Breakup Albums, Pt. 4: Waiting For That Feeling

Artist: Blur

Album: 13

Year: 1999

Major breakups are confusing. They can rattle everything you’ve taken for granted, forcing you to deal with circumstances you might not be prepared for. Few albums capture this uncertainty better than Blur’s 13. Their frontman, Damon Albarn, was one half of the Britpop power couple of the mid-90s, enjoying a relationship with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann for most of the decade. However, since both were high-profile leaders of high-profile bands, the two struggled with finding personal time together. As Britpop began to suffocate under its own success and the Elastica camp dabbled with heroin use, the Albarn-Frischmann relationship deteriorated beyond repair. The breakup shattered Albarn, whose infatuation with Justine was never in doubt. All this was channeled into 13, particularly two of its singles, “Tender” and “No Distance Left To Run”. Both vividly describe his sadness, loneliness, confusion and, eventually, acceptance of the split. As if that wasn’t enough, Albarn was also growing apart from the rest of his bandmates by 1999, particularly guitarist Graham Coxon. 13 is the first Blur album that doesn’t sound even remotely coherent, which is understandable, given that Albarn was pulling the band in one direction and Coxon in another. The seeds of electronic experimentation Albarn would later cultivate with Gorillaz were sown here with tracks like “Battle”, while Coxon’s later guitar-centric albums were foreshadowed by “Bugman” and similar tracks. The album sounds schizophrenic and disjointed, but also very raw and uninhibited. Lots of ideas and emotions were flying around and Blur managed to distill them down into their most artistic album.

Artist: Beck

Album: Sea Change

Year: 2002

Throughout this week, we’ve seen albums driven by anger, loneliness and confusion. These are all important emotions associated with breakups, but in terms of absolute, numbing sadness, no album can touch Beck’s 2002 masterpiece, Sea Change. Beck has a reputation for constantly changing his sound, but Sea Change still surprised many people when it was released. Instead of the playful nonsense of “Loser” or the hip-hop/indie rock mashups on his album Odelay, Sea Change collects twelve slow, minor-key, country-inflected tunes. Beck sounds like he’s getting in touch with his inner Neil Young, brushing off an old copy of Harvest and trying his damdest to emulate Young’s tender-hayseed atmosphere. The end of Beck’s nine-year-long relationship with designer Leigh Limon is cited as the inspiration for the material on the album, most of which were written the week after the breakup. And while you feel bad for Beck’s loss, the songs he wrote are truly unmatched by anything else he’d done before or since. The resigned irony of “Guess I’m Doin’ Fine” is heartbreaking, while dark string sections give “Lonesome Tears” and “Round The Bend” an ominous and bleak feel. “We don’t have to worry,” says Beck in a distant, detached voice, but the mood is so black that you can’t help but feel concerned. He sounds utterly broken throughout this record, especially since his previous album was the sexy, funky Midnite Vultures. The change is jarring to anyone who has followed Beck’s career over the years. He followed Sea Change with 2005’s Guero, proving he could still have fun and rock out, but Sea Change showed the range and emotion Beck was capable of if he put his mind to it. The album may represent one of his lowest moments of his life, but it’s unquestionably the highpoint of his musical career.