“They have a real problem”: Damon Albarn’s infamous rant about why Blur never broke America
Many hot takes uttered by Damon Albarn have been applied with a noble lens of criticism. His advocacy for greater diversity in the music industry, for instance, is a necessary conversation we all need to be having. He has also openly condemned celebrity culture, supporting the call for dismantling various aspects of modern society. His rant about America, however, didn’t exactly sit right with many.
Breaking America has been a significant indicator of success since the early days of commercial consumerism, not just in the music industry but in the entertainment business as a whole. In music, however, this often applies a lot of pressure to artists who find stable localised success. Not only are they faced with constant anxieties about one day not being able to sustain their love for the craft, but the difficulty as a rising artist, financially and pragmatically, becomes almost impossible to reckon with.
That’s not to say that becoming popular in America is the ultimate signifier of “making it”: a lot of artists remain successful in their own country or a handful of countries, and that’s a good enough impact that matches everything they desire to be as mainstream artists. For many, however, not branching out into the Land of the Free is a fatal route to failure.
Failure is subjective, but in the eyes of Damon Albarn, struggling to appeal overseas is less an issue with bands and more about forthcomings in translation. “I spent years not explaining myself and expecting Americans to get it, but they just didn’t,” he once shared, before embarking on a considerably offensive rant about the intelligence of the country’s inhabitants. “Americans like you to be nice; they like you to explain things clearly,” he continued.
Adding: “They have a real problem with English people to start off with, and the people that do well in America are the ones that go and fucking explain it all.”
That said, the band’s difficulty resonating in America might have contributed to their wider success, as Albarn later reflected. Commenting on how the country impacted their trajectory and became a significant part of their history, Albarn said that they once “played in every town” despite being “completely unknown”. As a result, it “made us as a band”. He added: “We transformed during those two months […] and came back with a very clear sense of our own identity.”
For Albarn, performing in the US allowed him to learn more about the band’s appeal and resilience than perhaps ever before, as they likely came face-to-face with various American audiences who did, in fact, understand what they were all about without them having to “explain it all”. America is tough to break due to its vast scope of musical commercialism, but Blur had the appeal. They just needed to learn how to implement it.
In true Albarn fashion, however, America wasn’t suddenly perfect; like many countries, he felt they could do a lot better when it came to its politics. Although he later regarded America as “a beautiful country”, he also said it needed to “stop listening to that right-wing bullshit”. Clearly, nothing is ever perfect for the musician, but maybe that’s what keeps him striving for excellence.
