Blur's brave, ragged, dark and beautiful sixth album '13' turns 20 this year. Born out of the fall-out after Britpop, dabblings with heroin, relationship break-ups, it also perfectly combined Damon Albarn's newfound desire for experimentation with Graham Coxon's increasing hunger for noise. The blistering 'Bugman' is a thick slab of garage punk with muddy big beats, brutal guitar fuzz and pneumatic drill noise that descends into utter chaos before a stinging bassline and raucous riffage take things to a new level.The late 90's were a very interesting period in Blur's career. Their self titled 1997 saw a raw reinvention and a complete step away from the britpop scene, replacing the lively English pop with a darker, rougher-edged, more inventive approach to making music. Despite alienating some of their casual fanbase, the 'Blur' album saw them regain a lot of critical respect and also helped the band become better known worldwide.
Wondering what direction the next Blur album was going to take was something that brought up many possibilities. Would they decide the experimenting was out of their system and return to writing catchy pop anthems again? After 'Song 2''s success would this be their lo-fi grunge punk album? It was confirmed that the record would be produced by William Orbit, a dance musician who had previously worked with Madonna on her 'Ray Of Light' album. Would this be Blur's dance album? Far from being littered with club anthems and trance beats, '13' would turn out to be a brave, ambitious and emotionally fragile piece of work that sounds even more incredible 20 years on than it did back then.
