"Fool's Day" is a song by English alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band Blur

Blur (band)

Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...

. It was the band's first single since 2003's "Good Song

Good Song

"Good Song" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur and is the fourth track on their 2003 studio album Think Tank. In October 2003, the song was released as the third and final single from that album, peaking at #22 in the UK Singles Chart...

". The track was released as a 7"

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 for Record Store Day

Record Store Day

Record Store Day is an internationally celebrated day observed the third Saturday of April each year. Its purpose, as conceived by independent record store employee Chris Brown, is to celebrate the art of music...

, with only 1000 copies made. On April 18, 2010, to "avoid fans having to illegally obtain an inferior copy of this track from pirate sites", the band made the song a free download on their website in both MP3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 and WAV

WAV

Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...

 formats. The single is the first featuring guitarist Graham Coxon

Graham Coxon

Graham Leslie Coxon is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter. He came to prominence as the lead guitarist, backing vocalist and occasional lead vocalist of rock band Blur, and is also a critically acclaimed solo artist, having recorded seven solo albums...

 since 2000's "Music Is My Radar

Music Is My Radar

"Music Is My Radar" is a song by British band Blur. It was released as a single in support of the band's Best of album, Blur: The Best Of, on which it also appears, reaching Number 10 in the UK. Along with 1992's "Popscene", it is one of two Blur singles never to have been included on a studio album...

".

Reception

Reception of the highly anticipated single was generally positive. NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

reviewer Matt Wilkinson called the single "a bit bloody fantastic" in his review of the song. This Is Fake DIY

This Is Fake DIY

This Is Fake DIY is a United Kingdom-based music webzine dedicated to alternative music. It is named after a song by the Scottish alternative rock group Bis....

s Stephen Ackroyd stated in his review that "It'd be fair to say elements of every era [of the band's sound] find themselves sitting pretty, though in such a way it still feels fresh – understated, sure, but with a touch of magic few other bands can match". The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

s Tim Jonze said it was "rather lovely".

Upon downloads of the song to certain programmes, the song is mistaken to be from Blur, the band's self titled 1997 album.

Music video

Despite its small release, the song did have a music video. Although all direction and production in the video is unknown, it completely consists of a close-up of a record needle, playing the "Fool's Day" 7" vinyl. It was posted up onto the Parlophone

Parlophone

Parlophone is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company which...

 YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

page in 2010.