Exactly 20 years ago today on 22 February 1999, the mighty Blur released 'Tender', the first single to be taken from their classic album '13'. 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 13 years on than it did back then. Before its release the music press was alive with speculation about what the album, and when I first read about the album's first single, the band described it as a country-gospel song. When I first heard it I realised it was indeed that, but a whole lot more too.
I bought the single on its day on release from a record shop in Bath called Rival Records, and a few weeks later also purchased '13' on the day it hit the shops. I recall maybe hearing a few of the tracks previewed on Radio One in the week leading up to the album's release, but hearing the album was an utter revelation. I also instantly found it to be even more of a challenging listen than its predecessor, but after a while every single moment of '13' grew on me in a most rewarding way. It's hard to imagine anything more uplifting than the joyously soulful 'Tender'.It was expected to be a dead-cert number 1 single here in the UK, but was kept at number 2 by Britney Spears' debut megahit 'Baby One More Time'.
The band'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.
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