This week's reissued cds reviewed

BLUR

Midlife: A Beginner's Guide to Blur EMI ****

Released just before the regrouped Britpop survivors embark on series on reunion dates, this two CD-set can't accurately be called a Greatest Hits album (there's already one of those). It's more a representative, career-long look of the band's output since they first formed 20 years ago. The focus is more on album tracks ( Sing, Badhead, Strange News from Another Star), though the still-perky Popscene, a non-album single from 1992, is included. There are a few scattered singles, but this works well because it gets away from chart-topper Blur and shows that there was more musical depth to the band than their Britpop heyday suggested. It will be interesting to see how many, if any, of these album tracks end up on their set-list this summer.

Download tracks: Popscene, Strange News from Another Star