Woo-hoo! Blur Turns Ten

This weekend, readers of British newspaper The Observer will find a rare treat among the tabloid's folds: a free seven-track CD of Blur songs spanning their ten-year career, with one song taken from each of the group's records. The enhanced CD will also include filmed interviews with the band.

The anniversary festivities continue with another multimedia Blur experience the following weekend, during an exhibition at London's Lux Gallery on Sept. 11-12. The showing, called Blur: X, will feature live footage, a free jukebox containing all of the band's twenty-two singles, listening posts where unreleased tracks can be heard, a collection of guitarist Graham Coxon's artwork (a piece of which, by the way, adorns the cover of the aforementioned free CD), photos, memorabilia and more. An auction of select items will follow the close of the exhibit. A camera placed near the entrance-way to the gallery will be hooked up to a specially designated Web site, where comings-and-goings will be broadcast along with other exhibit footage beginning the Monday after the whole thing ends.

That same URL -- which Blur's management speculates will be www.blurx.co.uk -- will also be the site to witness a live Webcast of the band's historic Monday, Sept. 13 club gig, where the band will perform only B-sides before a very small audience.

And if that's not enough Blur for you, the band will release a limited-edition box set at the end of September. The set gathers all of the band's singles (and their respective B-sides) into an elaborately packaged collection that will include plenty of extra artwork and extensive liner notes. The vast majority of the boxes will be sold in the U.K., although a small portion will be distributed internationally.

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Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

More Song Stories entries »

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