Damon Albarn might have recently told us that their Hyde Park gig this summer will be Blur’s last hurrah, but that shouldn’t stop you from listening to the music they’ve already recorded. This year marks 21 years since the release of Leisure, and to commemorate this, Parlophone have remastered their back catalogue and are releasing some mammoth box sets.
Overseen by Graham Coxon and producer Stephen Street, Frank Arkwright has given the albums an overhaul and all seven will be released individually as Special Editions, including bonus discs of previously unreleased material, Blur artwork postcards and expanded booklets with liner notes drawing on a new interview with the band. The remasters are being released on vinyl, too, with download codes for the bonus material.
Blur 21: The Box includes all the Special Editions on CD, and adds rather a lot of extra material: four discs of rarities that you won’t get anywhere else; three DVDs featuring two live shows and some video rarities; a hardback book looking back over their career, compiling the new interview liner notes and printing some previously unseen photos; and a 7” vinyl of the song ‘Superman’, from back when they were called Seymour. Things to listen out for here are the sessions they did with XTC’s Andy Partridge, which haven’t seen a release before, and cuts like ‘The Wassailling Song’ and ‘Fools Day’, which haven’t made it onto CD before. For a trip through the less well-known reaches of Blur’s back catalogue – which also features a look at ‘The Wasailling Song’ – read our recent journey Beyond The Hits.
Oh, and there’s also Blur 21: The Vinyl Box, which collects all of the newly re-released vinyl LPs. And for all you aesthetes, both box sets come in rather dashing cases (see above). Phew. All of this gets a release on 30th July, so until then, watch the nostalgia trip of a promo video below:
