Blur: 3 Things Missing from 21

This week Blur announced the release of a career spanning box set to mark the 21st anniversary of their début album Leisure.

The package will come as a special 21-disc set, including 2cd special editions of each of the band's seven albums, four discs of rarities, three DVDs including two hours of unreleased footage, two live shows and a disc of video rarities - plus a a collectable 7" from when they were known as Seymour.



Sounds pretty comprehensive? Here's 3 things that didn't make the cut that any would-be completist might want to hunt down.

Starshaped - Video, 1993



A fly-on-the-wall documentary, covering the time the spent mostly drunk and touring their first tow albums. The DVD re-release suffered from technical problems so may explain why it didn't make the cut for 21, though you can now get hold of Day Upon Day in the box set for the first time since this video.

Live at the Budokan - Live Album, 1996



Japan-only live album, though if you were signed up to the Parlaphone mailing list like I was back then you were able to get hold of a copies via mail order - well worth the effort it was too featuring an excellent setlist and a band at the peak of their popularity and giving a performance that breathes new life into many of the Great Escape tracks in particular.

Bustin' + Dronin - Remix/Live Album, 1998



Another import album, though this one actually managed to sneak into the UK Top 50 chart thanks to a low-key release over here. The remix side of things is pretty weak with a so many versions of Death Of A Party going down and the bigger name remixers phoning it in. The Live CD picks things up however with a recording on a live session from John Peel's home studio Peel Acres from 1997, notable for featuring a version of Popscene, at the time an elusive track to hunt down after its commercial failure as a single.

Review: Tabloid

Even without a skilled documentary-maker like Errol Morris behind the camera, the story at the centre of Tabloid would be strong enough to grip the viewer - as it tells the tale of Joyce McKinney, a beauty queen accused of abducting and imprisoning a young Mormon Missionary along with umpteen twists further along the way.

Morris recognises that the material itself is more than enough to hold everyone's attention and sticks to simply letting those involved (apart from the object of McKinney's affection, Kirk Anderson) tell their side of the story, with the contrast of McKinney's crazy charisma against the various differing takes on how things really went down amongst the tabloid frenzy created is always engaging.

When the film veers away from the main tale of kinky sex onto McKinney's attempts to clone her dog in later life, the documentary does lose its way slightly, due to the lack of other protagonists and their input - all these different points of view is what makes Tabloid such an interesting documentary and Morris's skill in bringing them together makes for a gripping watch, with the added comment on the
nature of British newspaper journalism having extra relevance in light of the hacking scandals of recent times.