Customer Reviews

Democrazy (10-inch record x 2)

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This is a collection of demos, not really a finished album-- as such it is more fascinating than perfect-- most of this is Albarn in a hotel room with a tape recorder. But it's genuinely exciting to be a party to such an intimate part of the creative process. People have called this album self-indulgent. I say thank you Mr. Albarn for letting us in. You can hear the roots of songs that later, when finished, found their way onto albums. And some that ended right here.

Albarn is always exciting and fascinating, even in a hotel room with a tape recorder.

There is nothing wrong with recording and releasing demos. Look at Pete Townshend, Rivers Cuomo, Andy Partridge, and Ryan Adams. Demo recordings can be special without having superior sound quality. What counts is the song, the idea. Sometimes even the germ of the idea can be interesting enough to warrant repeated listening.

The problem with Damon Albarn's "Democrazy" is that none of these fragments, these slivers of ideas, are compelling in their own right. Compile them together and it's just a little tedious. Most of them are experiments with electronic beats that yield very little fruit ("I Need a Gun" did morph into "Dirty Harry," though). It doesn't sound like Albarn recorded these because he had ideas. I think he was just looking for an excuse to record.

There's a reason this is a limited release. No time soon would the general public be ready to digest something as rough and unsatisfying as "Democrazy." Unless you are deathly serious about collecting all things Blur, this collection is nothing more than a muddy curiosity.