A whistle stop tour of Damon Albarn’s five greatest hits
We like to create labels in the music industry. I guess it makes things easier to understand. For us mere mortals are clutching at straws of creative ideas, desperately trying to better understand levels of genius we can’t usually comprehend. Take Britpop, for example, a simple packaging of 1990s alternative hysteria that allowed the individual complexities of Jarvis Cocker, Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn bundled into one.
But realistically, there was no need, particularly in the case of the latter, who were embroiled in a salacious battle of the bands despite needing no real comparison, such was their artistic difference. This cast an unfair shadow over Albarn, who, with no real intentions, was measured against a mod-clad yardstick in his Mancunian contemporaries. While Blur and Oasis spoke to a similar demographic of an exuberant youth living through the heady 1990s, they were ultimately operating on different frequencies.
On Blur’s albums Modern Life Is Rubbish, The Great Escape, Blur and 13, Albarn led the band into a more diverse creative breach, attempting to meld more experimental sounds while remaining commercially palatable. While they tried not to be, Blur were somewhat confined to the four-piece band composition, forced to restrict their experimentation to the confines of live instrumentation. While Liam Gallagher continued to insist that’s what “proper music” was, Albarn was understandably bored at the turn of the millennium. The allure of big crowds and old songs no longer trumped small crowds and new ideas, and so he exiled himself to the studio to pull off a creative reinvention that, retrospectively, has been played down.
The baby-faced prince of alternative rock decided it was time to try his hand at electronic hip-hop, under the guise of Gorillaz. Hiding behind the anonymity of a cartoon, partly for privacy and partly for innovation, Albarn proved his intent was merely to push sonic boundaries, to move music as a community forward rather than serve himself.
And in that pursuit, he proved simplicity is key. His greatest moments weren’t wrapped up in grand arrangements that gatekept genius from the working-class fans he accrued; in fact, it was the opposite. His constant pursuit of innovation resulted in a more DIY production style, giving way to a space that allowed hip-hop and alt-rock to blend surprisingly. While he’s widely credited for his genius among informed circles, I still believe there’s a criminal oversight of his contribution to music, and if you disagree, well, listen to these songs.
Damon Albarn’s five greatest hits:
His most underrated song: ‘Ghost Ship’ – Blur
Not to view all of Albarn’s work through the lens of his Mancunian rivals, but there is a level of self-assurance that oozes out of ‘Ghost Ship’ that I would find simply impossible to fathom in any Oasis track. But there is a level of patience to the delivery of this song that comes from time spent exploring, which by 2015’s The Magic Whip, Blur had done.
Albarn has never been blessed with the most natural voice; he’d be the first to admit that. In the 1990s, he leant into it to good effect, but an apparent sense of insecurity leaked through the cracks. On ‘Ghost Ship’, he smoothly orates a jazz-laden experience that smothers the listener in serenity at every corner. It’s quite simply the best individual parts of all Blur members, blended together to make a cleverly thought-out mutt of contemporary genres. Only Albarn’s wealth of diverse knowledge could have seen the end point of this track’s production, and only his voice could have served its soundscape with such delicacy.
His best anthem: ‘Tender’ – Blur
I agree, ‘The Universal’ has been sorely overlooked in the battle for Albarn’s best anthem, but there’s something about ‘Tender’ that feels innately linked to Albarn. I don’t think he ever set out to be the global megastar he became; he was a tentative wallflower who found meaning in the obscurity of British alternative music. So when it came to headlining festivals, it simply wouldn’t have been right for him to stand alone under the spotlight, belting out a chorus.
He needed something collective and shared, for that’s when music has meant the most to him. ‘Tender’ has perhaps the easiest hook to remember, feels most anthemic when sung in a group, yet still boasts all of the technical sensibilities that make a song unique. Albarn is ultimately a softy at heart, and this song has as gooey a centre as anything you can expect to hear, especially when played with the wallflowers with whom he started this band. It’s a song of collective energy, musical euphoria, and it epitomises the more delicate nuance Blur had over their contemporaries.
His signature simplicity: ‘On Melancholy Hill’ – Gorillaz
The cold confines of my secondary school walls didn’t exactly feel like the inside of Abbey Road. As I shoddily cobbled together four keyboard chords over the top of a pre-set backing track, I was confronted with the harsh reality that my future as a musician would inevitably be halted. Or would it? When Albarn donned his holographic cloak and pioneered electronic hip-hop with Gorillaz, I was hit with sudden sense that the simple beauty of single keyboard note could unlock an entire world of emotional response.
We all know Albarn can turn water into wine as he did with ‘Clint Eastwood’ and its famous Casio preset, but you would think that methodology has a shelf life. But Albarn’s brilliance lies in his continued ability to prove time and time again that he can make something out of nothing. ‘On Melancholy Hill’ has perhaps one of contemporary music’s most evocative hooks, and when paired with his stripped-back voice, you’re clearly informed that Albarn has an innate sense of emotional musicality. He elevates an idea that’s simple in the hands of others, and allows it to pour out with unmatched levels of profundity. I’d have ‘On Melancholy Hill’ as my phone ringtone and funeral song, that’s how broad it is.
His best production: ‘Rock The House’ – Gorillaz
If in 1991, upon the release of Blur’s debut record Leisure, I would have told you its frontman would be producing hip-hop beast ala America’s East Coast, you’d have most likely laughed. His shocking evolution as an artist was very much a path unforged, particularly in the realms of British alternative music but on Gorillaz’ self-titled debut album, he proved he a world informed understanding of songwriting and arrangement.
Teaming up with Del The Funky Homosapien, Albarn created a slick take on bedroom hip-hop, with a brass loop and a chopped up drum beat that platforms the innate flow of a rapper like Del. It’s a track that barely features any vocal input from Albarn and instead pits him in the sole role of producer, yet his ability to musically converse with his collaborators is undoubtedly clear. He challenges Del at each verse and chorus, plunging the production of the song into murkier and more experimental depths, knowing full well that the kernel of excitement exists in his pushing of the MC to his limit.
Traditionalists may regard the chopping up of a beat simple in comparison to the sort of live instrumentation of Blur. But for Albarn to completely abandon his creative conventions, one rooted in melodic structure and instead let rhythm take the lead, finding unfamiliar pockets of beat to explore is a transition not to be undermined.
His finest songwriting moment: ‘The Narcissist’ – Blur
Like an outstretched hand from the future, pulling Blur’s past into the present, this song is a meeting of the band’s historic chapters. Compositionally, it is as traditional a Blur song as you might find, but led by a more emotionally available and mature Albarn, who puts an emotional arm around his younger self in this brutally honest track. A younger artist wrapped up in the whirlwind of musical fame, where grandiose behaviour is rewarded, but only acts like a rollercoaster slowly ticking up the tracks, heading towards a stomach-churning drop.
Albarn may not have known the sheer size of the shows that would follow The Ballad of Darren, if he did, would he have penned a song so honest? But the transcendence he so desperately sought in the verses of this song would have surely been found at Wembley, when all questions over the band’s legacy would have finally been answered, when thousands of fans opened their hearts and told him they were looking back at him too. Narcissism will be a never-ending threat for a musician as renowned and creatively mercurial as Albarn, but with the writing of such a steadfast album, he’s given himself a friend to endure whatever comes next.
