Damon Albarn on his admiration for The Specials: “I’d love to be in a band like that”
Part of any musician’s career is about pushing themselves out of their comfort zone. Throughout the creative process, it’s never inspiring trying to write the same song over and over again, and artists like Damon Albarn have been bucking that trend for years, constantly switching up his style in his digital outfit Gorillaz. While Albarn may have been able to make different musical swerves throughout, he actually had the idea of breaking into The Specials during his days in Blur.
Although it’s easy to think of what a Blur song sounds like in the 1990s, they started off in a much different place. Compared to the disaffected sounds of 1960s pop that they would cultivate throughout their career, the band’s debut album, Leisure, contained many tracks that strayed from traditional rock, almost sounding close to shoegaze in their construction.
Even though ‘She’s So High’ had fans in artists like Kurt Cobain around that time, it wasn’t until after grunge’s downfall that things started to take a different turn. In the wake of acts like Oasis becoming one of the biggest outfits on the planet, Blur had already begun moving in a similar direction on albums like Modern Life is Rubbish, making songs that felt like staunch tributes to acts like The Kinks.
Despite their penchant for retro hooks, Albarn was still looking to do something no one had done before. Wanting to have the same kind of indie rock bombast of acts like Pavement, the band would often engage in different diversions from their older sound, ultimately making tracks that leaned into dance textures or punk energy depending on what suited the song.
As the group began working on The Great Escape, it seemed like their unique approach to rock and roll had thrown everything out the window. Outside of the amazing tracks like ‘The Universal’, the group were free to stretch out on songs like ‘Fade Away’, whose sound was indebted to the cod-reggae groove of The Specials.
When talking about the track with NME, Albarn said that he would have loved to join the group had he had the chance, saying, “I really loved Terry Hall and the idea of a band that was half black and half white and produced this music which was equally music hall and reggae. I’d love to be in a band like that.”
For as many stylistic differences between Blur and The Specials as there were, Albarn seemed to be taking his cues from the amount of artistic ground they could cover. While the group may have been known for their strange approach to pop music, hearing them embracing different styles from soul, reggae, and rock and roll would have a huge impact on where Albarn would go next.
Outside of the parody piece ‘Song 2’ on their self-titled album, many of the band’s decisions going forward came from them pioneering different sounds. If it weren’t for a group like The Specials, a project like 13 may have only seemed like a pipe dream for Albarn, ultimately becoming one of the most daring projects they had ever taken on.
If anything, Albarn’s choice to launch Gorillaz may as well be his way of paying tribute to the influence of The Specials. Every artist might try to find a sound and stick with it, but Albarn learned that it’s much more fun trying to find something new and different than trying to cater to what you think the mainstream wants.
