The two Blur albums Damon Albarn will always regret: “I’ve made hundreds of mistakes”
Whether you are the lowest of the low or a Britpop icon and British master songwriter, Damon Albarn, it’s rare for musicians to love their creations unconditionally.
Albums aren’t children, after all. While an artist might feel satisfied in the heat of the moment, they frequently find themselves looking back on their past work with their hands over their eyes, unable to fully understand why they chose to adopt a certain approach so unflinchingly. Damon Albarn is one such artist. In fact, the former Blur frontman has dismissed not one but two albums by the era-defining Britpop group.
Blur’s debut album was a long time coming. By the time they released Leisure, they’d been together for a decade. Damon Albarn met guitarist Graham Coxon at school in Colchester, where they started hammering out songs in dusty practice rooms.
Eight years later, at Goldsmiths University, Graham and Damon were introduced to Alex James, who joined the fledgling outfit – then known as Circus – along with drummer Dave Rowntree. After signing to Food Records, they changed their name to Blur and commenced work on their first full-length studio album.
These were the hangover years of the Madchester movement. At that time, Blur were all erudite literary references, baggy t-shirts, even baggier beats, and shoegaze textures. Damon’s favourite cut from Leisure – which he later described as “awful” – was ‘ She’s So High’ , a murky blend of vaguely psychedelic UK pop.
Damon’s lyrics are devoid of personality, and the album failed to make a significant impact on the UK charts, peaking at number 48. That being said, it did cement Albarn as the charismatic face of “The Scene That Celebrates Itself”, a huddle of English bands – Chapterhouse, Stereolab and Swervedriver – who regularly played at London’s Syndrome Club.
Surprisingly, Albarn was equally dismissive of Blur’s 1995 album The Great Escape, which features some of the group’s most famous tracks, including ‘Charmless Man’, ‘The Universal’ and the Battle of Britpop single ‘Country House’. In 2007, Albarn confessed: “I’ve made hundreds of mistakes. I’ve made two bad records. The first record, which is awful, and The Great Escape, which was messy.”
When Bur released Leisure, they were suffering from a lack of identity. By 1995, they were experiencing the exact opposite problem. The Britpop explosion and the death of grunge had allowed them a degree of comfortability. As a result, they crafted an album devoid of the sneering intensity and wit that had defined Parklife, content to rehash the same tropes – Yuppie anxiety, urban malevolence, etcetera – with none of the initial vigour.
Even so, The Great Escape has undergone something of a critical reappraisal in the decades since its release. While Albarn may hear a band trapped by its own formula, many listeners still view the album as one of Blur’s sharpest snapshots of mid-1990s Britain.
Songs like ‘The Universal’ and ‘He Thought of Cars’ balanced grand pop arrangements with an undercurrent of unease, hinting at the more experimental direction Albarn would pursue later with Blur and Gorillaz.
In hindsight, Albarn’s frustration perhaps says more about his own restless creative instincts than the actual quality of the records themselves.
Blur were never a band comfortable standing still for too long, and by the end of the Britpop era, Albarn was already looking for a way out of the movement they had helped define. The rawer, American indie-inspired sound of Blur and 13 would soon follow, proving that dissatisfaction was often the fuel that pushed him towards his best work.
