Artist bio

See also: Gorillaz, Graham Coxon

In England and Japan, Blur was a paragon of '90s pop music, one of the "big three" (alongside Oasis and Suede) that launched the new wave of Britpop in the early part of that decade. In America, they're largely known as a one-hit wonder for the written-in-two-minutes Pixies ripoff "Song 2". Natch.

The group's four-pronged musical attack was Beatlesque in makeup as well as in sonic temperament: drummer Dave Rowntree, the eldest of the group, was an accomplished drummer who came of age in assorted punk bands; bassist Alex James was a dreamer with a sharply honed predilection for making candy pop. Guitarist Graham Coxon was the group's heart, a technically dextrous musician with an ear for dissonance and an ability to rein in the bombast favoured by singer/songwriter Damon Albarn, the cheeky frontman able to churn out classic pop melodies and fit his malleable voice into a number of widely varying outfits.

Blur matured over its first two albums into a respectable britpop outfit informed by early Who, the Kinks, the Beatles, etc. but really exploded with third effort Parklife, which boiled down the British character sketches and modern life ruminations into a heady brew that topped the U.K. charts for quite a while.

Two albums later, Coxon's infatuation with American indie rock like Sonic Youth and Pavement won the day, as the group's fifth, self-titled album took a more underground bent. The direction was a neccessary one, and kept Blur relevant into the latter half of the '90s. Follow-up 13 was even more 'out-there', a swampy melange on which you can almost hear the group members pulling the sound in different directions.

With Coxon getting the boot in 2002 (just as his solo career was blossoming), who knows where Blur will head next, but the group has made a significant imprint on the pop canon, including about a handful of all-time classic tunes. Which will of course, differ depending on who you talk to.

Albums by this artist

Think Tank (2004)

'Music Is My Radar' (2001)

13 (1999)

Blur (1997)

The Great Escape (1995)

Parklife (1994)

Modern Life Is Rubbish (Recommended) (1993)

Leisure (1991)

Concerts

March 16, 2003
Bowery Ballroom, New York

Blur

Leisure

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» TROY CARPENTER | CO-DIRECTOR

Blur Leisure Food, 1991 RiYL: Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Charlatans UK

Blur opened its career drawing from the book of the Stone Roses and the 'Madchester' movement -- dreamy, "shoegazing" pop that thought it was starting a new English era. In retrospect, we hear this music as transition from easily forgotten '80s synth pop like Duran Duran and the Beatles/Kinks revival of mid-'90s Britpop (Speaking of bygone eras, Blur's debut single "She's So High" -- included here -- was released on the same day as EMF's debut, "Unbelievable").

Leisure has a few magnetic melodies, but a lot of the record's cookie-cutter hooks had lost their lustre by 1992. Still, there's a chemistry displayed on these songs that promises Blur is capable of the great albums we now know they were going to make.

You've got the elder punk-veteran drummer laying precision dance beats while the incessantly poppy bassist bubbles up through the cracks. You've got a 20-year-old guitarist whiz kid, spinning distorted melody lines around the rhythm: no solos, really, but more of a Peter Buck-style river-of-riffs approach. Then of course you've got the bombastic frontman, fey art-school accent and all, giving the band its crucial personality while tossing out vocal hooks like so many crusts of bread to the hungry record-buying public.

The symbiosis between all four members is what ultimately makes Leisure succeed, in one of those greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts ways. The band's chemistry isn't fully realized here -- not even close, actually. But there's a taste, and it's enough to make the album worth buying.

The ethereal "Sing" (unceremoniously lopped off the American release) and the languid "Birthday" show that the band is willing to try some of the more experimental aspects of their chosen genre (sounds like: Velvet Underground and My Bloody Valentine), while "There's No Other Way" and "Wear Me Down" remain among the band's finest pop songs. I still even consider them for mix tapes.

The album definitely has some clunkers, and it's no secret that the band has moved on, to far greater and more interesting musical territory. But it ain't a sin to pull this one out of the old sleeve for a few spins, lest we forget from whence they came.

TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.