Blur – Me, White Noise Review

One last rush of quality in their original run marks Me, White Noise as a callback-laden powerhouse from a drifting Blur group. Graham Coxon had departed. Damon Albarn was now dabbling in his Gorillaz project. Alex James likely had some cheese to mould together. Me, White Noise is totally removed from the best bits of Blur. What the band were known for, from their earliest days when Seymour was still a name to be associated with to the shock openness of 13, is not found here. Me, White Noise is a reaction. Albarn and the remaining Blur members had not drifted fundamentally from their sound in over a decade. Here was their chance. Draft in Phil Daniels for a graceful transition and Me, White Noise blurs the line between contemporary disgust and formative years. It is one of the band’s best songs. 

Unflinching honesty over what their image had been a decade prior can be heard within Me, White Noise. It is not the hate, but it is disgust. The Country House days are long behind them and a disregard for The Great Escape is clear. This is not a punchy little pop number but a chance for Blur to move with the times. Gritty and emotional works go hand in hand for the Albarn-fronted group who managed to recapture the grunge spirit of their self-titled album. Me, White Noise benefits from this overwhelming electronic spirit. There is a rage burning through it which peppers the track with cultural dread. Daniels, and on another version Albarn, deliver a hatred for what had become British pop music. Understandably so. It may seem slimy for Blur to hit out at those in the top spot, given their position years earlier, but it makes sense to bury those horrors. Blur is reflecting on a whining and bold electronic track.  

They had never tried this level of mania before and never would again. Me, White Noise stands as a truly unique Blur experience, and it is likely one of their best creations. Sharp writing, a snarling delivery and all of it buried under repetition and gritty sampling. All of it comes together as this wonderful pocket of noise, hellbent on burning the bridges so meticulously built up by the band in their past. Fury like this is rare and it is a sign of a band on their way out. At their most lucid and furious we get to see the true glimpse of Blur as an outfit now missing one of its members. With the absence of Coxon, it was up to the band to cover their tracks and confirm themselves as a still-relevant unit. That, or puncture what they had been known for. 

Dealing with the latter is an exciting opportunity for Blur to say farewell and though Think Tank would mark the end of the band, it cannot be truly felt. Revisionism and reunion tours lifted some of those tracks into their live showcases and now it feels like a decent, jutting endpoint powered through with The Magic Whip and The Ballad of Darren. For those who want true closure on the band, look no further than Me, White Noise. A primal track which hears Blur devolve their imagery and tone into screeches of harsh electronics. Yet in this harshness is a beauty the band never captured elsewhere. An honesty with themselves and their listeners which would fail to be seen again in this furious light. It is a gift of a track, the most in-depth Blur has ever sounded.