From the Record Crate: Gorillaz – “Demon Days” (2005)

The design is simple, but memorable: four panels against a black background. It’s reminiscent of the cover art for Let It Be—but instead of the Beatles, we’re looking at cartoon characters, illustrated in varying hues and degrees of suspicion. In…

Review: The Good, The Bad & The Queen – “Merrie Land”

Damon Albarn loves to sing about England. First, he did it through Blur—through the yearning of “For Tomorrow” and the wit of “Parklife.” Then, in the mid-2000s, he gathered some of rock’s finest to make a concept album about the…

Every Blur Single, Ranked

This year, Damon Albarn has been in the spotlight again due to Humanz, the long-awaited comeback of Gorillaz. Thus, it’s the perfect time to look back at Blur, Albarn’s first project. As one of the defining bands of the Britpop…

Gorillaz Announce New Album, Drop Four New Songs

Feel good again, because Gorillaz are back. The cartoon alt-rock band, lead by brit-pop legend Damon Albarn and cartoonist Jamie Hewlett, made Thursday their work day as they finally revealed big details of their impending fifth album. It’s titled Humanz (how ironic)…

From the Record Crate: “The Good, The Bad & The Queen” (2007)

In Britian, Damon Albarn is well known as the lead singer for Blur and leading light in the Britpop movement of the mid-1990s In the U.S., he’s more familiar to people as his alter ego “2D,” the lead singer of…

From the Record Crate: Blur – “Blur”

In the Disney film Mulan, the Emperor of China says, “The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of them all.” Of course, he isn’t trying to reference Blur’s eponymous fifth album with this line, but…

From the Record Crate: Blur – “Leisure” (1991)

Today, Blur is considered one of the greatest British bands of all time. In 1991, however, its future was unclear. When the band entered the alternative rock scene with Leisure, an album that fit in with the dance-oriented “baggy” music…