Think Tank is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Blur, released on 5 May 2003. Continuing the jam-based studio constructions of the group's previous album, 13 (1999), the album expanded on the use of sampled rhythm loops and brooding, heavy electronic sounds. There are also heavy influences from dance music, hip hop, dub, jazz, and African music, an indication of songwriter Damon Albarn's expanding musical interests.
Recording sessions started in November 2001, taking place in London, Morocco and Devon, and finished a year later. The album's primary producer was Ben Hillier with additional production by Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), and William Orbit. At the start of the sessions, guitarist Graham Coxon had been in rehab for alcoholism, so was not present. Initially unaware of how long Coxon would be in rehab for, Albarn, James and Rowntree decided to start work in the studio without Coxon.
After he re-joined, relationships between him and the other members became strained. After initial recording sessions, Coxon left, leaving little of his presence on the finished album. This is the only Blur album to not feature Coxon as a full-time member; he reunited with Damon Albarn in 2008, resulting in Blur starting to play live again in 2009, and returned to the band for their next album The Magic Whip (2015).
Think Tank is a loose concept album, which Albarn has stated is about "love and politics". Despite the broader musical landscaping which Blur were engaging in, Albarn said in a January 2001 interview that he wanted to make a more accessible album again, stating "I'm trying to go back to the kind of songwriting aesthetic I had on (hit album) Parklife. They won't be arranged in the same way at all – they'll just be songs that are accessible to the public." He also explained his reasoning for this approach, stating that "it's too complicated being anything other than mainstream with Blur. That's where it belongs. We still feel that the mainstream in Britain is not represented well enough by intelligent musicians." As Albarn and Hewlett walked onto stage to make a speech, Albarn sported a T-shirt with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo on it. In Albarn's speech, he said "So, fuck the music. Listen. See this symbol here, [pointing to the t-shirt] this the symbol for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Bombing one of the poorest countries in the world is wrong. You've got a voice and you have got to do what you can about it, alright?"
In 2002, Iraq was under threat of invasion from western nations. Opposition from the public led to protests being organised by a number of organisations. Albarn, who has described himself as being anti-war, spoke out against the invasion, citing the lack of democratic process as an issue. Albarn has labelled his grandfather, father, and himself as conscientious objectors.
Albarn teamed up with Robert "3D" Del Naja of Massive Attack and various campaigns to raise awareness of the potential dangers of the UK's involvement in the war. Albarn was due to speak in Hyde Park on the rally in March 2003 when a million people took to the streets of London in protest at the imminent war. In the event, he was too emotional to deliver his speech.
Recording
thumbnail|right|[[Norman Cook (often known as Fatboy Slim) produced the tracks "Crazy Beat" and "Gene By Gene"]]
Recording sessions for Think Tank started in November 2001 at Albarn's 13 Studio in London. Albarn, James and Rowntree had come to the studio along with Ben Hillier, who explained that "there was tension to begin with. Alex had made some belittling comment about Gorillaz in the press, but there was a 'fuck you' and a 'fuck you' and it was all mates again but for the fact that Graham was missing". During 2001, Coxon had been battling alcoholism and depression, and was unable to attend the initial recording session due to being in rehabilitation. Despite Coxon's absence, the rest of the band decided to start recording without him. Coxon rejoined the rest of the band for recording sessions in February and May 2002, with the foreknowledge that it would be "tense in the studio".
In June, the band went back into the studio, doing "tracking, overdubs and reworking what we'd already done, and all the time new songs would be popping up – I think we had 28 of them at one point." Albarn eventually invited him to try and work with the band.
In August, the remaining members of Blur, along with Hillier, travelled to Morocco. James released a statement on the band's website saying "I suppose the idea at the bottom of this is to escape from whatever ghetto we're in and free ourselves by going somewhere new and exciting." The band settled at Marrakesh where they equipped an old barn with a studio. Albarn claimed that most of the album's lyrics were written "under a cypress tree in Morocco". The sessions in Marrakesh produced "Crazy Beat", "Gene by Gene", and "Moroccan Peoples Revolutionary Bowls Club". While in Morocco, Albarn wrote a song about Cook and his partner, Zoë Ball, who were having troubles with their relationship. The song started out as a jam session, eventually evolving into "Put It Back Together", which ended up on Fatboy Slim's fourth studio album, Palookaville, which was released in October 2004.
