''The Magic Whip'' (stylised in Chinese text) is the eighth studio album by English rock band
Blur. It was recorded in Hong Kong and London, and released by
Parlophone
Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...
on 27 April 2015 and
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...
on 28 April 2015. It was the band's first studio album in 12 years since ''
Think Tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...
'' (2003), marking the longest gap between studio albums in Blur's career, and the first in 16 years since ''
13'' (1999) to have featured the original line-up (Coxon featuring on only one song on ''Think Tank'').
The album also marks the return of the band's longtime producer
Stephen Street following ''
Blur'' (1997).
The album received acclaim from music critics. It debuted at number one on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
, marking Blur's sixth UK number-one album. It has been certified Gold by the
British Phonographic Industry
British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is the British recorded music industry's Trade association. It runs the BRIT Awards, the Classic BRIT Awards, National Album Day, is home to the Mercury Prize, and co-owns the Official Charts Company with th ...
(BPI) for sales of over 100,000 copies. It is the first album by the band in North America under Warner Bros., after Blur were transferred from
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), Tom Newman. It ...
in 2013, following the purchase of
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
and its assets by the
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...
in 2012.
Background
In May 2013, Blur were set to play Japan's Tokyo Rocks Music festival. However, the entire festival was canceled for unknown reasons, leaving the band stranded in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
for an extra five days. In an attempt to distract themselves, they worked on new material in Avon Studios, as announced by lead singer
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn (; born 23 March 1968) is an English-Icelandic musician, singer-songwriter and composer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual ...
during the gig at
AsiaWorld–Expo
The AsiaWorld–Expo is one of the two major convention and exhibition facilities in Hong Kong along with Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. It was opened on 21 December 2005 by Donald Tsang, the second Chief Executive of Hong Kong, a ...
,
Chek Lap Kok
Chek Lap Kok is an island in the western waters of Hong Kong's New Territories. Unlike the smaller Lam Chau, it was only partially leveled when it was assimilated via land reclamation into the island for the current Hong Kong International ...
. Albarn later stated he was unsure whether the resulting music would ever be released. In July 2014, he commented, "There are about 15 songs...the annoying thing is, if I'd been able to write the lyrics there and then about being there, we'd have finished the record. But sometimes, if you can't do it all at once, it dissipates really and I don't know what I'd sing about now with that record. There's some great tunes on there, but it may just be one of those records that never comes out."
In November 2014,
Graham Coxon
Graham Leslie Coxon (born 12 March 1969) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter who came to prominence as a founding member of the rock band Blur. As the group's lead guitarist and secondary vocalist, Cox ...
started to work further on the recordings with producer
Stephen Street, while Albarn was touring his solo album, ''
Everyday Robots
''Everyday Robots'' is the debut solo studio album by British musician Damon Albarn, best known as the frontman of Blur and Gorillaz. Described by Albarn as his "most personal record", the album was co-produced by Richard Russell and relea ...
'' (2014). Coxon commented "I kept thinking about the recordings we had made in Hong Kong and remembering how good it felt. I wouldn't have forgiven myself if I hadn't had another look".
Coxon would secretly invite Alex James and Dave Rowntree to further recording sessions to build upon the material. Once nearing completion, Coxon presented the music to Albarn to see if it was worthy of an album. On the way back from his tour of Australia in December, Albarn stopped in Hong Kong once more for lyrical inspiration. Vocals were completed towards the end of January 2015 and the album's mastering was finished on 18 February 2015, the day before the album was announced to the press in
London's Chinatown.
Artwork and title
The album
cover artwork has the words ''blur'' and ''magic whip'' written in
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
surrounding an ice cream cone, all rendered in
neon-lit fashion. Art director Tony Hung, who created the
lyric video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
for "Go Out", the first track to be released from the album, met with frontman Damon Albarn in early 2015 to discuss the album artwork and was shown photos and
ephemera from the singer's travels in Hong Kong. "The album title, ''The Magic Whip''
lbarnexplained, was multifaceted," says Hung. "An ice cream in the UK, a firework in China and a 'whip' in a political sense. These extremes would reflect the different textures, breadth, and depth of the album." Hung says that the band wanted a cover that touched on those themes and that also had a "rawer feel" to give a sense of how the record came together in Hong Kong (the band recorded quickly, in a small studio in the city).
Promotion
The video for "Go Out" was uploaded to
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
on 19 February 2015. Videos for "There Are Too Many of Us", "Lonesome Street", "Ong Ong", and "I Broadcast" followed on 20 March, 2 April, 3 June, and 8 September 2015, respectively. "Ong Ong", along with "My Terracotta Heart" and "I Broadcast" were previously made available shortly before the album's release as promotional singles, and their official audios were uploaded to YouTube on 18, 21 and 23 April 2015, respectively. "Y'all Doomed", the bonus track on the Japanese edition, was released as a
7-inch single on 27 April 2015. "Ghost Ship", alongside a re-release of "I Broadcast", were later released as promotional singles on 23 October 2015.
Critical reception
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 81, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 35 reviews.
''
DIY
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...
'' magazine critic Stephen Ackroyd stated: "Their magic remains as strong as ever."
Helen Brown of ''
The Telegraph
''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include:
Australia
* ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...
'' stated that the album "turns out to be a triumphant comeback", and noted that "it retains the band's core identity while allowing ideas they'd fermented separately over the past decade to infuse their sound with mature and peculiar new flavour combinations."
Andy Gill of ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' gave the album a positive review, calling it "a beautiful comeback".
''
Spin'' writer Andrew Unterberger gave the album an 8/10 rating and said, "''Magic Whip'' is a fun album, nearly as much as any
Gorillaz LPs," adding, "''Magic Whip'' finds enough majesty and intrigue in the band's more meditative days to remain worthy company to any of the band's classic LPs."
Writing for the ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' magazine and giving the album four out of five stars,
David Fricke
David Fricke is an American music journalist who serves as the senior editor at ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, where he writes predominantly about rock music. One of the best known names in rock journalism, his career has spanned over 40 years. I ...
called the album "A dark, seductive set that cements a legacy", stating that "Blur have returned with inspiration to spare."
Accolades
Track listing
Personnel
Blur
*
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn (; born 23 March 1968) is an English-Icelandic musician, singer-songwriter and composer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual ...
– vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, iPad, acoustic guitar
*
Graham Coxon
Graham Leslie Coxon (born 12 March 1969) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter who came to prominence as a founding member of the rock band Blur. As the group's lead guitarist and secondary vocalist, Cox ...
– electric guitar, backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "Lonesome Street", "Thought I Was a Spaceman", and "Y'all Doomed"
*
Alex James – bass guitar
*
Dave Rowntree – drums, percussion, backing vocals
Additional personnel
*
Stephen Street – production, programming, percussion, drum machine, "saxophones" (synthesizers) on "Ghost Ship"
*James Dring – drum machine, drum programming
*
Demon Strings
Demon Strings are a British stringed instrument group. They are best known for being the in-house string section for musician Damon Albarn, having recorded and performed live for several of his projects including The Good, the Bad & the Queen, ...
– orchestration
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
References
External links
''The Magic Whip''at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Magic Whip
2015 albums
Blur (band) albums
Parlophone albums
Warner Records albums
Albums produced by Stephen Street