Young And Lovely by Blur: Great B-Sides

Blur’s debut album Leisure was successful, reaching the UK top ten. But in hindsight, the band’s career began properly with 1993’s Modern Life is Rubbish. After an unsuccessful US tour and public backlash, the band embraced their Englishness on their second album. The band struggled in grunge-obsessed America, and Albarn recalled that his only pleasant memory on the tour was listening to the Kinks’ 1967 single ‘Waterloo Sunset’.

Blur abandoned the Madchester sound and instead focused on particularly English bands, such as the Kinks, the Jam, the Small Faces, and the Who. XTC’s Andy Partridge produced the initial recording sessions. Partridge later recalled:

I felt quite fatherly and I thought I did sterling work. They got Dave Balfe really stoned to listen to some mixes and he was rolling around going, ‘This is fantastic, you’re George Martin and they’re The Beatles.’ Next day he’d say, ‘Quite frankly, Andy, this is shit'”.

Andy Partridge, in Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock (John Harris)

The Partridge sessions were scrapped, and the band instead worked with Stephen Street. Modern Life is Rubbish established Blur’s career, with singles like ‘For Tomorrow’ and ‘Chemical World’. ‘Young and Lovely’ balances a bouncy Kinks feel with a world-weary nonchalance from Albarn, and it’s effective.

The band were quick to acknowledge that ‘Young and Lovely’ shouldn’t have been relegated to a B-side. Select Magazine reported:

“[A]t Dave Rowntree’s wedding [in June 1994], St Etienne’s Bob Stanley asked Blur why Young and Lovely was not on the LP . . . Damon agrees: ‘It should have been on the LP. But it didn’t get on there and fucking Turn It Up did’.” 

Select Magazine, August 1995