The Lost Art of B-Sides (& Other Rants)

I am confident you have been asked about ‘lost arts’ to gloss over a lull in conversation. I keep a few uninspired answers on the lower shelves of my wit. Looking down there now I see chivalry. It hasn’t died, but the extremists have hijacked it. Those uberchivalrous men, fellating themselves with calisthenic self-righteousness and blinded by the shine of their armour, obstructing the tube door at their stop to let all the women halfway down the carriage off first. They are about as sincere as a set of dentures. Patience is a few shelves higher. Maybe our fuses are getting cheaper. Or maybe stoicism has made me apathetic to people jumping the queue. Call it futile, but I put my stock in Karma. One day they’ll piss someone off with a cheaper fuse and a mean hook. I don’t get much tract with whimsical answers like McDonald’s interior design, but I really do miss the coin funnels. Imagine someone complained that I don’t focus on music enough. At least I know they’ve read my nonsense.

I’ll stop teasing now. If I peek over the higher shelves, I find a more interesting (and oh so convenient for a music blog) answer – B-sides. Fix up! The B-side is not a moob drooping off the lean bodied single. Kevin Shields considered the B-side an alternative art format, on par with any album track or single. Inspiration is indiscriminate in its timing and whilst some tracks don’t fit an album, they still have a right to be fully realised. I say lost art because the B-side used to be the place to find raw tracks unmolested by the masses. The Arctic Monkeys have some high-grade B-sides from ’04-’07 and the ‘Suck It and See’ B-sides are better than the album tracks. Half of the Oasis reunion setlist was B-sides. But like the umlaut in Jay-Z, the joy of discovering a B-side is becoming a relic as streaming demands a rushed deluxe album. To prove my point, I’ve recently discovered that Blur were holding out on me. They’ve snuck an entire album of wax-worthy recordings right under my nose. The collar matches the cuffs it would seem.

True to form, I have a pretentious and ridiculous metaphor for the uninitiated. I can pinpoint my own expulsion from Eden, the exact moment of innocence lost. It was the moment I became aware that most pigeons don’t have all their toes (talons for the Steve Backshalls). Blur’s music can be divided on this basis. Everything before ‘The Great Escape’ has a naïve hopefulness. Let’s call this pigeon chasing music. Everything after ‘95 experiences each bleak stump in high definition. 

Personally, I lean into the stumpy side. I’d take ‘13’ on Naked and Afraid over the penknife and the Imodium. Unfortunately, the B here mostly stands for bluff. Still, there’s a few crumbs worth pecking at. ‘All Your Life’ and ‘Woodpigeon’ are a synthesis of the self-titled album’s attitude. The former a manic and abrasive instrumental grafted to patchwork Bowie-esque melodies, and the latter a gasp of reflection as tender and pure as the first silence of the day. There’s almost a pride in the self-pity of these tracks, a contagious refusal to sew all the holes in your jeans. ‘Bustin + Dronin’ is a precursor for the glitchy dismantling on ‘13’. Shame this track was mixed like a hearing test though. I get all veiny at the temple trying to catch the lyrics. 

The B-sides for ‘13’ are more like ajar doors to jam sessions. Ironically Blur insists on titling more than a few of the album’s tracks ‘so-and-so song’. ‘Mellow Jam’ is a more accurate title, although the deceivingly titled ‘French Song’ is a more enjoyable jam led helter-skelter. The main draw with these tracks however is catching the twinkle of Gorillaz. Take Albarn’s ‘Bugman’ remix ‘X-Offender’ which gathers up the debris of the original track in a groove-laced corset. This song is a daydream. I’m Trueman and the props team are pushing the scenery past me. Or take part B-side, part greatest hits novelty single ‘Music is My Radar’, which splices and directs Coxon’s distorted outbursts with the involuntary bobble-head rhythms fleshed out on Gorillaz’s self-titled LP. This track is one final ruby in the inheritance, right at the death.

If you want the bulk of the B-side loot though, always sieve the early material. ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’ possesses that gaunt hyena hunger before it was satiated by expectation and fatigue. I saw Blur live a few years ago. I’d never heard the B-side crown jewel ‘Popscene’ (time has reduced it from a single), but I still made noise just to join in, with the occasional ‘alrighttttt’. I don’t know if that speaks to the strength of the chorus or an intrinsic need to be Sparticus too. Blur doesn’t get enough credit for being a parody act. They have an uncanny ability to find success in mocking a genre with a Trojan Horse (hello ‘Song 2’). 

To all the toe dippers, these tracks will blow the tacky press-ons off your fungal cuticles. Blur aren’t the ponce’s Oasis, they are every bit as rock and roll. Just let yourself get buffeted by the eddies of the riffs on ‘Mace’ and ‘Badgeman Brown’. If Right Guard are looking for ‘the closest shave yet’ they should pay more attention to Coxon’s riffs from these recordings. But it is the slower tracks like the bittersweet reminiscence of ‘Peach’ and the candid release of ‘Bone Bag’ that give Blur’s music vigour. They draw on youthful exuberance, hope, regret, heartbreak, blind optimism, an innocent sense of playfulness and the wonder and glory of guessing the padlock combination on a chastity belt, in such a concentrated dose of living that you want to laugh, cry, brood and go full Travolta all at once, but you’ll probably end up vacant in a confused awe. I speak from experience as ‘Young and Lovely’ made me tear up, mourning the innocence and naivety I’ve surrendered over the years. It makes me feel old. But they’re happy tears too as I laugh at all those mistakes like a blooper reel. This sound occupies much of the ‘Parklife’ B-sides too (‘Magpie’, ‘Peter Panic’), although ‘People in Europe’ wears the jaunty garb typical of ‘Parklife’ as Damon showboats his Duolingo and transforms the world into a page from ‘Where’s Wally’.

Make sure you stick it out for the 1800s covers at the end of ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’. Apparently, Blur were trying to appeal to the older generations. I think they’d have to have got Derek Acorah out to perform to said generation. The tracks are ridiculous, but they’ll make you smile, like one of those corny but impossible to not love McCartney tracks. There’s no bad taste on b-sides. Except…

What about ‘The Great Escape’? – Forget it. No-one is excited by Velcro when there’s two beautifully woven fabrics either side of it. If you ignore my warning, you’ll experience the sensation of unadvertised mayonnaise in a sandwich. For anyone who thinks Blur is ‘in their bag’ here, it’s a hoover bag and it’s bulging with fluff.

As a footnote, it’s amusing how this started off as a LOOSIE (my own sort of B-side) and has become a main piece. I guess I finally caught the some contact off the magic.