Blur Discography: Every Studio Album, Every Era
Introduction
Hello you. Make a cup of tea. Put a record on. Let’s talk about Blur, shall we?
Not the glossy headliners or the Britpop pitch battle PR machine. Just the albums. The studio records. From the first bars of “She’s So High” to whatever “St. Charles Square” was. This is Blur, in chronological disorder and controlled chaos. Nine albums. No B-sides. No compilations. No loyalty required.
1. Leisure (1991)
The strange, almost accidental beginning. Less shoegaze, less acid house, more four blokes trying to find their reflection in a baggy puddle. “There’s No Other Way” made noise on the charts (and in every indie disco for years), but Blur still didn’t know what they were yet. Neither did we.
Key Tracks
“She’s So High” (deceptively classy for a debut single)
“There’s No Other Way” (Madchester for kids too young to have been there)
Leisure felt like homework compared to what would come next. Like finding your favourite author’s student poem in the back of a zine. You keep reading, but mostly out of curiosity.
2. Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993)
This is where it properly starts. After commercial indifference and a near-label drop, Blur turned panic into precision. Britpop wasn’t a thing yet. Blur weren’t part of a movement. Not deliberately.
“Popscene” had flopped the year before, but its spiky DNA wasn’t wasted. Modern Life expanded it into something tight, sardonic, and full of gritted teeth.
Key Tracks
“For Tomorrow” (our first proper glimpse of the Blur accent Damon would wear for years)
“Chemical World” (guitar lines so sharp they could perforate your speakers)
“Sunday Sunday” (as British as a roast dinner, complete with overcooked brass)
This was Blur’s manifesto. Modern life wasn’t rubbish. It was just a state of mind we hadn’t named yet.
3. Parklife (1994)
Here it is. The moment everything clicked. Parklife was pure theatre and everyone bought a ticket. It didn’t sound like London. It was London.
Lyrics over-enunciated, chords picking fights with baggy’s bloated corpse, and singles that stuck like chewing gum on trainers. It wasn’t the birth of Britpop. It was the coronation party.
Key Tracks
“Girls & Boys” (unapologetic, frantic pop perfection)
“Parklife” (Phil Daniels deserved a Grammy or a knighthood. Either would’ve been funny)
“End of a Century” (soft and reflective, for the extroverts who needed a break)
If you ever lay on your bedroom floor singing “To the End” like it meant something, this album was your anthem.
4. The Great Escape (1995)
The champagne hangover. Blur beat Oasis in the singles chart, then lost the war of staying likable. The Great Escape was glossy, jaded, and smarter than it needed to be. And a bit too smug about it.
Still, it gave us some of their best. Britpop was bloating. Blur were starting to outgrow it, whether they admitted it or not.
Key Tracks
“Country House” (a novelty hook that haunted car stereos for months)
“The Universal” (cinematic bliss with a hollow centre)
“He Thought of Cars” (a slow descent into understated dread)
Noel Gallagher called it “terrifyingly middle-class.” He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t mean it didn’t sting.
5. Blur (1997)
The fracture album. The reinvention. The self-titled scissor-cut between everything they’d been and whatever came next.
Alt-rock distortion replaced Britpop pomp. Coxon let chaos through the guitar pedals. Albarn’s melodies frayed around the edges. Blur, but bruised.
Key Tracks
“Beetlebum” (introspective sleaze distilled into three syllables)
“Song 2” (the most enduring two minutes in sports highlights history)
“On Your Own” (a garage-rock prototype before garage rock noticed itself)
It wasn’t Blur’s reinvention. It was their reinvestment in creative chaos.
6. 13 (1999)
The breakup album. Less polished. More raw. 13 was what it sounded like when a band stopped pretending things were fine.
It wandered. It fumbled. Coxon’s guitar turned into noise therapy. Albarn leaked emotion like a cracked pipe. The songs felt lived in, and a bit broken.
Key Tracks
“Tender” (the gospel-flavoured hug you didn’t know you needed)
“Coffee & TV” (a reluctant anthem, complete with meme-able milk carton)
“No Distance Left to Run” (songwriting as absolute catharsis)
Blur’s softer side became its strongest. Not because it sold, but because it hurt.
7. Think Tank (2003)
Experimental chaos, round two. Coxon was gone (except one track). Albarn was deep into Gorillaz mode. The result: dub textures, anti-hooks, and songs that didn’t care whether you liked them.
And that was the point. Think Tank didn’t want to be loved. It just didn’t want to be followed.
Key Tracks
“Out of Time” (dreamy, nostalgic, beautifully detached)
“Good Song” (intimate minimalism that barely whispers)
“Caravan” (that bassline, though)
They were trying to get lost before anyone asked where they were going.
8. The Magic Whip (2015)
A studio session in Hong Kong. A surprise release. And somehow, a full-circle comeback that didn’t rely on sentiment.
The Magic Whip didn’t need to exist. That’s why it works. It’s smart, moody, and just weird enough to keep you listening.
Key Tracks
“Go Out” (gritty and relentless)
“There Are Too Many of Us” (like watching life flash through frosted glass)
“Ong Ong” (“la la la”-lovely, with a cherry on top)
They could’ve milked the reunion tour circuit forever. Instead, they made something real.
9. The Ballad of Darren (2023)
Slow. Sad. Precise. Blur, older and not pretending otherwise.
The Ballad of Darren doesn’t chase relevance. It reflects. It aches. It lets the silence stretch.
Key Tracks
“The Narcissist” (Albarn crooning over a pulse of regret)
“Barbaric” (fuzzy, bleak, beautiful)
“St. Charles Square” (“I fucked up” anthems rarely hit harder)
Blur grew up. Then recorded the fallout.
Nine Albums. Zero Repeats.
You don’t need to love every album. You just need to know why they exist. Blur mattered. Whether you wore out the cassette, queued at Woolworths, or streamed Leisure last week and thought, “Wait... this is the same band?”
It is. And it isn’t.
Put the kettle back on.
