Bit of a Blur by Alex James

Bit of a Blur by Alex James, 2007
Read: August 2009

This was an HMV special buy and about as close as I get to a "light summer read" not really being a girly-book-on-the-beach type reader.
Alex James obviously wrote it to coincide with getting back into the public eye - writing for various country/mens mags and Blur reforming last year. It's got a style to it, that makes you feel Alex James has actually written it, rather than being heavily ghost written, as some autobiogs can be. But the writing and the book itself doesn't have very much depth.
The most interesting parts of the book are when Alex talks about getting to college - where the first person he meets is Graham. It is through Graham that he is invited to meet Damon and possibly play in a band. The early days of Blur, nee Seymore, are interesting as they start out, but he jumps ahead too quickly and on reflection there isn't much about how they started together and tried to make it.

The book doesn't talk as much as I would have liked it to about how they wrote their songs. Although a lot of song credits go to the band as a whole, it seems to be Damon that writes the lyrics and outline melody that the rest of the band then fill in. Alex James comes across as very arrogant about his own playing, and the band itself. Maybe this isn't a problem for other readers who are huge fans, but it does feel like a stuck record whenever the narrative talks about how they wrote this hit, or that, and just describes it as "we were just brilliant as a band and all knew each other's playing instinctively". The exception is when he talks about Song 2 and then his side-project of Fat Les and the song Vindaloo. The detail here is great and a real insight.

A "Bit of a Blur" is about right, when it comes to Alex James talking about the bands antics and alcohol. I should probably give him credit for being truthful about the amount of booze and he drank and women he slept with, but I had no sympathy for him when he talked about the dilemma he faced between being a slag around London and his girlfriend from home that was his soul mate.

Although there were some nice insights in this book, I didn't enjoy reading about his infidelity and arrogance.