve it. Geese I can't see why people are raving about them when I can hear anything memorable. Now it appears that the hype was mostly made up. What does everyone think about this? It's basically cheating. They haven't earned acclaim just paid some company to manufacture it for them.

What do you all think about Graham's solo discography that started with 1998s the sky is too high with his latest album Castle Park coming out in a month or two. This includes his Superstate album from 2020 and film score work?

I wasn't too fussed about the debut although it's got who the fuck on it but his second album the golden D was an improvement. It didn't really get going unto the kiss of morning and happiness in magazines a few years later and possibly peaked with A+E. His Superstate album is an overlooked gem. I feel like his solo discography is quite slept on as it contains some really good albums and covers almost 30 years.