Music - Blur

Originally called Seymour, the group was formed in London in 1989 by Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, and Alex James, with David Rowntree joining the lineup shortly afterward. After performing a handful of gigs and recording a demo tape, the band signed to Food Records, a subsidiary of EMI run by journalist Any Ross and former Teardrop Explodes keyboardist Dave Balfe. Balfe and Ross suggested that the band change their name, submitting a list of alternate names for the group's approval. From that list, the group took the name Blur.

She's So High, the group's first single, made it into the Top 50 while the follow-up There's No Other Way went Top Ten. Both singles were included on their 1991 Stephen Street-produced debut album, Leisure. Although it received favourable reviews, the album fit neatly into the dying Manchester pop scene, causing some journalists to dismiss the band as manufactured teen idols. For the next two years, Blur struggled to distance themselves from the scene associated with the sound of their first album.

Released in 1992, the snarling Pop Scene was Blur's first attempt at changing their musical directions. Despite Blur's clear artistic growth, Pop Scene didn't fit into the climate of British pop and American grunge in 1992 and failed to make an impression on the UK charts. Following the single's commercial failure, the group began work on their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish, a process that would take nearly a year and a half.

XTC's Andy Partridge was originally slated to produce Modern Life Is Rubbish, but the relationship between Blur and Partridge quickly soured, so Stephen Street was again brought in to produce the band. After spending nearly a year in the studio, the band delivered the album to Food. The record company rejected
the album, declaring that it needed a hit single. Blur went back into the studio and recorded Albarn's For Tomorrow, which would turn out to be a British hit. Food was ready to release the record, but the group's US record company, SBK, believed there was no American hit single on the record and asked them
to return to the studio. Blur complied and recorded Chemical World, which pleased SBK for a short while; the song would become a minor alternative hit in the US and charted at number 28 in the UK. Modern Life Is Rubbish was set for release in the spring of 1993 when SBK asked Blur to re-record the album with producer Butch Vig. The band refused and the record was released in May in Britain; it appeared in the United States that fall. Modern Life Is Rubbish received good reviews in Britain, peaking at number 15 on the charts, yet it failed to make much of an impression in the US.

Modern Life Is Rubbish turned out to be a dry run for Blur's breakthrough album, Parklife. Released in April 1994, Parklife entered the charts at number 1 and catapulted the band to stardom in Britain. The stylized new wave dance-pop single Girls And Boys, entered the charts at number 5; the single managed to spend 15 weeks in the US charts, peaking at number 52, but the album never cracked the charts. It was a completely different story in England, as Blur had a string of hit singles including the ballad To The End and the mod anthem Parklife, which featured narration by Phil Daniels, the star of the film version of the Who's Quadrophenia.

With the success of Parklife, Blur opened the door for a flood of British indie-guitar bands that dominated British pop culture in the mid-90s. By the beginning of 1995, Parklife had gone triple platinum and the band had become superstars. The group spent the first half of 1995 recording their fourth album and playing various one-off concerts. Blur released Country House, the first single from their new album, in August admist a flurry of media attention because Albarn had the single's release moved up a week to compete with the release of Roll With It, a new single from Blur's chief rivals, Oasis. The strategy backfired. Although Blur won the battle, with Country House becoming the group's first number one single, they ultimately lost the war, as Oasis became Britain's biggest band with their second album, What's The Story, Morning Glory?, completely overshadowing the follow-up to Parklife, The Great Escape. While The Great Escape entered the UK charts at number 1 and earned overwhelmingly positive reviews, it sold in smaller numbers and by the beginning of 1996, Blur were seen as has-beens, especially since they once again failed to break the American market, where Oasis had been particularly successful. Blur Photo 2

In the face of negative press and weak public support, Blur nearly broke-up in early 1996, but they instead decided to spend the entire year out of the spotlight. By the end of the year, Albarn was declaring that he was no longer interested in British music and was fascinated with American indie-rock. A genre that Graham Coxon had been supporting for years. These influences manifested themselves on Blur's fifth album, Blur, which was released in February of 1997 to generally positive reviews. The band's reinvention wasn't greeted warmly in the UK - the album and its first single, Beetlebum, debuted at number 1 and quickly fell down the charts, as the group's mass audience didn't completely accept their new incarnation. However, the band's revamped sound earned them an audience in the US, where Blur received strong reviews and became a moderate hit, thanks to the popularity of the single Song 2. The success in America eventually seeped over to Britain, and by the spring, the album had bounced back up the charts. Since the release of Blur, the individual members have busied themselves with a variety of other projects. Alex has become a pop star all over again with the curiously unfathomable Fat Less combo. Dave Rowntree has immersed himself in computer animation. Graham has formed his own label, Transcopic, which he uses as an outlet for the music he loves. Last year he released his acclaimed solo album The Sky's Too High. Damon has followed up his acting debut in Antonio Bird's Face by co-composing with Michael Nyman the music for Bird's latest film Ravenous.

13 followed in 1999. 13 represents a break with the past in many ways. It is the first album on which the group haven't collaborated with producer Stephen Street. The new way of working involved lengthy improvisations around song structures which William Orbit and his crew would painstakingly record and edit. The result is a sound at once abstract and yet crowded with detail and inspiring moments. 13 also has its roots in all kinds of changed personal and emotional circumstances. It is the sound of a group maturing into a fully realized musical whole, making the music that best expresses them at present: from Tender, an epic gospel hymn of consolidation described by bassist Alex James as "one of the best things we've ever done. It's going to f**king knock people out," to the anguished yet hopeful blues of No Distance Left To Run, from the lo-fi pop cool of Graham Coxon's Coffee & TV to the alluring strangeness Battle and Mellow Song. The song Trailer Park, which originally was written for the South Park album, is a splendid Kraut Rock/mutant hybrid. 13 is the sound of a group with the happy and enviable position of inhabiting a soundworld that is utterly their own vision and creation. 13 is Blur's sixth album and marks the band being together for 10 years.