The Good, The Bad & The Collectable

The Blur & Damon Albarn Complete UK Discography. By Jake Kennedy

2007 finds the entity we know as Blur in an envious position. Britpop battlers, vaudevillian music hall parodies, lo-fi tourists, baggy survivors; call them what you want, but their musical vision, stylistic shapeshifting and all-round musical hummability has seen them endure where countless other acts who first sprang up nearly 20 years ago have split.

A trio since the departure of guitarist Graham Coxon in 2002 (his own six-album strong career is worthy of a discography alone), Blur are undoubtedly nothing without vocalist and chief songwriter, Damon Albarn. Many may consider him precious and arrogant, but perhaps he has every right to be. In the past 10 years alone, his musical career has seen him successfully soundtrack four films, record music inspired by visits to Iceland and Mali and, perhaps most successfully, take two-dimensional characters (Gorillaz) into the charts with long-term friend, cartoonist Jamie Hewlett, in a bid to rid the world of bland, faceless TV talent show-created stodge.

Away from the media spotlight, he recorded a solo album of demos in The Good, The Bad & The Collectable hotels across America (2003’s Democrazy), co-founded an influential record label responsible for some of the best African music released in the UK (Honest Jon’s) and sought out some of the biggest and most respected …

by Jake Kennedy
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