• Turn It Up: An alternative Blur playlist

    ‘Girls and Boys’, ‘Parklife’, ‘Songs 2’ – the vast majority of us could hum the choruses to each of these Blur singles in our sleep, night after night, until time itself consumes us and the final under-the-breath muttered “woohoo” for eternity. Which is not necessary a bad thing, of course. In their heyday, Alex James, Damon Albarn, Dave Rowntree and Graham Coxon were collectively responsible for concocting some of the most ridiculously infectious singles of a generation. Lingering beneath that exterior, however, was a considerably more experimental knack spearheaded by the wonderfully wayward playing of Coxon and Albarn’s own brand of…