‘End of the Century’: The song that saw Blur nail the art of songwriting
During a 2014 interview with Newsnight, Damon Albarn brought a close to a saga that had rumbled on for the past two decades. When simply asked who he thought was better, Blur or Oasis, Albarn confessed it was the latter. He later elaborated, saying, “I think they were better at communicating who they were, than we were.”
But the fact is that quote came during the promotional campaign for their eighth studio album, The Magic Whip, while his contemporaries were squabbling on social media and preparing to release solo tracks that sounded like Oasis karaoke. A point lending itself to the larger argument that yes, Oasis were better at communicating who they were because there were fewer dimensions to convey, while the more nuanced brilliance of Blur undoubtedly got lost in the confines of tabloid criticism.
Blur, and more specifically Albarn, is one of the most influential musicians to herald the industry in the modern era. He’s proven his rich diversity of skills and ability to put his hand to any exploration of genre to good effect.
But it was in 1994 that their brilliance was unfairly being packaged into a Britpop rivalry to feed the salaciousness of the British tabloid press and to many their album Parklife was measured in relative terms to Oasis’ Definitely Maybe. But it shouldn’t have been because it was an entirely different entity together and beneath the breakout hits ‘Boys and Girls’ and ‘Parklife’ stood songs that showcased a more nuanced approach to songwriting.
It was an album that saw the band operating at their peak, or as bassist Alex James put it, with “a sense that something was happening. That we were developing”. But it was an artistic experiment, not rooted in the templates that got them there. Their previous two albums, Leisure and Modern Life Is Rubbish, were art-rock informed, but more rooted in conventional live instrumentation.
When Parklife came around, there was an opportunity to throw textures at the wall and see what sticks. “We were having fun with genres all the time,” the producer told Stuart Maconie, who explained, for the Blur biography 3862 Days. He continued: “We’d discuss the vibe we wanted on each track… Let’s be Bowie here. Let’s have a Numan or Magazine vibe here, or a New Romantic feel.”
Great bands like Blur soon discover that big names can act as references without being modes of pastiche. Blur were a unique and characterful band whose simple act of sharing a studio with one another produced something more innate, no matter who the inspiration was. This idea became apparent to Albarn in the ‘End of a Century’.
He described the track as being the marker of “getting the art of songwriting really sorted”. The chord progressions had the hallmarks of a Blur classic, but with whimsical experimental interludes and three-part harmonies to back up Albarn’s lead to make the track a more complicated experience throughout. It straddled the line between art-rock and pop, more fitting for the subcultural parties of ‘70s New York than the gritty streets of Great Britain. But it proved Blur’s ability to traverse multiple soundscapes that dare I say, their rivals could never.
