The major rock band that Damon Albarn said had the most “pathetic” fans
When Damon Albarn was a young child, his mother was told not to expect much from him in life.
It’s not necessarily a unique thing to be told about a future musical star – many were also told they wouldn’t amount to much growing up or while in school, likely because their inability to focus in class made teachers wonder if they’d ever give their attention to one thing for long enough to actually find a calling. Alas, as we’ve seen time and time again, this attention deficit, especially for budding stars, eventually manifests itself in some form of creativity.
Albarn, on the other hand, was unique in that he had a razor-sharp perception of the world around him from an early age that was, in his view, “the direct result of an alternative upbringing”. A lot of this came from the fact that his dad was an environmental sculptor and that the environment at home was different to most kids’, something that set his thinking apart when it came to his surroundings.
As he got older, however, Albarn felt all the same insecurities any teenager might, or any young’un navigating a big world with a fresh head of vulnerabilities. Music always steps in around this time, hugging young minds like a warm blanket and reminding them that they’re not alone. It was the same for Albarn, who was no less impressionable when it came to the zeitgeist, though he’d later reflect on just how much certain types of music affected the generational youth, sometimes for the worse.
Subcultures are the norm through any generation, but often, and especially for someone like Albarn, pushing or encouraging one type of community or genre can have negative effects. For him, it was the cycle of depressive and dreary rock and new wave that hooked its claws in, making young people feel worse off when all they were looking for was something that mirrored their disillusionment.
Looking back, he noticed how most of the bands at the time were “playing into” this mentality, and how acts like The Smiths, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and Joy Division played an active role in pushing people down, rather than bringing them up. Art is subjective, of course, and these names are all some of the greatest in rock music history, but for Albarn, their impact often comes at the expense of children’s sanity.
As he once explained to Loaded, his heroes were “people like” Herman Hesse, Terry Hall, Suggs, Marilyn Monroe, and Jimmy Stewart, but others, who sought comfort from bands like The Smiths, were wrongly drawn to “depressed, tragic types”. He said, “I liked The Smiths, but I despised all Smiths fans. All my mates became vegetarians and started acting all moody and suicidal because of Morrissey. I thought that was pathetic – a load of bollocks. At that age, between 15 and 19, kids are very vulnerable.”
He went on, “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. 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.”
He even went as far as to say that they’re all a “big con” and that it makes him understand why kids gravitate towards other things like rave music, because it’s more “positive” and “healthier” than bands that he sees as “malignancy”. This was something he factored into his own music, especially when it came to the escape element.
Obviously, there are darker or grittier realist themes throughout Blur, Gorillaz, and his other projects, but mostly it comes down to the more artistic or experimental side of Britpop and modern indie-rock, without lingering too heavily on bringing people down.
