“It’s all a big con”: The bands Damon Albarn thought of as toxic influences on youth culture
All great music movements have an undertone of rebellion to them, and the booming era of Britpop was no different.
Oasis were the charmingly irresponsible stewards of this new era and accepted the role with little to no care over their influence. In a bid to reignite the fury of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, the Gallagher brothers wholeheartedly celebrated the vices that concerned parents would have been warning their kids about.
Songs about doing white lines were swiftly followed by media appearances where Liam Gallagher was throwing two fingers up to the camera and calling 1990s radio darling “Ginger Bollocks” in front of a nationwide studio audience. Respect for your elders was thrown out the window, and in its place was societal apathy.
Luckily for the concerned few, Blur acted as something of an attitude tonic to Oasis. Pitted as the stark contrast to the Mancunians in this slightly bitter but largely overblown rivalry, the softer southerners represented something a little bit more palatable for concerned parents. Sure, a deeper dive into their lyrics concealed an attitude that was just as edgy, but more thinly veiled, and so there was safety in letting the new generation sing along to their lyrics of ‘Parklife’ instead of ‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’.
For Albarn, it was a responsibility he didn’t take lightly. As a kid living in the shadows of popularity, he observed how music impacts the impressionable minds of teenagers and so developed a sensitivity towards the relationship between artist and fan.
But within that, he began to realise that the musicians who represented him were somehow falling short on their duty of offering something different for disillusioned kids. He didn’t take solace in experiencing the suffering of his musical peers and, rather, sought something that represented escapism.
“At that age, between 15 and 19, kids are very vulnerable,” he explained. “They’re leaving their family environment, finding their sexuality, trying to figure out what to do with their lives. They’re full of late-adolescent paranoia. So many bands like Joy Division, The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode and Suede consciously play on that.”
He continued, “I had those feelings of insecurity myself, but I was never going to sit in a room listening to fucking Morrissey or fucking Robert Smith or fucking Brett fucking Anderson. It’s all a big con to me. It’s selling the audience short in the worst way imaginable. That’s why I can understand kids who are into rave music these days.
“They can dress up and go to clubs. They’re attractive, and the dancing is very sexual. The whole attitude is very positive. It’s all so much healthier than stuff like The Cure and bands like that who I regard as a malignancy. Thank god kids these days have got someone like me to look up to.”
In referencing himself, Albarn was touching on Blur’s musical decision to be celebratory in their music and deliver something slightly optimistic. But a key difference that he failed to include in his argument was that the social disposition of Britain in the ‘90s was far more conducive to a sense of artistic optimism. Britpop was all about ignorant bliss, and so musical optimism was encouraged in a way it simply wasn’t in the more depressing and dour ‘80s.
