Blur

In the popular memory, Blur are remembered as "the other band": the one that fought Oasis in the famous Britpop war, and lost.

It is an injustice, and to put it right you have to tell the story properly. Because Blur did not just fight one of the best battles in British pop: they were, of the two rivals, the artistically restless one, the one that never settled for repeating the winning formula.

Four who complemented each other

Blur formed in London in 1988, around university, with four characters who fitted together well.

Damon Albarn, the voice and the brain. Graham Coxon, the guitarist, Damon's childhood friend and the most experimental and noisy soul in the group. Alex James on bass. Dave Rowntree on drums.

Their first record was a feeling-out, but they soon found a brilliant seam: portraying England.

With "Modern Life Is Rubbish" and above all with "Parklife", from 1994, they made guitar pop that was witty and very English—heirs to the Kinks and the Beatles—full of characters, irony and melancholy.

"Parklife" is a perfect portrait, funny and sad at the same time, of everyday British life: "Girls & Boys", "This Is a Low", "End of a Century". It was their masterpiece, and it made them, alongside Oasis, the face of Britpop.

14 August 1995

And then came the war.

Blur and Oasis released a single on the same day, on purpose, and the whole country picked a side: "Country House", by Blur, against "Roll With It", by Oasis.

The press turned it into a national event. It even made the news bulletins. It was read, on top of that, as a war of classes and regions: Blur, the boys from the south, from art school, educated middle class; Oasis, the northern workers, from Manchester.

Blur won the battle: "Country House" sold two hundred and seventy-four thousand copies that week, against two hundred and sixteen thousand, and went to number one.

But afterwards, Oasis's "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" became a worldwide phenomenon that no Blur song ever matched. They won the battle and lost the war, as the saying goes.

Burning the formula

But here is the part almost nobody tells, and the part that really vindicates Blur.

Battered by the Britpop circus and by having lost to Oasis, they did the opposite of what you would expect: instead of clinging to the formula that had made them famous, they burned it.

Their next record, "Blur", from 1997, filled up with noise and American indie. Its single "Song 2"—the one with the "woo-hoo" yell—ironically gave them their biggest hit precisely in the United States, where Britpop had never worked for them.

And then they went even further: "13", from 1999, is an experimental, electronic record, with gospel and with painfully personal lyrics from Albarn.

While Oasis found their sound and repeated it, Blur reinvented themselves every two albums. Coxon's inventive guitar and Albarn's insatiable curiosity—the one that would later explode into Gorillaz—made them one of the bravest British bands of their era.

The comeback

Over the years came pauses, internal trouble—Coxon left for a while—and reunions.

They came back for the closing ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012, recorded an album in Hong Kong, and in 2023 they pulled off a triumphant return: a new record, "The Ballad of Darren", which went straight in at number one, and two sold-out nights at Wembley Stadium, on 8 and 9 July, in front of crowds who had grown up with them.

The war that wasn't worth winning

Blur are alive, they are still the same four friends, and their story deserves to be read the other way round from how it is told.

They were not the losers of a war: they were the ones who refused to stay trapped in the Britpop they had helped invent themselves, and that is why their music aged better.

If you know them only from "Song 2" playing in a football stadium, you missed the band. Go to "Parklife", to "The Universal", to "Coffee & TV", to "Tender".

You are going to find four guys who portrayed England like nobody else, who laughed at themselves, and who had the rare courage to destroy their own formula again and again rather than repeat themselves.

They lost a war that, looked at properly, wasn't even worth winning. And they are still here, playing.

Sources

Blur, English rock band formed in London in 1988 (initially called Seymour), made up of Damon Albarn (vocals, keyboards), Graham Coxon (guitar), Alex James (bass) and Dave Rowntree (drums). After their debut "Leisure" (1991), they defined a very English guitar pop on "Modern Life Is Rubbish" (1993), "Parklife" (1994) and "The Great Escape" (1995), and helped popularise Britpop. On 14 August 1995 they and Oasis starred in the so-called "Battle of Britpop", releasing singles on the same day: "Country House" sold some 274,000 copies against the 216,000 of "Roll With It" and reached number one, but Oasis's subsequent global success with "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" far outstripped Blur. The rivalry was also read in terms of class and region. Blur later reinvented themselves towards American indie on "Blur" (1997, with "Song 2", their biggest hit in the US) and towards the experimental and electronic on "13" (1999). After pauses and side projects—Gorillaz among others—the band reunited on several occasions, including their performance at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics and "The Magic Whip" (2015, recorded in Hong Kong), and pulled off a major comeback in 2023 with the album "The Ballad of Darren", number one in the United Kingdom, and two concerts at Wembley Stadium on 8 and 9 July. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Readings of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's interpretation. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Official Charts, BBC and other press coverage.