October 24, 2012

Blur at the Q Awards - Then and Now 2012

Here is the roundup of videos and pictures of Blur at the Q Awards 2012.

Blur won 'Best Live Act' at the 2012 Q Awards, beating The Stone Roses and many other bands. Muse took the 'Best Act in the World Today' award, beating competitors such as Lady Gaga and Coldplay. Pulp were also prizewinners. It was a triumph for British bands.

But what was Blur's history with this prestigious music award ? How many times have Blur won anything at the Q Awards before ? The answer is - many, many times. Blur's past awards include:


Q Awards 1994
  • Best Album - WINNER (Parklife)
  • Best Producer - WINNER (Stephen Street)
Q Awards 1995
  • Best Album - WINNER (The Great Escape)
Q Awards 1999
  • Best Act In The World Today - WINNER
  • Best Producer - WINNER (William Orbit)
Q Awards 2000
  • Best Act In The World Today - Nomination
Q Awards 2003
  • Best Album - WINNER (Think Tank)
  • Best Producer - Nomination (Blur / Ben Hillier)
  • Best Act In The World Today - Nomination
Q Awards 2009
  • Best Live Act - Nomination
Q Awards 2012

  • Best Act In The World Today - Nomination
  • Best Live Act - WINNER

For those curious to watch Blur in past Q Awards, scroll down for some archive footage of the band stealing the show. Scroll down even further to watch Blur at the Q Awards 2012, where Alex James speaks after the award ceremony about future Blur plans, playing shows and watch Blur being announced on stage.



New images of the band from the Q Awards 2012:

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And some more extra footage of the day - Blur arriving at the Q Awards in London, on the red carpet and at the hotel.



Who should have won 'Best Live Act' ?
 
 
 
 
 
  



Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur for Spain and Porto HERE
Blur Europe Tour News  HERE

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October 4, 2012

Damon Albarn wants to make Another Opera

Damon Albarn has spoken about his future plans - to possibly write and compose another new opera, following the success of his latest 'Dr Dee'. 

At the English National Opera (ENO) on October 3rd, Damon Albarn said: "I've got a really good idea. I'm not going to say what it is, but it's interesting". 

According to NME, Albarn was at the London Opera house to help launch "Undress For The Opera", a program to attract younger audiences to watch and enjoy opera by lowering prices and relaxing the usually strict dress code. 

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Albarn supported this scheme, and said "I quite like dressing up, but I also like to have the choice. I like the ritual of dressing up to go and see something, but at the same time you don’t have to."

"I’m quite clearly not someone who had any form of opera education. I’ve done it entirely instinctively. The fact that the English National Opera is prepared to encourage that is a great sign of its health."



dr dee opera, damon albarn opera, undress for the opera, damon albarn 2012

It seems that Damon treats opera as a more serious, heavy "long term study thing". "I was too busy jumping up and down on stages around the world when I should have been at college finishing my classical musical education." said the Blur frontman. Without jumping up and down stages, however, where would Damon Albarn be now ? 

Damon Albarn also said: "Opera as a form can go forward and allow people to use these incredible facilities to find something new. At some point I hope I can deliver something to the ENO that ticks every single box but doesn’t compromise where I come from as well."




Looks like we'll be getting a new Albarn opera soon, one that ticks every single box for the fans. 

Check out Telegraph.co.uk comprehensive article on "Undress for the Opera" scheme


Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur Exhibition review and photos HERE
Margate Gig (2012) review and pictures HERE
Rumours: Blur still play live after Hyde Park? HERE

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Stay Tuned, leave us a comment below and Get The Latest Blur News delivered straight to you- BlurBalls is the most updated Blur fan site on the internet!


September 11, 2012

Damon Albarn to compose tune for BBC's 90th anniversary

So after the remarkable Africa Express finale two days ago, we've got once again some new Albarn news. And it's big.

Damon Albarn, who seems to be gaining more and more collaborative opportunities (including with Sir Paul McCartney) after Blur's successful Hyde Park concert, will curate 'Radio Reunited', an event to celebrate 90 years since the British Broadcasting Company BBC transmitted it's first show via radio.

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What an honour it must be for Damon to be chosen, amongst all the other musicians in England.  He completes Africa Express.

Digitalspy reports on the juicy details:

Radio Reunited will air across all local, network and national BBC stations, along with the World Service; reaching a potential global audience of 120m people. 

The three-minute transmission will be based on recorded messages from listeners around the world on the theme of the future. 

Each of the around 60 participating BBC radio stations will select one message from their listeners, and then these will be mixed together and set to a score composed by Blur frontman Albarn. 

He said: "I love the idea of stations across Britain and the World Service coming together, with all of our different lives and circumstances, even if it's only for a few minutes. It's a powerful idea." 

The landmark BBC broadcast will form the centrepiece for the BBC's celebration of 90 years on the airwaves, along with a range of special programming planned across BBC stations 

The process of pulling together Radio Reunited starts this week, when listeners will be invited to contribute a short messages to their favourite BBC station, addressing the future generations who may be listening to radio 90 years from now. 