William Orbit, who was the main producer on 13 was also involved in the album's production, with Hillier stating that "we sent a couple of tunes to William to work on in his studio, working round the clock in a computer environment the way he does. He's a nutter and works all night. That was quite an interesting juxtaposition, us doing office hours then going to see William after work, just as he was getting up!" A Moroccan orchestra is featured on the lead single, "Out of Time".
Musical style
The album's opening track, "Ambulance", starts off with a complex drum beat. Sam Bloch of Stylus Magazine praised the song's intro, describing the beat as "an offbeat rhythmic synapse that nearly collapses into itself [...] Heavy electronic drums. A flash. A kick. At first, it's really hard to believe that this is a song, functioning on its own. The beat needs crutches to stand upright." Devon Powers of PopMatters wrote that "the first bars [...] are stricken with throbbing beats that sound simultaneously futuristic and primitive."
Greenwald claimed that "Out of Time" was "the album's highlight". Describing the song as "failure-soaked" and "heart-stoppingly lovely", Greenwald went on to say that it "perfectly captures the jumble of beauty and dread that defines life under orange alert. "Are we out of time?" Albarn asks, desperate for one last peace march or one last snog." Powers described the song as "a much more straightforward, apace ballad [compared to the previous song]. Dominant in the track are Albarn's unadulterated vocals and steady, simplistic drums, but beyond that are ethereal, hard-to-identify noises. In the middle of the track, an Andalucian string group rears its head, as does a tambourine." He also stated "It had this sort of mad vocoder-ish vocal and the melody was over a real sort of skanky groove and just this almost descending semi tonal guitar. The melody worked over it and it was amazing coz it shouldn't have worked, another little magic moment for us." Despite Banksy stating that he normally avoids commercial work, he later defended his decision to do the cover, saying: "I've done a few things to pay the bills, and I did the Blur album. It was a good record and [the commission was] quite a lot of money. I think that's a really important distinction to make. If it's something you actually believe in, doing something commercial doesn't turn it to shit just because it's commercial. Otherwise you've got to be a socialist rejecting capitalism altogether, because the idea that you can marry a quality product with a quality visual and be a part of that even though it's capitalistic is sometimes a contradiction you can't live with. But sometimes it's pretty symbiotic, like the Blur situation." The foldout booklet of the album features the text "Celebrity Harvest", which was the working name for a proposed, but ultimately unmade Gorillaz film. The name of the album comes from bassist Alex James who said in a 2003 interview, "It seemed to sum everything up."
Release
Prior to the album's official release, it was leaked onto the internet. Rowntree said "I'd rather it gushed" and "I'm rabidly pro the internet and as many people hearing our albums as possible. If it hadn't been leaked by someone we probably would've leaked it ourselves". Albarn speculated that the leak helped the reception of their live shows, due to the songs' lyrics being more familiar to the audience.
Commercial performance
The album debuted in the US at number 56 with first-week sales of 20,000, becoming the highest peak of any Blur album in the US at that time. It has sold 94,000 copies in the US as of April 2015.
In the UK, the album debuted at the top spot, becoming their fifth consecutive number one album. The album remained in the top 10 for three weeks and the top 75 for a total of eight weeks, lacking the longevity and sales success of their previous releases.
Critical reception
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Think Tank received mostly positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 83, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 26 reviews.
Accolades
Blur received a number of awards and nominations for Think Tank. At the 2003 Q Awards, Think Tank won the award for Best Album. This was the third time the band had received this award, previously winning in 1994 and 1995 for Parklife and The Great Escape respectively. and was nominated in a similarly titled category at the Danish Music Awards the same year. Think Tank was nominated for Best British Album at the 2004 Brit Awards. The promo videos for "Out of Time" and "Good Song" also won several awards.
