The history of BLUR can be traced back to circa 1980,
when Damon Albarn (b.1968) and Graham Coxon (b.1969) met
as schoolboys at Stanway Comprehensive School in the fair
city of Colchester in Essex, where they sang together in
the choir. Both were drawn to music: Damon, a Londoner by
birth (Whitechapel Hospital), was the son of Keith (a
former luminary of England's late-1960s psychedelic rock
scene that yielded Soft Machine and others) and Hazel (a
stage designer for Joan Littlewood's theatre company).
Arriving in Colchester in the late '70s, the young Damon
began studying music (the piano) and drama.
Graham, who had been born on an airbase in Germany, was
the son of a bandsman and he had gravitated to Colchester
in 1977. Graham was encouraged at Stanway to learn the
saxophone, an instrument which - some 15 years later - he
would play for the first time as a member of BLUR on
'Jubilee' (on 'Parklife').
Aged 12, Graham also began to play the guitar.
Alex James grew up in Bournemouth on England's south
coast, coming to London in the late '80s to study at
Goldsmith's College, where he first met Graham.
Colchester-born Dave Rowntree, the son of a BBC sound
engineer and a mum who played piano in an orchestra,
"took up" the bagpipes at a young age of
"very youthful indeed", graduating to drums not
long afterwards.
These four men formed a bizarre, Brechtian art-punk band
called Seymour - Damon on vocals (and occasional
keyboards), Graham on guitar, Alex on bass and Dave on
drums. After playing a dozen or so shows in and around
London, they re-named the band BLUR in 1989. BLUR signed
to Food Records in late 1989.
The first release from BLUR was the single 'She's So
High,' in 1990. The story really began to gather speed
with the next single, 'There's No Other Way,' a sizeable
hit in Britain in the Spring of 1991. The song saw BLUR
working for the first time with the legendary producer
Stephen Street (The Smiths, Morrissey, The Cranberries).
Street has produced the bulk of BLUR's music ever since,
including all but one track on 'Parklife' and every song
on 'The Great Escape' and 'Blur.'
'Leisure,' BLUR's debut album, released in August 1991,
was an enjoyable collection of songs influenced by Syd
Barrett's Pink Floyd, the explosive guitars of My Bloody
Valentine and vocal harmonies reminiscent of
'Revolver'-era Beatles. A Number 7 hit in Britain,
'Leisure' was soon outgrown by BLUR, who announced a
complete change of attack on their great, 'lost' single
'Popscene' in March 1992: furiously-paced, with blaring
horns over punky guitars.
Damon had undergone a major transformation as a
songwriter: from reticent by-stander to caustic
commentator, and BLUR greedily stockpiled the songs that
would make up their sophomore album, the critical
break-through 'Modern Life Is Rubbish.' Named after a
piece of graffiti scrawled on a wall near London's
hallowed monolith Marble Arch, 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'
(released in May 1993) was a total sea-change. Flying in
the face of fashion, it was a huge pop encyclopaedia of
England (from Julian Cope to XTC, from The Beatles to
Madness). The album's witty and touchingly parochial
songs (variously bolstered by use of string sections,
brass sections and cor anglais) aimed for, and acheived,
a quintessential English sound not heard since the
1965-68 heyday of the Kinks.
This modern view of urban England was developed on the
third BLUR album, 'Parklife' (a number one chart entry in
April 1994), which took an analytical, often complex look
at England's foibles and misfortunes. The music created
by BLUR - guitars, bass, saxophones, drums and insane
plastic keyboards - drew from many classic English
influences (Kinks, Madness, Bowie, Magazine) to create a
palette that was inspirationally fresh and defiantly
colloquial. The band won four BRIT Awards for 'Parklife'
in early 1995.
Some months ago in the making, the much-misunderstood
'The Great Escape' was BLUR's worldwide coming of age.
Its musical reach far outstripped trafitional pop: banjo,
mellotron, curdled waltzes and zonked-out keyboards all
took a bow in the band's ingenious arrangements. The
album would have sounded novel in whichever country it
was heard. It spanned every age group (BLUR are the first
group ever to receive frontcover stories in the teen mag Smash
Hits and the thirtysomethings' monthly Mojo.)
'The Great Escape' shot straight into the British album
charts at number one - it sold over 1 million copies in
the UK alone - and is to-date BLUR's biggest-selling
album worldwide. A tour of British seaside resorts
followed, during which BLUR played to small audiences for
one last time.
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