Layer 263 . . . Blur, Britpop and Show Business

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A band called Blur decided to make a documentary about themselves and their career, and called it No Distance Left To Run. I'm not sure why. It had its “Premiere” on BBC2 last night.

A bunch of talentless but aspirational art college jerkoffs from Essex were prone to drunkenness, depression, and occasional random violence - mostly against one another and pieces of blameless crockery. Little twats, vaguely rebellious, desperate to be famous, and all they wanted to do was make 'pop' music.

Good at striking poses, hustlers, but clueless and unmusical; their audience seemed to consist of skinny white boys and their skinny white girlfriends.

Drinking, smoking, grinning inanely, determined to be successful but surprised at their undeserved success. They told themselves they played with “spirit”, even though they played like “complete prats”.

They liked to drink a lot and get into their own “little fuzzy world”, and said they didn't care whether their audience liked it or not.

It was a completely cynical exercise – making money from a documentary about a crappy reunion tour, with the whole thing bulked out with footage from their early days.

Amusing highlights -

A local journalist asking whether they were the biggest band in the world.

“Maybe pop stardom was what I was after. I quite liked it.”

“It was quite nice going to parties – but people were so annoying. So boring and vacuous.”

“We were getting quite clever with it. But sometimes a bit too clever.”

“Yes – Damon's very competitive. But Oasis were like the bullies we had to put up with at school.”

“We seemed to maneuver ourselves into a position where everyone hated us.”

“We were all at sea the day Country House got to No 1.”

“I was in a strange permutation of performance.” (?)

“We were just kids.”

Too fucking right. 25 year old retards by then.

Angsty, vacuous, and unforgivably dull and unmusical. And annoying. Addicted to fame and other sorts of drugs.

Worrying about becoming “unbalanced”; worrying about their relationships with each other falling apart; turning up drunk to recording sessions; or not turning up at all.

“Damon wasn't just a ruthless, careerist maniac. He also had feelings.”

Ahhhhh.

Poor Graham got “locked away for a month.” In The Priory.

And then . . . eventually . . . getting back together and performing at Glastonbury.

“Crowd pleasing hits played by a nervous but excitable band”, as the BBC's blurb puts it.

More pitiful nonsense.

“Come on, come on, come on
Love's the greatest thing.”

Oh yeah. Profound.

Oh well. Such is Oxzen's dedication to being a patient, open-minded, lifelong enquirer.

90+ minutes of waiting in vain for a single decent song or piece of music to emerge from a complete pile of shit.

Maybe you can't blame a bunch of wannabe retards for wanting to get up on a stage and do some showing off.  Maybe it was just having a laugh, and maybe it was pretty harmless.

I pity the poor sods in the audiences who had nothing better to do with themselves, who seemed to think whatever they were looking at and listening to, and paying money for, had any value. Obviously to them it did.

Show business. There's no business quite like it.
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