Pity poor Blur, a band that has sold plenty of records, though maybe not as many as one of the primary architects of Britpop deserves. After a prolonged dormancy, it has become best known as "the group who does that 'woo-hoo song' we sing at the (pick one: football, hockey, indoor soccer) game."

That woo-hoo song — a k a "Song 2" from Blur's 1997 self-titled album — may go down as Blur's Big Rock Moment, so far as Americans (and jock-jam aficionados) are concerned, but it's only a part of the story.

Blur can look back on more than 10 years of history, a remarkable feat given how many bands and musical trends have collapsed along the way. Some of its survival skills can be attributed to luck, but also to its changeable nature — unlike certain bands that debuted at the dawn of the '90s, Blur managed to shift gears often enough to keep itself musically fresh and the public intrigued.

The members of Blur first joined together at London's Goldsmiths College as an art-damaged punk band called Seymour. Singer Damon Albarn and guitarist Graham Coxon knew each other from their days in the choir of Stanway Comprehensive School in Colchester, Essex. Drummer Dave Rowntree, though a bit older, also hailed from Colchester, while bassist Alex James came by way of Bournemouth, on England's south coast.

Naive in the ways of the London music scene but certain in its worship of guitar-based bands such as the Jam and the Smiths, Seymour also drew on Albarn's past as a drama student to create a live show that made an impression on audiences. "We were trying to find our feet," Rowntree told Mojo. "We didn't really know what we wanted to do, but we knew how we wanted it to feel. It was about thrashing around and acting a bit mad."

They signed to Food Records in 1989, a label funded by EMI and bolstered by the success of guitar-dance band Jesus Jones. It was run by former Teardrop Explodes keyboardist David Balfe and music journalist Andy Ross, who suggested that the group can the theatrics and change its moniker to Blur.

Eager to please and to succeed, the band did just that, and recorded its first single, "She's So High," in 1990. Its next single, "There's No Other Way," took it into the British Top 10. As befits a band with its first sizeable hit under its belt (and a fervent British music press hanging on its every word), Blur was full of piss and vinegar and predicted great success for itself. Its debut album, Leisure, indicated that it may be right: Leisure climbed to No. 7 on the British charts.

The band got a reality check with its next single, "Bang," which flopped, as did the next one, "Popscene." Oddly, failure on the singles charts at that point may have been the band's saving grace. Inspired by the acutely English songs of the Kinks, Blur shifted gears on the songs that would make up Modern Life Is Rubbish. Amid an assault of American grunge, Blur stood fast in its desire to write, albeit caustically, about its home country — never mind that the band's members were basically from middle-class homes, not from dire circumstances like so many bands before them.

The album was not a commercial success but did give the band its creative sense of purpose. "We were in EMI having a meeting to discuss the album and I remember Damon saying, 'Whatever else happens, we've got a career now, rather than just being a novelty one-album-wonder band,'" Rowntree told Mojo.

Albarn was right. Blur refined the themes visited on Modern Life with the follow-up, Parklife, a collection of sometimes sardonic social commentaries that also became a No. 1 album. The album, arguably Blur's most significant release, more or less launched the movement that would come to be known as Britpop (though the debut of a little band from Manchester called Oasis may have helped some, too). In February 1995, Parklife earned Blur five Brit awards.

With The Great Escape, Blur scored another commercial success (and another British No. 1), but the band's audience began to fracture. Part of it was due to the music — "All we wanted to do was to make more records to show everyone how brilliant we were," James told Mojo. "[The Great Escape is] such a down record. It was very elaborate arrangements and very theatrical. It's f--king sinister. … Nothing is quite right."

In 1996, the British audience, and especially the British press, turned its attention to Oasis — the brawling Gallagher brothers made far better copy, after all, and their sunny Beatles-esque pop went down far easier than the complex string-and-horn laden compositions being pursued by Blur at the time. A very public feud between the two bands ensued — Albarn once called Oasis "the Spice Girls on drugs," while Noel Gallagher dismissed Blur as "middle-class wankers." Eventually, Albarn and Co. would move on from all that and come under the sway of American indie rock by bands such as Pavement and the Pixies, resulting in the 1997 album Blur, featuring the explosive "Song 2."

If that album was something of a surprise, so was 13, a shockingly vulnerable album that dealt largely with Albarn's breakup with longtime girlfriend Justine Frischmann of Elastica. "I was really intense about the songs on 13," he told British mag Esquire. "I wanted to be honest about the way I was feeling. It was a difficult time. Afterwards, I really felt as thought I couldn't go back with the attitude I'd once had. Everything had to count."

Since that time, the band has spent time apart, leaving its future somewhat in doubt. Albarn and Coxon have started families, and each has recorded music outside the band (Albarn doing film music and Coxon releasing a pair of solo albums, The Sky Is Too High and The Golden D). There is a new single, "Music Is My Radar," and a greatest-hits set on the horizon. But there is little doubt that things are not quite the same for Blur. "When people start to have families, you cease to be a four-man gang," James told Mojo. "You're not the Beatles in Help! anymore, are you? You're not going to be recklessly hurling yourself over a horizon when you've got a family at home. The goal posts have moved. Of course they have."

— Daniel Durchholz

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The Best of Blur

13

Blur

The Great Escape