The Magic Whip

Blur - The Magic Whip
Critic Score
Based on 45 reviews
2015 Ratings: #142 / 1021
Year End Rank: #30
User Score
Based on 900 ratings
2015 Rank: #372
Liked by 74 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
God Is in the TV

Staying cool under pressure and delivering an effortlessly superb piece of work, Blur use the things that made them great in the past, combine them with the things they’ve learned since, and emerged revitalised to create something that feels familiar yet fresh.

100
The Telegraph

The Magic Whip turns out to be a triumphant comeback that retains the band's core identity while allowing ideas they'd fermented separately over the past decade to infuse their sound with mature and peculiar new flavour combinations.

90
XS Noize

The Magic Whip is genuinely brilliant and a welcome edition to the bands growing back catalogue. I guess all that remains now is to formally welcome these London boys back to where they belong: The forefront of contemporary British music.

90
The Line of Best Fit

Like I said, don’t call it a comeback, abandon any knee-jerk sense of surprise, it’s Blur at the top of their game, as they had been, as they should have always been, as they deserve to be.

83
Pretty Much Amazing

This is more than a nostalgic retread. The Magic Whip continues along the weird and winding path first trod by Blur’s two previous, and most complex, LPs. 

81
Paste
Britpop’s giants are back, and they sound surprisingly the way we had hoped they would: melodic, contemplative and content as a single unit.
80
The Arts Desk
What really shines out is just how strong Blur's identity really was and how good it feels for the band to have settled back into it.
80
Q Magazine
In its own flawed, modest, off-kilter way, this might turn out to be one of the most accomplished records of the year.
80
The Observer

At its best, The Magic Whip has all the charm of Blur at their most mysterious, and little of the laddish triumphalism of Blur in headline slot mode.

80
NOW Magazine

Blur's first album in 16 years to feature the original lineup does the right amount of looking inward and outward, forward and backward.

80
Mojo

For a collection with an eye on the setting sun and the slow decline, it’s a fine late flowering. If they’ve made it, finally, to the end, there’s nothing to regret here.

80
Billboard

The Magic Whip is a fascinating snapshot of a group coming to personal and professional crossroads in a strange city where modern living leads to bewilderment and alienation.

80
Uncut

At its best, The Magic Whip thrums with ideas and possibilities.

80
The Guardian

Musically, they don’t sound like a band taking a final curtain call. They sound like a band filled with ideas and potential new directions, who have plenty left to do together, if they choose.

80
Clash

This sense of duty might go some way to explaining the less destructive and far more unifying approach to these songs; add in Stephen Street ... and you get the band’s most natural sounding album in over twenty years.

80
FasterLouder

It’s up there with Blur’s best albums, and a reminder of just how well the band reconcile their divergent ideas.

80
Rolling Stone

Blur have returned with inspiration to spare.

80
Drowned in Sound
It is an almost endlessly intriguing record, full of mad ideas, strange microhooks and an air of rich elegy that just works.
80
musicOMH

The Magic Whip succeeds splendidly in coming across as a comeback album that hasn’t been overthought, flashing a nonchalant dare to any prospective Oasis reunion project.

80
AllMusic
There are hooks, there are songs -- songs that sink their hooks in slowly and fully, registering in the subconscious without notice -- but it's Blur claiming their status as an art-pop band, favoring texture and mood over wit and flash.
80
NME
This is a reunited band making music to rival their very best. There’s airmiles aplenty in these Essex Dogs yet.
80
SPIN

There’s never been a Blur record that’s flowed as well as Magic Whip; you might have to go all the way back to Modern Life Is Rubbish to find one that even comes close.

80
DIY

No, they’ve not come back to rehash the hits. But on that ninth listen, with the lights off, they’re a band still able to find new emotional triggers their contemporaries have yet to discover. Their magic remains as strong as ever.

