Blur's 2003 album Think Tank was both a
personal landmark for it's experimentation as it was a sad,
disappointing finale to the band's first part of it's career. It made
over a dozen best-album of the year lists yet, it's a far cry from
what makes people connect with Blur. Their blend of diverse
guitar-based Britpop is as inventive-sounding now as it was popular
in the UK then. Guitarist Graham Coxon was fired during the recording
of the album and only appears on the sad, but beautiful “Battery In
Your Leg”. The album does suffer as a result of his absence.
The singles were “Out Of Time”,“Crazy
Beat” and “Good Song”. “Out Of Time” is one of the band's
best ballads and it remains the lone long from the album that the
band still regularly performs live. “Crazy Beat” is a Fatboy
Slim-produced song and sounds like a stab at writing something along
the lines of “Song 2”, but doesn’t really register. “Good
Song” is in fact a good song. It has a sweet, poignant melody and
is a stand-out on the album. A good amount of the album are murky,
low-key grooves that work some of the time (namely on “Ambulance”
and “On The Way To The Club”. There are some throwaways (“We've
Got A File On You” and “Jets”) and some worthwhile moments
(“Sweet Song” and “Battery In Your Leg”).
Think Tank is not a great starting
place to discover who Blur is (that would be Best Of Blur, The
Great Escape and Modern
Life Is Rubbish). And lead
singer Damon Albarn and bassist Alex James have since someone
disowned the album. However it is an interesting experimental album
that does work at least some of the time.
Here's the video review:
Special Thanks: Rebecca Parker.
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