Latest Release
- 26 JULY 2024
- 30 Songs
- Blur · 1997
- Parklife · 1994
- The Best Of · 1994
- The Best Of · 1999
- The Best Of · 1998
- The Best Of · 1995
- The Best Of · 1995
- The Best Of · 1997
- The Best Of · 1995
- The Best Of · 1994
Essential Albums
- Worn down by fame, Britpop, and each other, Blur re-emerged in 1997 a changed band. Opening shot “Beetlebum” married Damon Albarn’s Kinksy melodies to guitar work that owed as much to Stephen Malkmus as it did George Harrison. And so it went with Blur, which ditched Albarn’s cosy Anglicisms for more cryptic, autobiographical lyrics, hedged in Graham Coxon’s newfound love of the US underground. “Song 2” and “Chinese Bombs” go furthest out, but the band’s knack for pop melodies always remains blissfully intact.
- In the summer of 1993, Blur were making Parklife at Maison Rouge Studios in West London, but the title track was proving to be a struggle. Damon Albarn wasn’t convincing anyone, least of all himself, as the lairy, people-watching narrator. So they gave the actor Phil Daniels a go. Set to Graham Coxon’s spring-loaded guitar and the sound of smashing crockery, Daniels’ rambunctious turn rudely awakened a song that would go on to win the 1995 BRIT Award for Best British Single. To get to the heart of Blur’s third album though, it’s useful to consider Daniels’ other, more implicit appearance. On “Clover Over Dover”, a harpsichord melody leads us to the edge of the White Cliffs of Dover. As Albarn sings, “And when you push me over/Don’t bury me, I’m not worth anything”, it invokes Daniels’ final scenes in his breakthrough film role—as Jimmy, the disillusioned and emotionally rattled mod in 1979 coming-of-age drama Quadrophenia. That’s the duality of Parklife. Once the album lifted Blur from indie underachievers to pop stars, the title track and the jelly-shot-bright Eurodance of lead single “Girls and Boys” became totems for Cool Britannia’s triumphalism and optimism—but this is also the record where Albarn’s melancholic soul really starts to emerge. The character sketches that decorated 1993’s Modern Life Is Rubbish are just as witty and caustic here, presenting a white-collar midlife crisis on “Tracy Jacks” and lives being vainly lived for the long weekend on “Bank Holiday”. However, the moments where you sense more of Albarn himself, in the ballads and midtempo turns, are where Parklife’s deepest beauty lies. “End of a Century” turns an infestation he suffered at the London home he shared with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann into one of Blur’s most memorable opening lines (“She says there’s ants in the carpet, dirty little monsters”), while the song’s portrait of a couple settling into domestic ennui in front the television echoed through Albarn’s solo track “The Selfish Giant” 20 years later (“It’s hard to be a lover when the TV’s on/And nothing is in your eyes”). Inspiration for “This Is a Low” and its majestically weary tour of the UK coastline came from listening to the nightly shipping forecast on the BBC’s World Service, a trusted band antidote for hangovers and homesickness, but it’s also tempting to wonder if Albarn is addressing himself in the ambivalence of a line like “This is a low but it won’t hurt you.” As a guest on Savages singer Jehnny Beth’s Apple Music Radio show in 2017, he said, “I’m very neurotic sometimes. I struggle with melancholia but I know how to embellish it with joy.” Parklife’s melodies and humour helped take Britpop into the mainstream but you can already see signs of Blur’s DNA rearranging. Apart from anything, the sheer restlessness of the record suggests they wouldn’t settle amongst the bunting for long. Coxon in particular is brilliantly nimble as they pinball between punk rumbles (“Jubilee”, “Bank Holiday”), gentle psychedelia (“Badhead”), baroque pop (“Clover Over Dover”), New Wave (“London Loves”) and pier-end knees-ups (“Lot 105”). Bassist Alex James’ blithe “Far Out” might have seemed like throwaway stargazing at the time but maybe it was also a wormhole opening into the weightless, expansive experimentation of “Battle” and “Caramel” on 1999’s 13—just as Albarn’s wistful Parklife narratives point towards that album’s broken-hearted confessionals. Listening to Parklife now, you can hear a band coming out of character and into their own.
Albums
Artist Playlists
- These adventurous Britpoppers defined an era with clever lyrics and sharp riffs.
- Listen to the wildly eclectic bands behind Blur.
- Tingling pop perfection, with bolshy guitar interludes.
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
Compilations
More To Hear
- The band talk The Ballad of Darren.
- Matt Wilkinson revisits Blur’s self-titled album on its 25th anniversary.
- A deep dive into the songbooks of two ever evolving artists.
- Matt Wilkinson on the late 90s and the end of Britpop.
More To See
About Blur
It’s not quite Dick Rowe passing on The Beatles, but the story of Blur’s second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish, underlines the difficulties of forecasting success. In 1992, with British indie music in thrall to grunge, Blur dug into English pop tradition instead, crafting songs that recalled the storytelling of The Kinks, XTC’s arty adventure and Lennon and McCartney’s melodic nous. It didn’t please their record company. Frontman Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree were told no one was interested in British pop and they should consider recruiting Nirvana producer Butch Vig. Blur stood firm and were vindicated when Modern Life emerged as a founding pillar of Britpop in 1993. Early architects of a cultural phenomenon that stretched into film, fashion and politics, they became one of Britain’s biggest bands with subsequent albums Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). They’ve been left to follow their own intuition and thumb their noses at prevailing trends ever since. Britpop made them superstars, but Blur—who formed at Goldsmiths art college in London in 1988—were one of the first to leave the party. On their fifth album, 1997’s Blur, they pivoted sharply back towards America and Coxon’s love of the alt-rock underground. It earned them a US breakthrough via the gale-force woo-hoos of “Song 2”. Two years later, 13 revealed a looser, proggier and more electronic Blur, before they reacted to the temporary departure of Coxon by sampling car bonnets and uniting punk, dance and African music on Think Tank in 2003. Side projects including Albarn’s Gorillaz, Coxon’s solo records, James’ cheese-making and Rowntree’s political career have slowed production, but 2015’s The Magic Whip was another lesson in subverting pop norms while writing killer melodies. In early 2023, the band gathered again at Albarn’s London and Devon studios to record a ninth album, The Ballad of Darren, with Arctic Monkeys and Depeche Mode producer James Ford. Beyond brash signature hits such as “Parklife” and “Song 2”, Blur have repeatedly proven to be masters of melancholy. The heartbroken, lo-fi gospel of “Tender”, the beautifully careworn “Out of Time” and the wistful “Under the Westway” offer the clearest windows into the psyche of one of Britain’s greatest songwriters. “I’m very neurotic sometimes,” Albarn told Apple Music. “I struggle with melancholia, but I know how to embellish it with joy.”
- ORIGIN
- Colchester, Essex, England
- FORMED
- 1990
- GENRE
- Rock