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Graham and Damon on BBC's Steve Lamacq show
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Blur have had a long standing relationship with the BBC - airing new debuts...interviews

One message from a lucky listener will be sent to Damon Albarn from each station. He will then string them together into a unique 3 minute composition which will be played on air. It's the idea of bringing together each and every single radio station from BBC, to celebrate the company's long history.

So, first Blur at the Olympics, then now this grand, large scale production ? Damon Albarn seems to be getting the best of all worlds in 2012. That's why he's looking very pleased with himself these days!

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Radio Reunited will be held on November 14th, at 5:33pm GMT. Remember to tune into this exciting show online at BBC.co.uk and listen to Damon debut his new song.


August 25, 2012

Charting Britain's love affair with Blur (Special Story)


Britain and Blur – Falling In and Out of Love For 21 Years 

This guest post is by pop/ music culture blog Pop Lifer, who recently featured a 5-installment long tribute to Blur contribution to music and it's tumultuous relationship with Britain. 

Inspired by Blur’s victory-lap appearance at Hyde Park two weeks ago – which showed the shabby official Olympic Closing Ceremony what a Symphony of British Music should sound like – the Pop Lifer blog has been running a series of blogs on the band, and Britain’s 21 year, on/off love affair with them. As two thirtysomethings whose teens and tweens were soundtracked by Blur, this is a subject close to our hearts and we’re grateful to the brilliant BlurBalls for a chance to share our own personal reflections.

Having charted the band’s tricky early years from “Leisure” time to near commercial oblivion  the double-edged sword of “Parklife” and “The Great Escape” and the fascinating final three albums, we now move onto what happened next.

“There were no rows” Graham Coxon said when he left Blur in 2002, in the middle of the troubled “Think Tank” recordings in Morocco. This was both magnaminous and unlikely, given the combustible personalities involved. Indeed, looking back on Blur’s career, it seems obvious that Blur have been in various states of war from the very beginning, that their career has been one long and confusing battle.

blur relationship, blur group pic, blur hyde park 2012, blur picture, blur band picture, blur group shot, blur damon albarnFirst there’d been the war for attention (achieved with “Leisure”) and then the war against irrelevance, commercial oblivion and the glam wrecking crew called Suede. Then came the war for total cultural ubiquity (achieved through “Parklife” and the Britpop area), which they won, and the war against Oasis, which they lost. Finally the war turned into a civil war, with their final three albums increasingly a fascinating tussle between the increasingly independent Coxon and Albarn, with the former finally exiting. 

After “Think Tank” the band staggered on for a while. The live shows were smaller than they had been – both Pop Lifer writers were present for one at Brixton Academy – and for all the joys this intimacy could create, the absence of Coxon left Blur looking like a maimed band.

Each of the members drifted on to new projects so disparate that it increasingly seemed like a miracle the band had ever managed to share the same stage at all. Damon’s Gorillaz provided enough commercial affirmation for even his ego, while other side projects like The Good, The Bad and The Queen found an outlet for his increasingly melancholic, reflective songwriting. Coxon seemed to enjoy his solo records as well as the smaller scale success that had escaped him in Blur, Dave showed a perverse interest in politics and Alex turned his attention to cheese, with some relish.

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Damon's goes onto creating the successful Gorillaz - and went Bananaz

And then something strange happened. Slowly but surely, music critics and fans alike began to wake up to the fact that there was a gaping, Blur-sized hole in British music. It became obvious that history was winning all of Blur’s wars for them, without them having to raise a finger or a pistol. Suede had long ago faded into a ghastly parody of themselves before calling it a day (and if Damon ever needed comfort during dark nights of the soul, Brett Anderson’s solo records would surely have brought the laughter back). 

As for Oasis, they had degenerated into such a generic, repetitive caricature that only the doggedly loyal didn’t want the Gallaghers to finally have an argument big enough to make them leave the rest of us alone.

But most of all, it was obvious that there was no other new band with half the depth and range that Blur could command at their best. Franz Ferdinand could do the choppy guitar pop with aplomb, but couldn’t make the leap to songs as complex and moving as “This Is A Low”, while the Kaiser Chiefs could provide the knees-up entertainment but were incapable of such effortless loveliness as “Out Of Time”. As for Kasabian, well, they had their place, but it wasn’t Blur’s.


noel gallagher damon albarn, damon albarn oasis, oasis blur, oasis blur war, noel gallagher hug, damon noel liam
Pals again - Brit Awards 2011 saw Noel and Damon mend their grudges

In 2009, after a few false starts, Blur again decided to give Britain what it wanted. Usually news of a band reforming is met with sneers, shrugs or cynicism – but Blur couldn’t be accused of needing the money, and the announcement of new live shows was met with a jubilation that may have surprised even Albarn. And so, for perhaps the first time in their career, the band lived up to expectations with ease.

