Rocktrospectiva: Blur's Rare Debut Album "Leisure" Turns 35

Released on 26 August 1991 "Leisure" was the debut studio album by English rock band Blur. The album drews influences from the Madchester and shoegaze styles popular in the UK indie scene at the time, contrasting with the Britpop sound that the band would later pioneer beginning with follow-up album Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993). It features the band's first three singles, "She's So High", "There's No Other Way", and "Bang", and marks the beginning of Blur's long-running collaboration with producer Stephen Street, who produced the majority of the album's 12 tracks.

Upon its release, Leisure received mixed reviews from critics but was a moderate commercial success, selling over 100,000 copies and earning Gold certification in the UK. While the album has undergone some critical reappraisal in later years, it is most often viewed in comparison to the band's later work.

After adding producer Stephen Street to the mix, their second single "There's No Other Way" became a big hit in the UK, peaking at number 8. Although the third single "Bang" did not fare as well, the band became bona fide pop stars in the UK and, according to NME, "the acceptable pretty face of a whole clump of bands that have emerged since the whole Manchester thing started to run out of steam."

Heavily influenced by The Charlatans and The Stone Roses, Leisure is a great snapshot of a band trying mightily to find its voice. Leisure was a stepping stone for Blur indeed, on the strength of their subsequent releases, the foursome transformed into one of Britain's most beloved acts of the past 35 years, while they still enjoy a very loyal, somewhat cult-like following here in the US.

Even though Leisure was very much a product of its time, it still holds up as a rather solid debut album. In the early '90s, the music scenes were struggling to find a definitive sound and at the time the Manchester scene had simply died out with nothing to replace it. Blur just happened to be caught in the middle of this transition.

Talking about the tracks, you can find a series of clues to what will come later in the band, and Albarn's career, "Repetition" clearly pointed to Albarn’s acclaimed side project Gorillaz the odd gem on Leisure was "Sing" the original version of "Sing", entitled "Sing (To Me)", was recorded as a demo in late 1989 under the band's former name, Seymour, and can be heard on the ultra-rare promo-only single which was released over a decade later in February 2000 and on the first of a 4-disc set with rare material in the Blur 21 box set, also, the track subsequently featured on the 1996 Trainspotting soundtrack. With one foot stuck in the past (think Velvet Underground) and the other reaching for the future, this song illustrates Blur’s untapped promise, the trippy and quasi-psychedelic "She's So High" manage to peaked at No. 48 in the UK, and of course the groovy "There's No Other Way"and of course the hatred "Bang". There were other weaker tracks such as  "Wear Me Down" and "Birthday” but in spite of that, Leisure was intriguing enough but there was something quite special about discovering a band at its genesis.

The cover photograph was taken in May 1954 by Charles Hewitt, for a Picture Post fashion feature on bathing hats, "Glamour in the Swim".

Leisure received mixed reviews from the British music press and called the album as one of those happy occasions when the hype is dead right but recalled the band don't appear to know what they're doing and as a result make appalling mistakes all over the place". He also described the lyrics as "bad". In a 2007 interview, lead singer Damon Albarn expressed distaste for the album, describing it as "awful" and being one of the two "bad records" he has made in his career (the other being Blur album The Great Escape).

 

Leisure Track List.

 

1. She's So High

2. Bang

3. Slow Down

4. Repetition

5. Bad Day

6. Sing

7. There's No Other Way

8. Fool

9. Come Together

10. High Cool

11. Birthday

12. Wear Me Down