Blur was as British as colonialism, Queen Elizabeth, and 5 o’clock tea. Blur was also the most commercially savvy of the Britpop bands, jumping from one style to another and making ranking their discography difficult.
Blur was middle-class, while Oasis was working-class. Blur’s musicians were nicely dressed, while Suede’s were dressed lavishly. And Damon Albarn’s humour was born of anger, while Pulp’s oozed wit.
But Albarn and the chaps produced some memorable songs and albums. I won’t lie. It’s not my favourite band in the world. Regardless, today, I’ve ranked all of the albums in Blur’s discography from worst to best.
Blur Albums Ranked
9. “Leisure” (1991)
Like their perennial rivals Oasis, Blur was never content with being underground darlings. “Leisure” shows off their ambition while incorporating the trendy sounds of the time.
Those trendy styles were dubbed shoegaze and Madchester by hype-creating magazines like New Musical Express.
The two genres may have been in philosophical contradiction of each, the rockers and punks of their day, but Blur make the two work for them.
“She’s So High,” “There’s No Other Way,” and “Repetition” are highlights. But Damon Albarn doesn’t quite know yet if he wants to be Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett or The Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder.
On the other hand, “Sing” is by far the album’s best. It’s a moody, memorable soundscape that seems to come out of nowhere. It hints that more important things were yet to come.
8. “The Magic Whip” (2015)
“The Magic Whip” is the happy end for which Blur fans had been hoping. While it is helmed mainly by Graham Coxon, it doesn’t match the wonderful, blurry effervescence of his solo, non-Blur albums.
Musically, the album works with many of the band’s old formulas. In fact, many of the songs had started out jams. These were later structured into alternative rock-styled songs by Coxon.
Meanwhile, Albarn’s obsession with suburban depression has shifted to one for global digital depression, and he’s substituted Britain for Hong Kong.
Some of the best songs here are “Thought I Was a Spaceman” and “Lonesome Street.”
If “The Magic Whip” turns out to be the final Blur album, and it probably won’t be, it’s a far more dignified ending than “Think Tank.”
7. “Think Tank” (2003)
Blur had outlasted many of their contemporaries, and Damon Albarn had struck commercial gold with Gorillaz. However, their arrogance is not rewarded on the misstep that is “Think Tank.”
The biggest problem is that Blur is now a trio. Graham Coxon’s guitar playing, the secret sauce to this pop-rock recipe, is missing. The band had suspended him.
Damon Albarn, however, relies on nifty hip hop, electronica and exotic instruments. He brought in Fatboy Slim to produce and Moroccan musicians to play. (For his part, Fatboy Slim still is pleased to have been asked.)
A similar strategy had worked for the electro-dance success of Gorillaz. But the mysterious marketing of that band had, in part, helped its success.
Blur is distancing itself from Britpop. But the new direction isn’t very compelling. Even more so, the loose concept of “love and politics” is hard to follow.
“Crazy Beat” is a highlight simply for its over-the-top attempt at rewriting “Song 2” for the disco, but not much else.
6. “The Great Escape” (1995)
On “The Great Escape,” Damon Albarn turns his gaze toward the many and less fortunate. There’s more room for self-expression here, but a few big, inevitable singles are thrown in just in case.
Like Oasis, Blur’s members made no attempt to hide their pleasure at finding fame. Even bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree publically rejoiced in the spoils of success.
Unlike Oasis, they were still very careful to manage that success. Songs that could be hits weren’t tossed on B-sides collections the way Noel Gallagher had done with “The Masterplan”.
Consequently, big pop singles like “Country House” and “Charmless Man” are front and centre of this album.
However, “The Great Escape,” as the name suggests, is often about the ruling class compared to the miserable working class. These distinctions were still very important in Great Britain at the time.
Albarn produces an interesting critique even though his one-liners aren’t quite at the standard of Jarvis Cocker‘s lyrics.
The announced sonic expansion also works well throughout, particularly on the pop-symphony of “The Universal.”
5. “Modern Life Is Rubbish” (1993)
“Modern Life Is Rubbish” helped Britpop do in England what grunge had done in the U.S.A. It helped define an era while paying homage to the past.
