10 ways Britpop changed Manhood - Blur feature

The Telegraph recently featured a great article on the 10 ways Britpop changed modern Manhood. The brilliant piece features Blur, Damon Albarn and lists the top ten ways in which the Britpop musical era shaped modern Britain and it's people.

Some notable excerpts include:

1. It made us patriotic: Pre-Britpop, we looked across the Atlantic for cool, exciting new stuff: be it grunge or hip-hop, action blockbusters or cult Tarantino films, Friends or The X-Files. But for five halcyon years in the mid-90s, Blighty was where it was at: Blur vs Oasis, Cool Britannia, Euro ’96, TFI Friday, Lock Stock, Spice Girls, Young British Artists, Trainspotting… We were reminded of the greatness on our own doorstep.

9. It made us culturally cleverer: Britpop is often stereotyped as lumpenly thuggish but it made young men smarter too. In their lyrics and interviews, Damon Albarn, Brett Anderson and Jarvis Cocker were our literate, art-schoolish big brothers in the way Morrissey was a decade earlier.

"Art-schoolish big brothers"

Click HERE to read the full article.

Damon Albarn may make new album with Noel Gallagher

Damon Albarn has announced that making a new album with former Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher is a "distinct possibility" in future.

In a recent NME article, Albarn revealed that he and Gallagher have discussed the idea of making music together "at least once".

He said: "I still see Noel from time to time. We text a bit." When asked if the pair would be making a record together, he replied, "I can imagine that being a very distinct possibility at some point in the future. But, as yet we haven't really talked about it, although…"

Albarn further added that: "OK we have a little bit. We're talking. It's not anything to get excited about yet. I mean, he's doing his thing. He's finishing a new record. I've got my record coming out, but the principle of us making music together is something…you know, it would be fair to say, we have discussed it at least once."

Last year, the pair put two decades of Britpop rivalry behind them when they performed together at London's Royal Albert Hall for a charity Teenage Cancer Trust concert. Damon Albarn will release his debut solo album 'Everyday Robots' on April 28 2014.

There will be new Blur and Gorillaz shows- Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn was quoted to be making plans for new Gorillaz album and perform several new Blur gigs. According to various sources, Albarn is ''sure'' that Blur will play live again.

The frontman releases his debut solo album 'Everyday Robots' this month but is still very close to his Blur band mates Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree, who celebrated the singer's 46th birthday together on March 23. And now, he claims that the foursome will take to the stage again.

He said: ''Graham was at my surprise party on Friday, along with Dave and Alex. ''Everything is good between us all. When you get to our age, you accept people for who they are, you know.'' Damon insists it's ''bollocks'' that their planned appearance at Australia's Big Day Out festival later this year, which they pulled out of, was set to be their last gig.

He explained: ''I said it's the last gig of a brilliant period we spent doing these gigs and we didn't want to sully it by going to something that was badly organised and where things weren't as they should have been.

''I'm sure [Blur] will play again at some point. It'd be mad to go for the rest of our life and never play any of those songs again.''

The singer also revealed he could record another Gorillaz album with his music partner Jamie Hewlett as soon as ''next week''.

He said: ''I can definitely see another Gorillaz-esque record at some point, yeah. That will almost definitely happen. I could put a Gorillaz album out next week, I've got enough stuff that I haven't finished. The only thing really that defines a Gorillaz record in my head is when I just play most of it on keyboards.

''I've just been in Paris with Jamie Hewlett. There are points in everyone's relationship where they fall out with people that they're close to and then they reconcile, hopefully, and actually, you know, the relationship's probably in a healthier place as a result of that.''

This is evidently good news for all Blur and Gorillaz fans out there who are waiting for something new in 2014. 

Damon Albarn- Everyday Robots Documentary: Watch

Watch the 30-minute documentary on Damon Albarn and his first solo album "Everyday Robots". In the short film, Damon Albarn tells us where he grew up, talks about his music and describes what it is like being a world-famous artist.

Everyday Robots is the first solo debut studio album by Damon Albarn. It is to be released on 28th April 2014. It was produced by Albarn and Richard Russell of XL Recordings and was recorded over a three-month period in Albarn's personal studio in London, although production itself began in 2011, the album didn't officially start production until 2013. Albarn and Russell, had previously worked together on Bobby Womack's comeback album The Bravest Man in the Universe.

Scroll down to watch the full documentary below or watch it HERE.