Blur Discography
The discography of Blur, an English alternative rock band, consists of seven studio albums, three live albums, five compilations, three box sets, twenty-six singles and four video albums.
Blur were formed in London in 1988 and consist of vocalist Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Their debut single, "She's So High" was followed by their debut album, Leisure in 1991 which charted at #7 on the UK Albums Chart. Parklife (1994) was Blur's first album to reach #1 and transformed Blur from a crossover Indie acts to one of the UK's leading acts. Being certified four-times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry, Parklife was their most successful album domestically but it wasn't until their 1995 album The Great Escape that they gained an international following, with the album reaching top 10 in the albums charts of seven countries and selling 2.15 million copies worldwide. The album also produced four singles which charted within the UK top ten.
Blur (1997) marked a change in musical direction and was not as successful within the UK as their previous efforts despite the success of the singles, "Beetlebum", "Song 2" and "On Your Own" which all charted within the top five of the UK Singles Chart. However, it gained Blur even more international success, particularly in America where it was certified gold by the RIAA. Blur also received a gold certification in Australia and a platinum certification in Canada. Followups, 13 (1999) and Think Tank (2003) also received similar amounts of international success, the former reaching #12 on the ARIA Charts and the latter reaching #56 on the Billboard 200.
Blur's first collection of B-Sides, The Special Collectors Edition was released in October 1994 exclusively in Japan. In 1998, Blur released Bustin' + Dronin' which contained various remixes by different producers as well as a live recording of the bands performance at Peel Acres. The album was originally released for the Japanese market only although it was later released in the UK and the US in limited quantities. Blur: The Best Of was released in October 2000, featuring seventeen of the bands singles that had been released so far as well as "This Is a Low". A limited edition featured a bonus disc which featured a live recording of their recent performance at Wembley Arena whilst a VHS/DVD contained their music videos. "Music Is My Radar" was released as a single to promote the compilation, peaking within the UK top ten. An updated compilation album, Midlife: A Beginner's Guide to Blur was released in 2009. Blur have also released a number of Box Sets with Blur 21 (2012), being the most comprehensive. Three standalone Live albums have been released: Live at the Budokan (1995), All the People: Blur Live at Hyde Park (2009) and Parklive (2012).
Read more about Blur Discography: Singles, Music Videos, Video Releases, Guest Appearances
Famous quotes containing the word blur:
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)