Blur

Blur Vs. Oasis: A U.S. Perspective

Overview by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, September 1995

RIGHT NOW, the British music scene is convulsed with patriotic fervor. For the first time in over a decade, young British guitar bands are penetrating ...

Rollercoaster: Will and Jim's Excellent Misadventure

Live Review by Keith Cameron, NME, April 1992

The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Dinosaur Jr, Blur: Glasgow SECC ...

Mother’s Litter Helpers: Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish

Review by Paul Moody, NME, 1993

AND THE FOOLS laugh loudest. Blur’s rise and fall has all the comic nuances of Reginald Perrin’s. Two years ago they were pop’s champagne Charlies: ...

Blur: Modern Life Is Rubbish (Food)

Review by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, May 1993

CONTEMPORARY FAULT – ADJUST YOUR MIND-SET ...

Blur: We Can Be Eros… Just For One Day

Interview by Paul Moody, NME, March 1994

Breaking out of the Camden bootboy mould that brought more bovver than they’d bargained for, BLUR are back with more songs about penile dementia, lager ...

Blur: Parklife

Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, June 1994

TO USE the vernacular of our friends in the American therapy industry, today's music business is not "a nurturing environment". One might use the expression ...

The Marketing Of Britpop

Overview by Jon Savage, Artforum, October 1995

RECENTLY I returned from the US into a British news media dominated by a by-election in the North West of England. The point about the ...

Blur: Floral Hall, Winter Gardens, Eastbourne

Live Review by David Quantick, MOJO, November 1995

"Blimey," says Damon Albarn as he takes the stage. How apt, Blur, as even tiny children in their prams know, are the current monarchs of ...

Blur: Stop The Band, I Wanna Get Off!

Report and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, March 1996

Are BLUR really going to the dogs? Behind all the adoring screams, we hear internal bickering, the tell-tale snii-ii-i-iff! of media-centric decadence, a hollow champagne ...

Blur In America

Report and Interview by Everett True, Melody Maker, March 1996

BOSTON. IT'S COLD. Covered in snow. Twee. In the rarefied, tourist part of the city centre, fairy lights twinkle on the gaudy exterior of Doc ...

Blur: Blur (Food)

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 1997

Fifth album in six years; as ever a Stephen Street production. Change of ’direction’ hears Blur muss up their sound and back-pedal into the future. ...

Blur: Blur Knocks The Pulp Out Of Oasis, Right?

Interview by Erik Himmelsbach, Pulse!, April 1997

CLEARLY, Damon Albarn has studied his rock 'n' roll history. "When you start wearing tight trousers, you're fucked," notes the metaphorically astute 28-year-old. ...

This Must Be The Place: Newport, Bristol, Walthamstow, Colchester: Everybody's Talking About... The True Significance Of Location

Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Seven Years of Plenty' (Gollancz), October 1998

"A recent article in the New York Times proclaimed Newport as The New Seattle..." Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 13 December, 1996 ...

Blur: 13

Review by Caroline Sullivan, Guardian, The, March 1999

Down and outstanding ...

Blur: 13

Review by Keith Cameron, NME, March 1999

TWO-AND-a-half minutes into the tenth track on his band's sixth album Damon Albarn is heard to ponder: "Where is the magic?/I've got to get better". ...

The Prehistory of Blur: 'We Were Very... Purple'

Retrospective and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1999

A mohican, Artaud, pyjama bottoms, The Cardiacs, sackings, Pernod, dressing up as the Ayatollah Khomeini: all of this and more in the story of Blur ...

Blur: The Death Of A Party

Retrospective and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, August 1999

WE JOIN the story in the autumn of 1995. 'Country House' has beaten 'Roll With It' to Number One and the critics are in short-lived ...

Britpop: And The Beat Goes Off

Retrospective by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, February 2003

Britpop recalled the halcyon days of the Beatles and the Stones – but the party didn't last ...

Live Forever

Film/DVD Review by David Stubbs, Guardian, The, March 2003

THERE ARE MANY reasons to see Live Forever, the new documentary about the 1990s Britpop years. Mostly they involve Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn being ...

Blur: Think Tank

Review and Interview by Paul Lester, Guardian, The, April 2003

Backstage at L'Espace Clacquesin, a former brewery 20 minutes from the centre of Paris, Blur are relaxing. The band has just performed for 200 invited ...

This Is A High For A Refreshed Blur

Live Review by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, May 2003

Blur: The Astoria, London ...

Damon Albarn: From Pop to Opera

Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, November 2008

He's indifferent to money and drugs. He hates the celebrity circus. And he famously said no to Tony Blair – but yes to getting drunk ...

Blur Are Back

Report and Interview by Pete Paphides, Times, The, December 2008

SIX YEARS AFTER they last played together, 13 since their epic chart duel with Oasis and almost three decades after the band's dominant figures met ...

Look Back In Anger: Britpop

Retrospective by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, August 2009

Fifteen years ago, a teenage Jude Rogers was enchanted by a new pop sound and a new politics, both of which promised to change the ...

Blur: Maida Vale Studios, London

Live Review by Jude Rogers, Observer, The, August 2012

AFTER BLUR'S 6 Music gig – the first of two shows they're playing for BBC radio tonight, to begin what they have suggested may be ...