Blur Goes Into Orbit On Next Album

11/19/1998 3:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Mac Randall

(11/19/98, 12 p.m. PST) - Virgin Records is planning to release the next album by British pop quartet Blur in the U.S. on Feb. 9, with a single preceding the album in January.

In a break with tradition, the band has chosen not to record with longtime producer Stephen Street, who manned the console for all five of its previous albums. Replacing Street is techno whiz William Orbit, who recently worked with Madonna on her Ray Of Light album. Making matters even more intriguing is that the most likely candidate for the first single, "Tender Is The Night," reportedly features a gospel choir and is said to be similar in tone to the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Though the band has achieved tremendous success in the U.K., Europe and Japan, Blur--whose members are singer/ keyboardist/ guitarist Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James, and drummer Dave Rowntree--has only recently begun to live up to its record company's high sales expectations in America.

Blur's last album, simply titled Blur and released in 1997, was the band's first to go gold in this country, on the back of the modern rock radio hit "Song 2."

An interview with Blur's Graham Coxon is available now on myLAUNCH.

--Mac Randall, New York