In a recent interview, Damon Albarn reflected on the fact that Oasis are playing a mammoth seven nights at Wembley Stadium when Blur “only” managed two in 2023 and held his hands up. “It was obvious, wasn’t it?” he told The Sun. “I think we can officially say that Oasis won the battle, the war, the campaign, everything.”
It's apt timing to draw a line under the so-called Battle Of Britpop. It’s 30 years next month since Albarn’s Blur took on Oasis in a much-publicised scrap for Number One, the two groups releasing singles in the same week in a head-to-head that became the talking point of the nation, featured as the main story on the Six O’Clock News, a daft defining moment of Britpop. It had jumped the shark.
Blur won that skirmish, of course – their song Country House pipping Roll With It to the top spot. But Oasis wouldn’t be in the runner-up spot for long. A few months later, they released their second album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? and became one of the world’s biggest bands. As for Blur? Well, they came out of the whole experience a different band. When Albarn said in the interview that, “I killed Damon the pop star many years ago… I’m just not that interested in being the centre of attention,” he could very well trace that line of thinking back to then.
Country House is a silly song, a sort of bouncy castle version of Blur and one they would never go back to. Instead, Blur and Albarn became more inventive and experimental. In both his work with the band that made him famous and his numerous other projects – Gorillaz, Africa Express, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, his solo work – Albarn has always acted like a man possessed with the idea of pushing things forward, as if that moment in the spotlight scarred him with a vision of forever being stereotyped. He has become an artist you can never pin down. Yes, Oasis are the bigger band, their return has been a triumph and rightly so. But Albarn took an alternative path and in doing so has established himself as one of the most bold and brilliant songwriters of his generation. Here’s ten of his best since that fateful sparring match with Oasis back in 1995:
Blur – Beetlebum (1997)
Well, we might as well start at the (new) beginning. Beetlebum was Blur’s first single from their self-titled fifth album, a record that drew a line under their trio of albums exploring the British condition with a Kinks-y swagger. With its detached vocal, jagged riff and a melody that went from underlying menace to euphoric release, Beetlebum was the sound of Blur mark 2. And it sounded like The Beatles which, after all the Oasis baiting, was quite funny.
Blur – Trimm Trabb (1999)
OK, I’m already struggling here because I could easily just fill up this list with post-Country House Blur songs. But I won’t do that because Albarn has made lots of excellent music in other projects over the years. I’ll leave Blur to the side (for now) with Trimm Trabb, a brilliant cut from Blur’s 13 that melded psychedelic-rock, indelible melodies, playful harmonies, barbed blasts of guitar and a thrillingly rollicking outro.
Gorillaz – Clint Eastwood (2001)
No-one expected Damon to have a huge hit with a virtual band because no-one expected Damon to form a virtual band. That’s because no-one knew what a virtual band was. But that’s what happened when he formed Gorillaz with Tank Girl co-creator Jamie Hewlett. Albarn handled the music side of things with Hewlett overseeing artwork and animations. Mixing hip-hop, art-pop, electronica, Gorillaz can now be regarded as proper trailblazers for an genre-fluid time. This was the infectious powwow that they introduced themselves with.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen – Herculean (2007)
After the disbanding of Blur in 2003, Albarn really pressed ahead with his extra-curricular activities, to the point that it became hard to identify which ones the extras were. Maybe they were just all part of the restless Albarn curriculum. The Good, The Bad & The Queen brought together Albarn, Clash bassist Paul Simonon, The Verve’s Simon Tong and Afrobeat drumming legend Tony Allen. This was the best moment from their self-titled 2007 debut, all space-y grooves and dreamy soundscapes. There’s a fantastic song in there somewhere too, but really this is all about the kaleidoscopic vibes.
Gorillaz – On Melancholy Hill (2010)
Gorillaz’ third album Plastic Beach was a sprawling epic featuring guest turns from Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, Bobby Womack (see below), Lou Reed, Mark E Smith, De La Soul and more, but it’s best song was one of its more low-key affairs. There’s both a lot going on in On Melancholy Hill’s four minutes and not much at all, a breezy synth-pop number that sounds increasingly reflective over repeated listens, a song that seems to saunter along without a care in the world but also has a hook strong enough to soundtrack Goal Of The Month at the centre of it. It’s a total delight.
Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man In The Universe (2012)
Albarn had enlisted Womack to crane-lift the chorus of Gorillaz’s pulsing Stylo skyward in 2010 and, two years later, went all-in with the soul icon by producing his 27th studio album The Bravest Man In The Universe alongside XL supremo Richard Russell. It placed the US singer’s incredible, raspy croon in a minimalist, electronic setting, the music airy and ambient, giving his voice all the room it required. It ended up being Womack’s final album – he died in 2014. But what a send-off.
Damon Albarn – You & Me (2014)
The team-up with Womack and Russell directly led into Albarn’s debut solo album. Titled Everyday Robots, it was built from an even sparser sonic palette – bar the odd exception, these were songs constructed from plaintive piano, stripped-down beats and Albarn’s hushed, wistful vocal. You & Me is its most mesmerising moment, a creeping, melancholic ballad that shapeshifts into something uplifting and hopeful for its hypnotic final third.
Damon Albarn – The Nearer The Fountain The More Pure The Stream Flows (2021)
Funny how Albarn has saved his most forlorn work for release under his own name. In line with its creation in his Icelandic home, this title track from his second solo album sounds more like something you’d find on a Sigur Rós album than something from the creator of Parklife. A slow-moving, ambient hymnal, four years later it sounds like the perfect snapshot of a Covid world where it felt like everything had stopped.
Africa Express – Soledad (2025)
And so to his most recent excursion. Albarn has been a ringleading force in Africa Express, a collective bringing together artists from across the world with its roots in shining a light on African musicians, since its formation in 2005. Over two decades, it has paired seemingly irreconcilable artists to wondrous effect, proving that the word irreconcilable shouldn’t exist in music. There has been a number of high-profile, improvisation-centric live shows and seven records, the most recent of which came out this month and introduces Latin flavours and Mexican music into the mix. This is its irresistible calling card.
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