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 3
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! scope="row"| BBC
| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
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! scope="row"| Drowned in Sound
| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 43
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! scope="row" rowspan=2| Eye Weekly
| rowspan=2| Canada
| Albums of the Year (Critics Poll)
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| style="text-align:center;"| 23
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| Albums of the Year (Writers)
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! scope="row"| Fnac
| France
| The 1000 Best Albums of All Time
| 2008
| style="text-align:center;"| 799
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! scope="row"| Les Inrockuptibles
| France
| The 100 Albums of the 2000s
| 2010
| style="text-align:center;"| 7
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! scope="row"| Mojo
| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
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! scope="row" rowspan=2| NME
| rowspan=2| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 21
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| Top 100 Albums of the 2000s
| 2009
| style="text-align:center;"| 20
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! scope="row"| The Observer
| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 1
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! scope="row"| Playlouder
| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
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! scope="row"| PopMatters
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| Albums of the Year
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 7
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! scope="row" rowspan=2| Q
| rowspan=2| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 2
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| Top 100 Albums of the 2000s
| 2009
| style="text-align:center;"| 59
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! scope="row"| Rolling Stone
| US
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
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! scope="row"| Rolling Stone
| France
| The 20 Albums of the 2000s
| 2010
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! scope="row"| Rough Trade
| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 86
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! scope="row"| Slant Magazine
| US
| Top 250 Albums of the 2000s
| 2010
| style="text-align:center;"| 145
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! scope="row"| Spin
| US
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 16
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! scope="row" rowspan=2| Uncut
| rowspan=2| UK
| Albums of the Year
| 2003
| style="text-align:center;"| 62
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| Top 150 Albums of the 2000s
| 2009
| style="text-align:center;"| 22
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Tour
After the album's release, Blur went on a world tour with former The Verve's guitarist and keyboardist Simon Tong filling in for Coxon on guitar, in both new and old songs. However, Albarn later said that he felt the live shows were "rubbish" and bassist Alex James admitted that touring was not the same without Coxon.
Since Blur's reunion with Coxon in 2009, the album has largely been absent from Blur's setlists, with the exception of "Out of Time" (in a new arrangement with additional guitar parts by Coxon) and occasional performances of "Battery in Your Leg" in 2009 and "Caravan" in 2015.
Track listing
All lyrics by Damon Albarn.
All music by Damon Albarn/Alex James/Dave Rowntree except where noted.
;Notes
Personnel
Blur
- Damon Albarn – lead and backing vocals, guitars, keyboards, producer
- Alex James – bass guitar, backing vocals, production
- Dave Rowntree – drums, drum programming, backing vocals, guitar on "On the Way to the Club", production
Additional musicians and production
- Paul Wood – bongos
- Bezzari Ahmed – rabab
- Moullaoud My Ali – oud
- Mohamed Azeddine – oud
- Norman Cook – producer <small>(Track 3 & 12)</small>
- Jason Cox – production assistance, engineer
- Graham Coxon – guitars on "Battery in Your Leg"
- Phil Daniels – backing vocals on "Me, White Noise"
- James Dring – engineer, additional drum programming
- Ben Hillier – producer, engineer, percussion
- Gueddam Jamal – cello, violin
- Abdellah Kekhari – violin
- Ait Ramdan El Mostafa – kanoun
- Desyud Mustafa – orchestral arrangement
- El Farani Mustapha – tere
- Dalal Mohamed Najib – darbouka
- Hijaoui Rachid – violin
- M. Rabet Mohamid Rachid – violin
- Mike Smith – saxophone
- Kassimi Jamal Youssef – oud
- William Orbit – producer <small>(Track 10)</small>
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
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|+ Weekly charts for Think Tank
!Chart (2003)
!Peak<br />position
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!scope="row"|Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
| 31
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!scope="row"|European Albums (Billboard)
| 3
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!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)
|14
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!scope="row"| Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)
|31
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Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+ Year-end charts for Think Tank
!Chart (2003)
!Position
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!scope="row"|UK Albums (OCC)
| 93
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Certifications
References
Further reading
External links
<!-- This is a licensed stream for the album, which is allowed under Wikipedia polices -->
- Think Tank at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)