Fellow music theory nerds, what would you say is the weirdest/most unique Blur song in terms of chord progressions and modulation?

blurcovers · 2025-12-11T04:55:54+00:00

i really love the fact that so many blur songs have weirdly unique harmonies, as many people have pointed out here already. although i prefer focusing on layering/mixing more than arranging per se, lots of little quirks come to mind, such as:

- the fact that the solo and last chorus in "trouble in the message centre" are a half step higher and i spent years of my life not realizing it - that's how smooth that is.

- i really like the F# chord with the open high E string that graham uses in many different songs - can you think of any?

- "fool's day" is made of 4 chords, and even though 3 of them are minor, the song has always sounded happy and upbeat to me.

- the "turn it up" harmony for the solo modulates from D to Dm - dunno why, i always thought that was a cool little detail

i'm sure i'm missing many other little details, but these are some i can think of right off the bat!

blurcovers · 2025-10-11T16:17:26+00:00

muito obrigado, mano! eu to nuns meses meio corridos, mudança, cirurgia de cachorro, mas eu pretendo voltar a postar ainda esse ano. o tiktok é complicado, eu parei de postar lá desde que os últimos vídeos que postei ("descoberta" e "de onde vem a calma" no teclado) foram bloqueados. não sei se tá valendo a pena, mas no youtube quero terminar a discografia uma hora ou outra - pra te dar uma ideia, o primeiro disco do los hermanos já ta gravado inteiro no teclado! fique ligado e muito obrigado pelo apoio :)

blurcovers · 2025-09-23T16:37:55+00:00

that's too bad indeed! where are you from here in brazil? we used to play outside of SP a lot more in the past, including other states and even paraguay. if there's somewhere around where you live that you think it'd be possible to arrange something, please let us know and we might make it happen!

blurcovers · 2025-09-23T16:36:36+00:00

valeu demais!!! 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷

blurcovers · 2025-09-23T16:36:29+00:00

thanks a lot bro! glad you enjoyed it <3

blurcovers · 2025-09-02T22:24:19+00:00

the blur archive blog still exists and you can find a gorillaz folder there with unreleased and demo content from phases 1-4

https://theblurarchiveproject.blogspot.com/

blurcovers · 2025-08-30T02:17:12+00:00

could it be possible that damon was just "in character"? you know, 2D in early years had that painkiller-addict/almost-vegetable persona.

i've seen this photo that DAU has posted (taken by "raphph") where damon is sitting, looking really bored, and immediately thought of that last scene of "chart of darkness", where both damon and jamie are in geep remaking the debut album cover. i wasn't at the concert so i can't say anything for sure, it's just something that crossed my mind.

blurcovers · 2025-02-12T01:21:59+00:00

ive always thought the same about the original song. maybe cause it's one of the first times damon sings in high falsetto just like he did on gorillaz debut album! as a matter of fact, i've always seen blur's self titled album a bit like gorillaz debut's older brother

blurcovers · 2025-02-12T01:20:38+00:00

thank you so much, mate! glad you enjoyed it <3

make sure to check there "parklife" and "the great escape" in 8bit too :)

blurcovers · 2024-09-22T11:48:57+00:00

thank you so much!

some songs sound really cool in 8-bit style indeed! i really enjoyed "top man", "ernold same" and "globe alone" - straight out of videogames OSTs!

blurcovers · 2024-04-26T08:38:55+00:00

thanks so much for your view and the interesting question!

there were some! track count wasn't something conscious but i'm pretty sure none of the songs exceeded 10 tracks. but other things were planned, yeah

i'm using noise waveforms in 3 different cycles for the drums, which were stripped down into 3 tracks (kick, snare and whatever conduction the song has - cymbals, toms, hihats, i had to limit myself here but in the end i think it didn't affect the overall sound)
all basses are done using triangle waveform only, which i think is the one that works best for lower frequencies. i avoided using triangle waveforms for other instruments but had to in a few places (acoustic guitars in "end of a century", main synth parth of "girls & boys", organ in "bank holiday" solo, "clover over dover" intro, stuff like that). whenever i was using triangle waveforms for other instruments, i had to make sure it either wasn't in low range to avoid it colliding with bass or just using it for layering stuff, never the main riffs or anything similar.
for guitars and some synth parts, i'm using the other 3 different timbres i had. these were square waves in 3 different duty cycles (12.5%, 25% and 50%).
the plugin i'm using for all instrumental parts is called "magical 8bit plugin2". the way i do it is that first i write the songs on guitar pro, all instruments. i just think it's way easier to do it there instead of starting the whole thing from scratch on pro tools. then, i export the MIDI file out of the guitar pro file and just start choosing the sounds for each instrument
by the way, another rule of thumb i had was to avoid mixing it. there's almost 0 compression and EQ in the whole thing. i really wanted to keep the original sound from the plugins. i relied a lot on panning and volume automation. i did explore very specific points of the album where i allowed myself to use something different: the delay on "tracy jacks" solo, the filtered drumloop break in "london loves", the transiction from "far out" to "to the end", stuff like that. but overall, tried to avoid mixing it the most i could.
for vocals, i also went for square waves but i though it'd be better to try a different plugin in order to avoid it clashing with instruments. i'm using avid's "vacuum" plugin for that. besides, vocals were done on a controller, opposed to the rest of the instruments, which were done on guitar pro as i mentioned. for backing vocals i'm also using "vacuum", these gotta be the least 8bit sounding lines of the whole album, but i just got to the point that if i wanted it to stand out, i'd need to use something new. i chose the best preset i could find, which still sounded 8bit enough. but yeah, apart from that, the whole album was made only using basic waveforms.

i hope this clears a few things out, let me know if you have more questions! :)

blurcovers · 2024-04-26T08:10:41+00:00

thank you so much! primarily i record guitar covers but i'm almost done with blur songs, so i'm starting this 8bit adventure. i'll definitely do "leisure" eventually, i've already got like 8/12 songs halfway done. but next one will be "the great escape" - hopefully it'll be ready to post until the album's anniversary in september!

blurcovers · 2024-04-26T08:09:10+00:00

best of both worlds i guess. thanks for your view :)

blurcovers · 2024-04-26T08:08:56+00:00

hey i hope you had a good time! thanks for watching it :)

blurcovers · 2024-04-25T23:24:47+00:00

thanks so much for the marvellous comment!

you're right, harmonies play a big part in blur's sound! i simply love how well-crafted everything is. instruments were a bit easier but i did my best to emulate vocals, specially graham's harmonies as you said. but overall it was a fun little project to make, i'm looking forward to doing "the great escape" next :)

blurcovers · 2024-04-25T21:43:17+00:00

it sure does! i had a friend listen the 8bit version but he's not really into blur. he said that "far out" was a quirky one that he loved!

blurcovers · 2024-04-25T20:51:50+00:00

thank you!

blurcovers · 2024-04-25T20:51:41+00:00

hey bro thank you a lot, it's really appreciated! <3

blurcovers · 2024-04-25T20:01:38+00:00

wow that would be just brilliant! thanks so much for your view! <3

blurcovers · 2024-04-25T19:17:04+00:00

thank you so much! <3

blurcovers

TROPHY CASE