The way that Blur do this is by stripping away the modern influences they’d embraced on “Leisure.”
Suede may have been greeted as the heirs to David Bowie. Oasis would soon become the successors to The Beatles.
But Damon Albarn had The Kinks’ Ray Davies and Syd Barrett. He also had a genuine interest in the British way of life and a knack for writing pop tunes.
Graham Coxon is Blur’s secret weapon, a guitar hero hiding in plain sight.
“Pop Scene,” “Sunday Sunday,” and “Chemical World” are calculated risks. Each is made for both radio and the critics. There’s dark humour to each song. But nice hooks keep them afloat.
4. “The Ballad of Darren” (2023)
The expectations for a reunion are now behind them. Furthermore, Albarn and Coxon find themselves in one of the most creative spells of their career. This makes “The Ballad of Darren” a late-career highlight for Blur.
Blur have double-guessed themselves before. “Think Tank” and, to a lesser extent, “The Magic Whip” were attempts to create the band’s sound as the musicians thought the world wanted to hear it.
On “The Ballad of Darren,” Blur sounds removed from the world and free to contemplate the world in their melancholy, British way. The fact that the album was recorded during lockdown is almost immediately obvious. So is the fact that the embers of these songs are Damon Albarn compositions.
“The Narcissist,” “St. Charles Square”, or “The Heights” are some of the Blur’s best songs. Unlike the colourful art-pop that made them famous, most swim in a chilling sadness. It’s a letter from morose, older rockstars from an island usually covered in rain.
3. “Parklife” (1994)
Blur pretended to embrace apathy on their previous record. But “Parklife” lays the truth bare. They love being the popstar critics of Britain. And they’re pretty good at it.
Thematically, Damon Albarn had found his niche. Like Rady Davies or Paul Weller, his life’s great work was documenting modern life in Britain. “Parklife” is, in many ways, a concept album.
But it’s also a single heavy record. They’d need radio hits soon enough, with “The Battle Britpop” fought against Oasis looming on the horizon.
“Girls & Boys” and “Parklife” are annoyingly catchy pop tunes. “End of a Century” is a pop-rock kitchen sink drama. Meanwhile, “To the End” shows that Albarn wasn’t unfamiliar with the works of Scott Walker and could even apply the studied tactics efficiently.
“Parklife” earned massive goodwill for Blur both from the public and the music critics, particularly the English ones.
2. “Blur” (1997)
Cleverly understanding that quickly changing, the quartet made a surprising leap. “Blur” introduces fans to the group’s disparate influences, and for the most part, the results are impressive.
It was unclear whether Blur had defeated Oasis in The Battle of Britpop or if it was the other way around. One thing was clear: Albarn wasn’t going to sit around waiting for the aftershock. He was the first one out.
On “Blur,” Albarn and the band bring forth their more sophisticated influences and marry them to their pop sensibilities. The 14-song setlist occasionally plays like a bizarre late-night radio show focused on obscure quaint European pop.
The instrumental “Theme for Retro” and the Coxon-sung “You’re so Great” hint at the obsession with the old-fashioned.
The rest of it allows Coxon’s aggressive guitar sounds, inspired partly by Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus, to run riot to the song.
“Beetlebum,” “M.O.R.”, and “Song 2” are the most successful attempts at American-styled indie-rock.
Blur had moved on from their obsession with the U.K. and had shifted their attention elsewhere. The move, even though surprising, allowed them to circumvent the public’s backlash against Britpop.
1. “13” (1999)
If “Blur” had allowed the band to experiment with loud guitar noises, “13” lets them work with hushed tones. The results are generally pleasant and help the band break new creative ground.
On “13” the band produces some of its most emotional work. Damon Albarn is at his most vulnerable here after having ended a very public relationship with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann.
“Tender” and “No Distance Left to Run” are two of the most simple, direct pop tracks that Blur produced.
However, they split the difference with more eerie and experimental work such as “Trimm Trabb.”
The band’s usually a little too over-confident in their abilities as avant-pop musicians. But when it works, such as on “Coffee TV”, the results are very good.
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