Are Blur Britpop?
Short Answer:
Yes. But they’d rather you didn’t ask.
Long Answer:
Yes, Blur are Britpop. Not just card-carrying members, but the sort who helped draw up the manifesto, then spent years quietly loathing it. Alongside Oasis, Suede, and Pulp, the other points on the Union Jack. They were essential to the genre’s rise. But while the others leaned into myth or melodrama, Blur stood out with their sharp-tongued suburban sketches and art-school smirk.
Parklife was the inflection point. All knees-up brass and mockney charm, it sounded like the soundtrack to a day out in a particularly ironic Britain, the kind where tea, class resentment, and existential dread all shared the same picnic blanket. The Great Escape upped the budget but started to crack at the seams. Too arch, too clever by half. Like they knew the party was ending but couldn’t leave without one last self-indulgent monologue.
Musically, they wore their influences proudly. The Kinks, XTC, a bit of Bowie when it suited them. But filtered through that peculiar '90s English anxiety. Always looking sideways at America, always pretending not to care. Damon Albarn, ever the chameleon, straddled sincerity and piss-take so convincingly you could never quite tell if he was writing about you or laughing at you.
So yes. Blur were Britpop. Architects, satirists, reluctant mascots.
They built the house, threw the party, and then complained about the guests.
