“Messy”: The two Blur albums that Damon Albarn dislikes
Most artists will have a few regrets sprinkled throughout their careers. Perhaps a debut album that wasn’t quite as well-honed as their later work or an experimental outing that proved to be a misstep. Even the most accomplished, most acclaimed bands will admit to having made their fair share of blunders, sonically or otherwise, and guitar music staples Blur are no exception.
The London-born band were born out of the Britpop era in the 1990s, penning catchy guitar melodies over which Damon Albarn (and sometimes Phil Daniels) could shrug off observations about British life. Alongside the likes of Oasis and Suede, they became one of the leading bands in the scene, with albums like Parklife becoming integral to the era.
However, Albarn wasn’t entirely happy with everything Blur put out before and after their defining 1994 release. In fact, he once declared that he had made “hundreds of mistakes,” as quoted by Digital Spy, including two bad records, one of which was Blur’s debut Leisure, which he described as “awful”.
Hitting record stores in 1991, Leisure marked Blur’s first venture into the Britpop realm before the genre had even really been established. The album spawned memorable tracks like the springy ‘There’s No Other Way’ and the slightly softer ‘She’s So High’, in what would become our first introduction to Blur.
Despite Albarn’s disdain for the release, it was a fairly solid debut that set the sound and stylings of both Blur and Britpop more generally into motion. Sure, it would be overshadowed by the more successful Parklife and the self-titled Blur in the years to come, but it was a good first effort that doesn’t quite warrant Albarn’s suggestion that it was “awful”.
The other record Albarn shared his dislike for was their 1995 offering The Great Escape. Following the release of Parklife the year before, the record had big shoes to fill. Tracks like ‘Girls & Boys’ and ‘Parklife’ would become anthems of the genre and remain so even now. The Great Escape didn’t necessarily buckle under the pressure – it performed extremely well on release and produced some endearing tracks like ‘Charmless Man’ and ‘The Universal’ – but Albarn considered it to be “messy”.
Comparing the Kaiser Chiefs’ 2007 record, Yours Truly, Angry Mob to The Great Escape, he seemed to suggest that the messiness spawned from the pressure to replicate what had come before. “The Kaiser Chiefs’ new record sounds a bit like The Great Escape in that it sounds a bit empty,” he explained, “Sometimes records are like that if you try too hard to repeat your success.”
It’s easy to see why Albarn would dislike the two records – any debut is going to contain the sound of a band still figuring their sound out, while The Great Escape was hindered by the mammoth success of what had come before it. Since then, he’s also delved into new sonic worlds with Gorillaz. Still, his words on the two records seem slightly too harsh. They both still provided some essential Blur hits and showed the progression of the band in their sound and in their success.
Although it sounds like Albarn won’t be revisiting either album anytime soon, there are countless Blur fans who will enjoy the insight into the early band provided by their debut, as well as the charming Britpop stylings of The Great Escape.