80
Time Out London
Some of us have come a long way with this great, perhaps even quintessential London band. Against the odds, ‘The Magic Whip’ shows there’s more distance left to run.
80
Sputnikmusic

That they were able to put another six years of touring and botched recording sessions behind them and put out this long-gestating, bizarre little Blur album is a testament to the band’s separate creative energies, pooled back into one. The Magic Whip sounds like what these guys were always meant to do.

80
Exclaim!

On The Magic Whip, it's clear that the band has benefitted from some time apart.

70
Slant Magazine

The Magic Whip isn't a triumphant return of a Britpop champion; instead, it's a mature, measured document from a band that's never rested on its laurels.

70
Pitchfork

In the moments when The Magic Whip is most interested in sounding like a Blur album, it is perhaps too interested.

70
PopMatters

All The Magic Whip tries to be is nothing more than the band in their purest form, deprived of all commercial considerations so that their eccentricities are all that remains.

70
The Needle Drop

Britpop heavyweights Blur make an enjoyable and varied return with The Magic Whip.

70
No Ripcord

Even with its faults, The Magic Whip is remarkably cohesive; not a single track is superfluous, flippant, or jarring. While Blur may not have the perceptible onerousness for each other that they did fifteen years ago, they certainly have the zeal.

67
A.V. Club

The key to embracing Blur in 2015 is remembering it’s not the fresh-faced Britpop band with dreams of arch world domination, but a group who convene when they feel they have something to say and musical ideas worthy of sharing. In that respect, The Magic Whip is more successful than not.

65
Under the Radar

The Magic Whip is far from perfect and it's far from the best album by a band whose greatest strength I've always considered to be their hits. It has to count as a success though, because Blur sound like a band from 2015 rather than 1995.

60
The Skinny
It's when the riffs seem plucked straight from the annals of 1997 that Blur seem to remember how to have fun
60
Record Collector

There is heart here, despite the often airless production, deliberately claustrophobic, like the city that inspired it. Repeated listens make the gems shine brighter ... Yet other moments weather less well, sounding exactly like what they are: raw material worked up in just five days.

58
Consequence of Sound

When Blur gets restless, unspooling new tricks and tempos, The Magic Whip feels emphatic. If it rocks, it fits perfectly in a live setting, easy to place among their best-ofs. But when it slumps, it really crumbles.

40
Spectrum Culture

Blur are still capable of writing truly great music; their 2012 single “Under the Westway” was one of the best things that they’ve ever done. But the new album fails to deliver on that promise, and I’m still scratching my head as to why they bothered.

SnowyFighter
70

I’d kill for ice cream rn holy shit

Blur’s comeback album, Magic Whip is a pretty solid return to the band’s sound. It kinda feels like they picked up right where they left off. Nothing crazy new for the band here, but it’s a decently consistent listen. There are really two main highlights for me, those being Thought I Was a Spaceman and Ghost Ship. The ladder is a groovy and catchy little tune, and the former has some cool sounds and melodies going on. The rest is ... read more

ConnorArrison
75

This album has some nostalgia for me because I saw them play at Madison Square Garden on this tour.

depechemode4lif
69

I dont mind this album as I do enjoy the more expiermental qualities of it. It reminds me of some of the more interesting moments on 13 and Self Titled but unfortunatly i feel like it lacks the youthful edge those albums got. It is a decent album but not one of my favorites.

imverydepressed
70

"Decent" seems like the perfect word to describe Blur's 2015 LP, "The Magic Whip."

fritwsafe
80

Recently I started to really focus on this awesome band ; idk why, I never listened to any of their songs with a lot of attention. Blur is such a unique group, with unique texts, themes, melodies... "Terracotta Heart" and "Lonesome street" are my favs from this album : I love melancholic songs, and "The Magic Whip" mixes all the most melancholic songs of Blur... So I'm happy ! I'll soon make other reviews of this awesome band.

QDOERTY
76

Re-review: I still think that half of the songs are mid.
FAVS: Ghost Ship, Lonesome Street, I Broadcast.

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Added on: February 19, 2015