Blur morphs into the Brit-pop rockstars longed for

I've never been much of a Blur fan. Oasis always had better vocals, better presence, better songs. I, for one, was perfectly happy to see the Gallagher brothers crush Damon Albarn and his bratty little band of upper-middle-class twits. Sure, Ray Davies did the class-conscious social-satire pop songwriting thing, but a) that was thirty years ago, b) even Ray barely pulled it off (let's face it - "Sunny Afternoon" doesn't come close to "Waterloo Sunset"), and c) Damon Albarn ain't no Ray Davies. Then Pulp came along, and, with "Common People," managed to one-up everything Blur had done. Jarvis Cocker worked the class angle, but he did so with real passion and a better melody than anything Blur had done.

So, with sales stuck in the dreaded Cult Hero Zone in America, critical favor on the decline in their native England, and forced to watch as their one-time rivals shot to superstardom, Blur did what any rock-and-roll band with half a bit of sense in its collective head would do: they made a truly great rock-and-roll record.

On Blur, the boys from Sussex seem to have figured out exactly what they did wrong in the past and, shockingly, fixed it. Gone are the overblown orchestrations that marred 1995's The Great Escape; gone are Albarn's oh-so-clever lyrics and overworked melodies that made Blur's songs so precious and annoying. Instead of the twee English pop sound that sounded thin and flat held up against Oasis's big guitars and supercatchy tunes, Blur has a tighter, leaner sound, driven by walls of guitar noise, squalls of feedback, and more electronic textures.

From the guitar swoop of "Song 2" - a trick borrowed from Elastica's "Connection" (maybe Damon's been paying attention to his girlfriend after all) - to the thumping trip-hop of "Essex Dogs," Blur has a whole new sound, coming off like a band reborn. Maybe getting humiliated by Oasis is responsible; maybe it's just desperation. Whatever the cause, Blur's never sounded this edgy, this tight - or this good.

Blur started out trying to be the Kinks only to get turned into the Rolling Stones to Oasis's Beatles by the English music press. What seems to have redeemed them, though, is the discovery of a different band, one often ignored by the mainstream press, but vital and important nonetheless - Blur's become Mott the Hoople, and the world is a better place for it. Albarn - always a vocal chameleon (check out his Morrissey impression on the Smiths-meet-Tricky "Death of a Party") - has figured out how to make his voice sound exactly like Ian Hunter's. And he sounds great, whether in the exuberant pop climate of "Song 2" or the life-on-the-road mini-epic "Look Inside America" that comes off like some recently unearthed lost Mott classic.

Hunter knew how to shift between glam-rock theatrics and pub-rock propulsion, and it's the understanding of that crucial balance that makes Blur such a great album. Yeah, there's sonic overkill, but it's a good, noisy kind of overkill, that, unlike previous Blur efforts, enhances the songs without drowning them out. And while the lyrics sound much less forced and precious than before, that may be also because Damon isn't singing them very clearly. Which, in rock and roll, is usually a good thing.

Everything comes together for "On Your Own," the best thing Blur will ever record, and probably the best song of the year - I can't imagine anything else coming remotely close. From the pounding marching-band-cum-techno backbeat to the guitar hero overload of the main riff to the electronic noises and effects, it's impossible to describe how great "On Your Own" is. It's an amazing three-chord rocker like no one writes anymore, only it sounds totally contemporary and completely unforced - everything you could want from rock and roll.

The major problem with Britpop, of which Blur were once the reigning kings, is its tendency to view things from a distanced perspective, with a smirk and an arched eyebrow instead of real emotion - loads of style but no substance. On "On Your Own," Blur get beyond all of that, and by the time you hit the shout-along chorus ("Take me HOME/Don't leave me ALONE/I'm not that GOOD/But I'm not that BAD"), it's impossible to sit still. It's as close to the heart of rock and roll as Blur will ever get, and it's plenty close enough.

Blur isn't a perfect album - "On Your Own" comes too early in the sequencing, "Essex Dogs" meanders toward the end, and there are some useless throwaway instrumentals hidden after the last track - but really, that sort of nitpicking doesn't matter. It's as passionate, as driving, and as exciting an album as you're likely to hear. It's a big record, a grand achievement, and in today's climate of subgenres and musical hairsplitting, it's like a revelation.

It's enough to make you forget about Oasis.