Bubbling Under: Blur- "M.O.R."

One of the biggest UK bands of the 90s.

Welcome to Bubbling Under. Each edition I cover an artist that charted outside the Hot 100 on Billboard's Bubbling Under chart. This week: Blur

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In the 1990s, Blur was one of the UK's biggest acts. Their chart battle with Oasis was highly publicised. Blur deservedly won. It was front-page news.

Yet in North America, Blur couldn’t get arrested.

Like another massive UK artist I’ll be covering soon, Robbie Williams, Blur did have popularity in Canada. They scored four Top 40 studio albums. In addition to this, their Best Of went Top 20, and I remember it being widely available. Blur scored at least two Top 40 Canadian hit singles with “Girls & Boys” (1994) and “Crazy Beat” (2003).

Their US profile is significantly lower. Only two of their singles reached the Hot 100: “There’s No Other Way” (#82, 1991), “Girls & Boys” (#59, 1994).

It was another story in the UK. Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon and company were massive over there. They had a score of hit singles, several going top ten and two climbing to #1, starting with “Country House”, 1995, the winner of the chart battle with Oasis.

It’s a great song, and the video is fun, too, with its obvious Queen homage. As much as I prefer these guys to Oasis, I think “Country House” poses one issue. Blur were too British and too sophisticated-sounding to catch on in ‘Murica.

Their other UK #1 hit, “Beetlebum”, which comes from the same self-titled 1997 album as “M.O.R”, might have had wider crossover appeal.

“Beetlebum” deserved to be a #1. It’s a great slice of 90s alternative rock. It was a Top 20 rock hit in Canada, but it appears not to have had a stab at the Billboard Modern Rock charts, which is a shame. When you look at the Hot 100 in 1997, it’s obvious this wasn’t going to stand a chance against the stuff that was popular down there, so I won’t even chase that notion. This should have been massive on the modern rock charts, though.

In Canada, it seemed like a lot of people had one of the following albums in the late 1990s: Chumbawamba’s Tubthumper album, Aquarium by Aqua, Savage Garden’s first self-titled monstrosity, or this album by Blur. I never had any of these, but with the exception of Savage Garden, I would definitely track any of them down second-hand.

The reason everyone likely had that Blur album was their next single, a single I’m actually shocked wasn’t that big of a hit because it was severely overplayed well into the early 2000s.

“Song 2” was the Top Ten modern rock hit that “Beetlebum” should have been. It climbed to #2 in the UK (thankfully, Beetlebum placed higher) and was shockingly only a number one rock hit in Canada, not climbing onto the regular RPM charts.

To this day, if you asked an American about Blur, they’d probably know “The Woo-Hoo Song”. Which is a real shame because it’s the worst thing they've ever put out as a single.

The album’s fourth single, “M.O.R”, is actually the one that was the biggest pop hit when it climbed all the way to a whopping #114.

The video is fun too, but it's similar to the one The Beastie Boys did a few years earlier for “Sabotage”.

That’s not the only artist they were inspired by. It’s well known that Blur were fans of David Bowie, as seen by this interview with Graham Coxon.

“M.O.R.” borrows the same chord progression Bowie used for “Boys Keep Swinging” and “Fantastic Voyage” from the 1979 Brian Eno-produced album Lodger.

Bowie and Eno eventually received credit on the song, and there weren’t any hard feelings as Bowie joined Damon Albarn on stage at least once for a duet on Bowie’s 1980 classic “Fashion”.

Blur recorded a couple more albums before disbanding in 2003. They got back together again in 2009, have since recorded a couple of albums since then, and show no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Damon Albarn found success with Gorillaz. Albarn has had his greatest success in the States with Gorillaz, “Feel Good Inc” becoming a Top 20 hit back in 2005.

Graham Coxon had a solo career. I plan to elaborate on that at some point in the future. Ditto for Blur’s material before their initial 2003 breakup. Until then. Those are stories for another time.

Next Week: In time for Eurovision, I look at the German entry from 1977.