Utan att jämföra med varken dåtidens eller nutidens namn i genren kan vi väl bara kallt konstatera att det är få som fortfarande utan att ha svärtat ner rykte eller anseende kan fylla Hyde Park med 55 000 personer två dagar i rad. Blur gjorde det härom sommaren. Ett popband i ordets rätta bemärkelse som alltid varit relevant, alltid intressant utan att ge vika för den allra innersta kärnan av lust och energi.
Viktig popmusik återspeglar sin samtid, i vissa fall färgar och skapar den. Blur skulle nog själva inte protestera allt för högljutt om vi skriver in dem som ja just viktig popmusik.
Igår blev det klart att de återvänder till Hyde Park i sommar för att avsluta OS. De mottog även igår kväll hederspris på Brit Awards för ’Outstanding Contribution to Music’. Men desto mer intressant för oss, idag kan vi berätta att Blur är klar för en exklusiv spelning på Way Out West.
”Blur as we know it was born in 1989 when the band signed to Food/EMI. The debut album Leisure (1991) announced the arrival of a band with pop suss warped by an art-punk eccentricity. Yet Blur had more in them: namely, a revolution in the sound of English popular music. The second album Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) reintroduced the idea that English rock music could be cool, and by the time their third album Parklife emerged in 1994, the rest of the UK had caught up.
The Great Escape (1995) refined the sound palette of Britpop, but Blur was already moving on. 1997’s Blur was an about-face – scuffed, noisy and un-English. In 1999 they followed up with 13 which was an even more radical adventure in sound as William Orbit mediated a truce between organic punkpop and new-fangled technology.
The seventh album Think Tank (2003) was Blur’s first as a three piece after the temporary departure of founding guitarist Graham Coxon, and featured an eclectic variety of rhythms and textures, glorious melodies and their most direct set of songs since Parklife.
In 2009 Blur reconvened as a four-piece to play a series of UK shows including two sold out dates at Hyde Park and a historic Sunday night appearance at Glastonbury. A film about Blur, No Distance Left To Run, was released in 2010.
Summer 2012 they join The Black Keys, Refused, Bon Iver, Florence + The Machine, Feist, First Aid Kit and many more on the lineup for Way Out West festival!”
Klara artister just nu:
Way Out West
Blur
The Black Keys
Refused
Bon Iver
Florence +The Machine
Feist
First Aid Kit
Thurston Moore
St. Vincent
Billy Bragg
Azealia Banks
Asap Rocky
Deportees
Yelawolf
The War On Drugs
Stay Out West
King Krule
Iceage