Not gonna lie, the first days after arriving to Nottingham, solitude hit me like a tons of bricks. Perhaps all the walking and roaming around the campus and town was more to find some sort of solace, someone to converse with, to feel again. It’s a strange feeling, loneliness.

I joined a few student societies, with varying results. Although I had sworn off religion, I somehow decided to join CathSoc too, and attend mass, something I hadn’t done willingly for more than a decade.

I met a lot of interesting people and I remember one day chatting with some affable chaps about music and they both scowled when I mentioned “britpop”. They felt it was a bad term to use as it had been applied to bands willy nilly, pigeonholing some of them.

Blur’s initial sound was the evolution of college rock, via sixth form and Madchester. A sort of crisper mix of baggy anthems and shoegaze. Dreamy, jangly atmospheres filtered to the eyes of straight rockers. Blur’s Leisure is The Smiths and The Stone Roses colliding.

Modern Life is Rubbish was their make or break effort. The rivalry with Suede, which is often overlooked, seemed to hurt Blur’s reputation with the public much more than whatever schoolyard tiff they had with the Gallaghers. Thankfully Modern Life is Rubbish was their way out, possibly through the fierceness of Popscene, which lead into Parklife, the album that made them international stars.

I liked The Great Escape just fine, but it’s their Be Here Now. Bloated, irregular, with immense heights and the lowest trenches. A well-trodden road was boring the public and the band. You understand why they distanced themselves.

Blur had two choices: a steady decline or reinvent themselves. Oasis chose the former, Blur chose the latter. Their self-titled was as far as they could muster to throw themselves away to, and 13 was the opposite end of what Blur started as. No longer bumming cigs from friends. No more WKD drinks. Now wine, heroin, and rolled up ciggies.

13 is their swansong, the point where Blur 1.0 ceases to exist. Think thank is a Gorillaz demotape, too complicated for Blur fans, too light for Gorillaz fans. A funeral dirge that bricked Blur for almost 13 years before a factory reset.

It was tough choosing one song, but Sing, for some reason or other, brings both joy and immense sadness to me. Pin it on its use on Trainspotting’s poignant scene. Pin it on being another Gen-Xer realising the best of their life is gone now and it’s all a long decline.

-Sam J. Valdés López