I feel much the same way. Some great tunes in Blur's discography, their Best Of is iconic, but none of it hits me in the way that the music of so many of their contemporaries - from Radiohead to Oasis to Nirvana - continues to do. And a fair chunk of their album tracks are just flat-out bad, to me. I feel like Damon didn't perfect the cartoonish vibe until he dived into it with Gorillaz, so albums like 13 worked best, where they didn't focus on those sounds as much. Overall, I'd say they were certainly a good band, but certainly not a great one.

Interesting, I’d say they had a much more distinctive sound than Oasis. Well maybe Oasis had the more distinctive vocalist, but musically I feel Blur had a more distinctive sound, especially Graham Coxon’s guitar playing. A lot of really interesting chord progressions in Damon’s writing too.

I guess it depends how you look at it. They kind of evolved their sound rather quickly, a bit like Radiohead. The Blur self titled in 1997 sounds nothing like the great escape in 1995, musically speaking. So in that sense, I understand why it could be seen they don’t have a distinctive sound. Although many people see that as a plus. The way some people felt the oasis sound grew stale.

I think Blur’s legacy in tact, their comebacks were huge, headlining festivals all over the world and huge gigs of their own. I don’t think anyone truly cares about the rivalry now. Both bands have legacies that stand up because their music stands up.

I think Damon having another outfit in Gorillaz that’s arguably even bigger has kept Blur very credible. He hasn’t had to milk Blur for a few quid. Maybe the same reason Oasis are still well regarded, essentially it doesn’t exist anymore, so no more poor albums added to the body of work and if they ever play again, It’s because they want to and not need to. It helps a lot,


I’d still consider Damon Albarn as a better songwriter than Noel Gallagher, I just think he’s extremely gifted, his versatility while still keeping a very high standard of work is near enough unrivalled.

Well I guess “better” might not be the right word. I agree with Damon that Oasis were better at expressing themselves, which probably led to a bigger attachment between fans and band, although if you go to a Blur gig, it exists too.

There’s just a level of creativity, diversity and overall in Damon’s body of work that I consider to be above Noel Gallagher’s capabilities for the most part.

Blur records are good, but they could have been way better with bsides on instead.

Still, a few classics : Great Escape (yes this one, even it's hated), Blur S/T, 13 are amazing records. Before that and Think Tank a bit hit or miss. The last one was nice too.

But overall : unique sounds (oh yea they do have that), unique guitar work (Coxon), great vocalist.

Verdict: great band. But not for everyone, i agree. Maybe too english for some people ?

Their biggest mistake was not opening the songwriting more to Coxon. He's making one hell of a solo career in very different styles.

Yeah.

I like some of their stuff, but there's something missing from Blur.

Don't love any of their albums.

This, too many filler on their albums, even on their best ones like Parklife and 13, just trim down the fat and albums could have been much better.

The Great Escape is a brilliant album. Song for song i don’t think it’s really any weaker than Parklife, in fact I’d say some of the non-singles like Best Days are better than on Parklife.

I think the great escape might have got some negativity because it come out a year after Parklife and musically was not really much different, just different songs but they certainly made up for that lack of progression on the self titled.

The funny thing is, Lazy journalism always took little digs at Oasis for being some kind of Beatles rip-off which isn’t true, But I hear a lot more of the Beatles in Blur than Oasis. I watched an interview with Graham Coxon and he said pretty much the Beatles where is biggest influence. When you listen to some of the harmonies in Blur’s music and chord progressions and melodic and harmonic structure, I hear more similarities with the Beatles from them than Oasis. Beetlebum sounds like it couldn’t been taken straight off the White Album.