Blur

English rock group. It was formed in Colchester in 1989 by Damon Albarn (b Whitechapel, London, 23 March 1968; vocals), Graham Coxon (b Rinteln, nr Hanover, 12 March 1969; electric guitar), Alex James (b Bournemouth, 21 Nov 1968; bass guitar) and Dave Rowntree (b Colchester, 8 May 1964; drums). Their first album, Leisure (Food, 1991), hinted at a psychedelic pop sensibility, but subsequent recordings established the band as mordant and witty observers of small-time English psychoses, which they housed in an infectious combination of mod and punk styles indebted to the Small Faces, The Kinks,...

English rock group. It was formed in Colchester in 1989 by Damon Albarn (b Whitechapel, London, 23 March 1968; vocals), Graham Coxon (b Rinteln, nr Hanover, 12 March 1969; electric guitar), Alex James (b Bournemouth, 21 Nov 1968; bass guitar) and Dave Rowntree (b Colchester, 8 May 1964; drums). Their first album, Leisure (Food, 1991), hinted at a psychedelic pop sensibility, but subsequent recordings established the band as mordant and witty observers of small-time English psychoses, which they housed in an infectious combination of mod and punk styles indebted to the Small Faces, The Kinks, David Bowie and the Jam. Thematically, Modern Life is Rubbish (Food, 1993) remains perhaps their most complete work, a paean to ‘little Englandism’ in the face of American imperialism, but musically Parklife (Food, 1994) is superior, with its sarcastic post-Aids disco anthem of sexual liberation, ‘Girls and Boys’, its tale of transvestism in ‘Tracy Jacks’ (a 1990s update of Pink Floyd's ‘Arnold Layne’) and the epic ballad ‘This is a low’. As Britpop took off in 1995, the arty, middle-class ‘Essex Boys’ Blur were contrasted in the media with the more demotic rock of Manchester's Oasis; ‘Country House’ (Food, 1995), released on the same day as Oasis's ‘Roll with it’, famously beat its rival into second place in the UK pop charts in August that year. Afterwards, however, Blur's star was temporarily on the wane as the next album, The Great Escape (Food, 1995), reused old themes. In 1997 the band effected a volte face and embraced the slow, grunge-influenced ‘low-fi’ American sound of such artists as Pavement and Beck. The resultant eponymously titled album was an unexpected artistic triumph. 13 (1999) was even more experimental, with haunting, expressionistic soundscapes best evidenced on tracks such as ‘1992’ and ‘Battle’, while the gospel-influenced ‘Tender’ retained a sufficiently broad appeal to enter the charts. See also S. Maconie: Blur: 3862 Days: the Official History (London, 1999).