Blur

Blur are an English alternative rock band formed in London in 1988. The group consists of Damon Albarn (vocals, keyboards), Graham Coxon (guitar, backing vocals), Alex James (bass guitar) and David Rowntree (drums). The band’s current complete studio album discography consists of Leisure, Modern Life is Rubbish, Parklife, The Great Escape, Blur, 13, Think Tank, and The Magic Whip. The band is considered one of the originators of the Britpop movement of the 1990s and an essential band for the genre. Blur is best known for the hit single “Song 2” in America, however, elsewhere, the band was wildly successful and their success went far beyond Song 2, spanning multiple hit records in Europe throughout their existence as a band. They are also well known for their 1995 chart battle with Britpop peers Oasis, dubbed by the British press as “The Battle of Britpop”. They originally went by the name Seymour before being signed.

Musical Style
Much like with Gorillaz, Blur has gone through out a series of changes in their sound throughout their existence as a band. Leisure, the band’s 1991 debut album incorporated Shoegazing and Madchester, a culture that was popular in Britain at the time. Modern Life is Rubbish saw the first change in the band’s style, being more influenced by English pop bands such as The Beatles, The Kinks, and XTC. This sound would continue in releases such as Parklife and The Great Escape.

In 1997, the band would release their self titled album Blur, which transformed the sound of the band, abandoning the Britpop sound of the first four albums and bringing the band into more alternative and indie rock-based territory, with influences from American alternative rock bands and musicians such as Sonic Youth, Pavement, and Beck. Blur would reinvent themselves yet again with their 6th album 13 in 1999, moving onto a more electronic direction, but maintaining an experimental rock edge and experimenting with elements from lo-fi and hip hop music. Blur’s 7th album Think Tank would mark the departure of guitarist Coxon from the band, which would influence the sound of the record significantly. The album was more electronic than previous works and contained minimal guitar work, with influences from African music and Hip-hop throughout it.

Blur would fully reunite and be rejoined by Coxon in 2008, sometimes releasing individual singles such as Fools Day in 2009 and Under The Westway & The Puritan in 2012, however, these singles were strictly singles and an album was not being recorded at that time. In 2015, Blur would release The Magic Whip, the first Blur album with Coxon as the lead guitarist in 16 years. This album would combine many elements from all of their previous albums with new sounds and territory explored by Albarn and co to create something familiar, yet also very fresh and new.

Impact on Gorillaz
Jamie Hewlett’s first meeting with Damon Albarn was for an interview with Blur in 1990 promoting the band’s debut album before it was even released. Hewlett interviewed the band via a request from their guitarist Graham Coxon, who was a big fan of Tank Girl at the time. Hewlett makes a cameo appearance in Blur's 1993 tour documentary Starshaped, which was directed by Ceri Levy, who'd go on to direct the Gorillaz documentary film Bananaz years later.

Blur’s self-titled album and 13 have often been considered by Albarn as essential steps that would lead the creation of the sounds that Gorillaz would explore throughout their discography. Albarn has once called the song "On Your Own” from Blur’s self-titled album ‘one of the first-ever Gorillaz tunes’, although it wasn't released under the Gorillaz name. Albarn has also mentioned that many of the songs from Gorillaz’ self-titled debut album originate from scrapped Blur demos.  The song Tomorrow Comes Today originates from a scrapped 13-era demo called ‘I Got The Law’. The song Dirty Harry also had the demo come from a failed Blur song called "I Need A Gun". Coxon also mentioned Gorillaz's self-titled debut songs being from Blur, saying that he remembered a lot of the songs from the album originally being Blur demos that didn't work with the band. The Gorillaz song Punk has drums by Blur’s drummer Dave Rowntree.  Before Gorillaz recorded their debut album, Damon's first venture into the trip-hop genre would be for a Blur remix of the song Angel by Massive Attack.

Good Song, a song from Blur's 7th studio album Think Tank was originally titled "De La Soul", two years before Gorillaz would begin to collaborate with the hip hop group De La Soul. The Think Tank song Ambulance was originally written for Gorillaz, however, Albarn felt the song didn't suit the band and would use it to revive Blur instead.

Graham Coxon would also later go on to contribute additional guitar on the Gorillaz songs “Submission” from Humanz in 2017 and “Magic City” from The Now Now in 2018. Alex James, Blur’s bassist, is the only member of the band to not contribute to a Gorillaz record. Gorillaz played a cover of Song 2 with Graham Coxon live at the 2018 Demon Dayz Festival.

Discography

 * Leisure (1991)
 * Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993)
 * Parklife (1994)
 * The Great Escape (1995)
 * Blur (1997)
 * 13 (1999)
 * Think Tank (2003)
 * The Magic Whip (2015)

Trivia

 * A character from The Family Johnson Johnson, a scrapped cartoon band idea Hewlett created in 1991 would later appear on the front cover of a Blur issue of Deadline Magazine, with Alex James holding a toy figurine of the drummer character.
 * Graham Coxon made a cameo appearance in an issue of Tank Girl where he saves the day with an inflatable castle called “Coxon’s Castle”, published in issue 64 of Deadline Magazine.
 * Blur as a whole band also made a cameo appearance in Jamie Hewlett’s comic strip Get The Freebies on Coxon’s Castle in 1996.
 * Before Blur, Albarn was the frontman of a synthpop duo called Two’s A Crowd, with Sam Vamplew, a band that would later be referenced on the book Rise of The Ogre as an old band that Gorillaz bassist Murdoc Niccals used to be a member of.
 * Damon’s first words to Murdoc “Your cuban heeled boots are crap mate, look, mine are the proper sort” are actually a play on his first words to Graham Coxon when they met at Stanway Comprehensive School.
 * ‘Trailerpark’ from 13 was originally written and recorded in 1997 for the South Park soundtrack album Chef Aid, and the song was originally simply titled ‘South Park’, however, the song was rejected by Rick Rubin. This is the first time Albarn wrote music for a cartoon, predating Gorillaz by a year.
 * Beavis and Butthead did two music video commentaries on Blur, for the music videos to Parklife and Chemical World, on the episodes “Generation in Crisis” in 1994 and ‘Lightning Strikes’ in 1995.
 * Damon Albarn has once tried to convince Blur to play the Gorillaz songs "Clint Eastwood" and "Feel Good Inc." live, however they refused to do so.
 * At one point, 2-D was reported by Josh, the owner of the website fans.gorillaz.com, to have recorded vocals for an alternate version of Me, White Noise from Blur's seventh album Think Tank. An alternate version of Me White Noise with all Damon Albarn vocals would later become a b-side to the Good Song single.
 * In 1996, Blur performed live. They invited The Specials frontman Terry Hall along where they covered the Specials song Nite Klub (Hall, reprising his role as lead singer for the cover). This was before Albarn and Hall would collaborate with D12 and Jamie Hewlett on 911.