Blur Catalogue Currently Being Remastered At Abbey Road

I ordered both sets from Amazon UK when the prices were lower. I can't wait to hear them.

 

"Bang" is on "Leisure" - first disc in the new box

I don't think it's that notable that the "Bustin' & Dronin'" material isn't in the new box. "Live at The Budokan" (like "Bustin'", a JP release) isn't either. Though I do agree it's unfortunate that the Seymour tracks you mention won't be included.

A few more that aren't in the new box: "High Cool (Easy Listening Mix)" and "Bad Day (Leisurely Mix)"

 

Does it make sense to get the 10th anniversary singles box?

 

Gah! Stupid mistake on 'Bang', sorry. Thanks for pointing that out. (I think I may've had in my head while doing this list that 'Bang' was - like 'Popscene' - a non-album single. And the extended version is there anyway.)

I agree that excluding 'Live at the Budokan' makes sense. I was just pointing out that you still need it and 'Bustin" to have all their commercially released stuff. Whether or not anyone cares for a handful of 'Blur'-era remixes is up to them: as I said, I don't even have that myself.

 

At this point, it's pretty inessential, unless you find it cheap. I bought mine about eight years ago & paid around $200 for it, if memory serves. There's a lot of music on it - some of the discs have up to 8-9 tracks (especially from the 'Modern Life' era, hence why that disc in this new box is so full but still missing a bunch, as on my list above). But if you're getting 21, there's not a lot missing that's really essential - some of those Seymour tracks, mainly, and depending on your level of completionism, some live songs not included. Otherwise, as you can see on my list, it's mostly just single edits etc that haven't been carried over.

That said, it's a well-produced box, with all the replica sleeves - & their singles artwork was consistently great - done pretty well.

My advice would be to hold off for now. Enjoy 21, and if you become desperate for those missing tracks, see if other people have decided to get rid of their singles box because of 21...

 

Just saw this interview with Stephen Street linked over on the official Blur forum:

http://www.audioprointernational.com/news/read/interview-legendary-producer-stephen-street/04778

Here's an interesting bit:
What's your take on how digital music has affected sound quality?
In recent years we've seen what's been commonly referred to as the 'loudness wars'. With 21 we were able to cut the remasters of the older Blur records much louder than they were originally. But we were very careful not to go too loud to the point of everything being squared off, compressed and crushed to get maximum volume. Frank Arkwright, a very good mastering engineer at Abbey Road, discussed how loud we wanted to go before it started to affect the dynamics of the recording. We settled on a very good balance.

When EMI put out Blur's last compilation, Midlife, two or three years ago, it was awful. I wish someone would have consulted me about that because the levels were all over the place, and I was really quite angry when I heard it. This time, I wanted to get it really, really right.

 

I know that a lot of people here didn't like Frank Arkwright's work on the recent Smiths remasters, but I thought he did a good job overall, particularly on the LPs of the Smiths remasters, which I thought sounded a lot better and less "loudness war"-cranked than the CDs. If that's the case here, the LP set might be a good option. I'm sticking with the CD box, but, if the LP set gets good reviews, I might pick that up later if it's still available.

From what I've read previously, I'm not sure if the post-Stephen Street albums in this set have been remastered at all.

 

I see what you're saying, however I ordered the Smiths big box set from there last year, which worked out at £120 compared to the UK prices of around £225-250, and it came within a week of it being released no problem, in perfect condition.

Hence why I've gone with Amazon.ca again, if it saves me money then that's all that matters, and even with shipping included (i've chosen it to arrive in 4 business days) it still works out just under £100

 

Amazon.ca has a great price but, isn't there the "customs fee" danger? Just asking

 

There certainly is when ordering from Amazon UK to Canada, but I didn't think you got hosed going the other way around.

I often find some great deals like this on Amazon Canada where I'm amazed how much cheaper it is than the US website. Shame this isn't the price of the LP set, I'd be all over it.

 

I've decided to sell my anniversary box via the SH classifieds. It's great, but I just don't have room for the whole lot.

 

Didnt recieve a customs fee for my Smiths box, I paid with shipping 188.33 Canadian Dollars, which worked out at around £120, absolute bargain!

 

Hmmm, "...much louder, but not too loud to the point of everything being squared off, compressed and crushed to get maximum volume". Well, at least he's aware of the loudness wars, but this still reads like a red flag to me. Why make it so much louder in the first place when you can save the dynamics of a recording by just avoiding the danger zone?

Chances are that the LPs might sound somewhat decent, but it take it that the CDs still will be compressed. At least I'll await the reviews on this forum before I decide if I should bite or not.

 

Wow! Anything exceeding $25 and 99,9% of the times we have to pay several taxes, this is why I only order non expensive items from the USA or Canada. If I find an absolute bargain that saves me money even with the added customs, then fine... not the case for the Blur box; I'll stick with Amazon.it this time

 

Importcds.com seems to have a damn fine price on 'em.

http://www.importcds.com/Search/Guided/Blur?ed=11

 

There's a copy of the singles box for sale in the Classifieds for a damn fine price right now (not my sale, just FYI...)

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=290416

 

Debating what to do... Buy the deluxe editions separately over time or just buy the box set to get it over with. Yeah I'll be missing out on 6 discs of material if I buy them separately but I really haven't heard enough of Blur. Any suggestions?

 

You might be asking the wrong group of people... Put it this way: I have all the albums, most of the bsides (everything through '13', give or take, & a handful post-then), and a bunch of live things & other stuff - and I am still insanely excited for this box.

It really depends what you've heard & how much you liked it. I personally have jumped into a few bands via huge boxes (admittedly few as big as this one!) and enjoyed it. But Blur always had pretty great bsides (other than the 'Parklife' era, IMHO, despite it being their most popular album and one of their best, the bsides were pretty spotty - some great, some awful). So a decent amount of these discs will be full to brimming with excellent material and most of the rest will interesting at least.

Maybe seek out some of their bsides etc on YouTube or wherever, and see what you think (if you've not heard any of them, that is). The unreleased discs exclusive to this box it's harder to advise on, simply since most of them are genuinely unheard. But if you've liked the albums you've heard, and enjoy any bsides you come across, I'd suggest that the big box is the way to go.

Of course, as I said, I'm biased. Blur are one of my favourite bands, and I find even a lot of their non-albums tracks well worth my time...

 

I like Blur a lot, and I have ordered the box, but I can be objective, so...

Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife and The Great Escape are brilliant albums. For some people I think those three are enough. Add the Blur album as well maybe.

I did make a cdr of all the b-sides from Parklife once and it was not very good, some really scrapping the barrel their, I think all the best songs are on the album. They are not like Radiohead in that respect where you need all the singles.

So, I think unless you are a real hardcore fan you don't need the box. This isn't a band like The Smiths where every note literally they recorded was worth hearing.

 

Sounds exactly like the Smiths remasters. Not brick walled, but louder and in the end not as good as the originals.

Plus the vinyl in the Smiths box is a real mess, so I wouldn't expect much more from the Blur set since it's the same team doing the work.

 

Curious why you say the vinyl in the Smiths box is a real mess, Bonjo... I thought the reviews for the vinyl set were very very strong (at least here on the Forum). I read of one or two tracks that had issues, but overall I thought the Smiths vinyl was well received...?

 

The best example is Back To the Old House on LtB, which is so bad it literally distorts through half the song. But the exact same issue is present, in varying degrees, throughout the set. Some of the songs have high-frequency clipping or distortion.

 

...on top of that Louder Than Bombs and World Won't Listen just don't sound good. Pinched, bright and glassy. The rest are better, aside from the occasional bits of distortion I mentioned above. Hatful is really good.

Just a mixed bag all around, which is why I said it's a mess.

 

Hmm. I had read over in that Smiths Box thread about that one Back To the Old House (I think you were the one posting about it, right?), but hadn't heard that the rest of the set had major problems. I went with the CD version myself (I have pretty much all of the original Rough Trade vinyl already), so that's interesting news.

 

I'd say that Blur, 13, and Think Tank are far better than the Britpop albums (and I like the Britpop albums).