{"id":209020,"date":"2025-10-18T14:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T14:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/209020\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T14:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T14:38:09","slug":"the-blur-album-damon-albarn-would-delete-if-he-could","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/209020\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blur album Damon Albarn would delete if he could"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blur<\/p>\n

(Credit: Alamy)<\/p>\n

Sat 18 October 2025 12:00, UK <\/p>\n

The Blur album that Damon Albarn<\/a> hates is a wild one, given that it granted the band valour and victory \u2013 but that\u2019s exactly how time works. What was once grand and great and important fades to nothing. What at one point felt heroic can end up feeling lame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1995, tensions in the UK were high. Sure, there was the endless politics to make that so in a more real, global and serious way. But I\u2019m talking about a real battle, a real war, the one raging between the country\u2019s two biggest rock bands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Britpop had been around for a while now, with the exact date of when it all kicked off being hazy.<\/a> Some would say it was somewhere between March and May of 1992, between the releases of Blur\u2019s \u2018Popscene\u2019 and Suede\u2019s debut, \u2018The Drowners\u2019. But most certainly, by the time Oasis emerged with their debut album, Definitely Maybe, in 1994, it was the thing. It was the trend. It was the phenomenon of the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a tough one to actually pin down, as the vibe of Britpop is complex and nuanced<\/a>, existing somewhere on the broad spectrum between hyper-masculine lad culture and campness. It was British, obviously, but not in a legitimately patriotic way. Instead, it was more ironic but also genuinely celebratory of British music and its real social culture, like pubs, football shirts and boys getting into fights.<\/p>\n

The latter, Blur and Oasis, took on gladly as they promptly fell into one of music history\u2019s most infamous feuds. To allow Noel Gallagher himself to explain it, he said, \u201cLiam and Damon were shagging the same bird, and there was a lot of cocaine involved.\u201d That\u2019s apparently all it really came down to, as he, Allan McGee, added, \u201cThere was a situation with a girl. That created the Britpop war. Damon shagged somebody close to Liam. It was one of many women Damon was friendly with. Then he got off with her for a one-night stand, and that created the rub. They were all goading each other after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It began as juvenile as it remained, as the two bands tossed insults back and forth and eventually came head to head in what was called \u2018The Battle Of Britpop\u2019. \u2018Country House\u2019 versus \u2018Roll With It\u2019 for the number one spot. The country was divided into teams; the two bands acted like rival armies, as if this were life or death, and all for what? Damon Albarn to later say he hated that song anyway?<\/p>\n

Blur won the battle but seemed to lose the war, given that if Albarn could wipe any of their albums from history, he\u2019d get rid of The Great Escape<\/a>, which housed their victorious single. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t stand it up as a great work of art, but it\u2019s what came out of that time of our lives,\u201d he said to NME on reflection.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the immature days of boyish arguments tainted it, as now, Albarn seems to only hear that record as a childish thing that he has to constantly face up to. \u201cWe are responsible for it. You can\u2019t eradicate it. It\u2019s out there forever now,\u201d he said, realising how tough the logistics would be as he continued, \u201cIt would take an awful lot of going round to people\u2019s houses and demanding their copies of it. So you\u2019ve got to accept that it exists.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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