The word’s “triumphant return” have become two of the most devalued in all music journalism, but they fit Blur’s 2009 Hyde Park shows like a glove. Over a 100,000 people flocked to the centre of London over two nights representing, if the clothes and hairstyles were anything to go by, fans from every Blur period. There were Fred Perryd Parklifers, sharply suited Modern Lifers, scruffily hip 13ers and even a few baggy old men of the Leisure class. If most were thirtysomethings whose teens and twenties had been soundtracked by Blur, there were also a huge contingent of kids who hadn’t been born when “There Is No Other Way” hit the top ten.


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Damon Albarn in Denmark, August 2012, Smukfest warm up

The set list touched on every album they’d ever done, from “Leisure” through to “Think Tank”, saw a band finally unified. It showed a band who could happily indulge in the pop romp of “Parklife”, but also give space to the more esoteric “Oily Water”, who could all take their moments in the limelight for “Tender” or who could be a springboard for Albarn’s hyperactive frontmanship on “Girls And Boys”. It showed a band who could be scuzzily furious (“Popscene”) or shamelessly, utterly beautiful (“For Tomorrow”), and every shade in between. It revealed Britain’s most complex, most versatile, most beautiful band in short, as did this year’s Hyde Park reunion reunion, in spite of the now famous sound problems.

Looking back over their 21 years it seems obvious that even when Blur claimed to know exactly what they were doing and where they were going, they never really did. Or, even if they did, there were some of them didn’t want to go there. So the contradictory statements since the big Hyde Park show, with some members suggesting Blur are finally done and others suggesting that there might be a future after all, are entirely in keeping with the band’s restless, contradictory nature. So yes, there could be more shows and there could be another album. With this amazing band it really, really, really could happen… but it might not.

blur primrose hill, blur graffiti, blur for tomorrow, blur relationship, blur group pic, blur hyde park 2012, blur picture, blur band picture, blur group shot, blur damon albarn
It really, really could happen - Blur on Primrose Hill and it's (now removed) graffiti 

And if not, if Blur have no distance left to run, we still have something quite extraordinary: the Blur songbook. Because one other thing has become obvious. Blur have probably not produced a perfect album. Every one of them has been bedevilled by lapses into the obvious or the obstinate, glibness or grumpiness. 

But they do have, overall, one of the best, most glittering back catalogues in all of our pop history. They won the only war that has ever mattered, the one for greatness, and they have earnt our love.
The full version of blurblog 5, the final part in our blur marathon can be read hereblurblog 1, on Hyde Park and how Blur have become a central part of our pop life is hereblurblog 2 on the tricky early years is here , blurblog 3 on the triumph of Parklife, and the cracks beginning to reveal themselves in the Great Escape here and blurblog 4 on Blur to Think Tank here.


March 26, 2012

Damon Albarn says Under the Westway may be last Blur song

BLUR NEWS: Damon Albarn had an interview with The Quietus two days ago and a chat about Blur's future plans - or shall we say, Blur's non-existent plansDamon Albarn has exclaimed that Blur's current reunion for the London 2012 Olympics gig in Hyde Park does not mean "a rejuvenated, long-term return for the band".

As quoted from the articleAlbarn told Stephen Dalton that the new track, first aired when he played live with Graham Coxon in February, is a song about that perennial West London inspiration, the Westway route. 


Funnily enough I’ve done a new tune for Blur, I don’t know if it will ever see the light of day but it’s really traditional… it’s something I’ve had knocking about for years and didn’t know what to do with it," he said.


Damon through the years 
"Initially I wrote it as a slightly wistful national anthem for my house, I had this idea of getting it made into an old 78 record and making a flag and then just playing it - just being really silly. But I had these chords and I ended up writing this tune around it…"
Albarn went on to say that although the band are back together for this summer's live appearances, "I don’t really do anything with Blur any more - there’s this concert this year but its not a full time thing at all. Maybe this tunes a last little coda to the whole story.”
Blur holding The Great Escape records
The Quietus had previously reviewed Mr Albarn's Dr Dee musical up in Manchester, and had found it rather lacking, something Albarn has taken squarely on the chin. “Oh it certainly lacked narrative! No shit Sherlock! Ha ha! But I mean, you know, what do you do… ? I’m quite comfortable with presenting a work in progress and I know we made some stinkers as decisions, but you can’t really move forwards unless you make those mistakes. Hopefully it will be a more rounded and satisfactory piece, narrative wise, this time around. I sincerely hope so, otherwise I’ll be very disappointed."
Damon has been quite contradictory about Blur in recent years. Before their 2009 reunion, he has said that Blur are definitely over, but then the reunion happened and Damon and the boys have all said different things. Graham and Alex says maybe, Dave says maybe not.


Damon's new supergroup Rocket Juice and the Moon released their album today. Listen HERE.   
Guess we will have to wait and see what's next. 
Read all about Blur being BASHED AT THE BRITS HERE
10 Cool Damon Albarn facts HERE, Blur talking about their future HERE
 New tear jerker song HERE and check out their newest track HERE 

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