Modern Life
is Rubbish

For Tomorrow
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Colin Zeal
Pressure On Julian
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Chemical World
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Released 5th October 1993
Engineer: John Smith
Guest Artists: Kate St. John
Blur: Damon Albarn (vocals, piano, keyboards, synthesizer); Graham Coxon (acoustic & electric guitars, Moog synthesizer, percussion, tambourine, background vocals); Alex James (bass, hand claps); Dave Rowntree (drums, timpani, handclaps).

Additional personnel: Kate St. John (oboe, cor anglais, soprano saxophone); Stephen Street (keyboards, drumbox, percussion); The Duke String Quartet, The Kick Horns.

Produced by - Steve Lovell, Blur, John Smith and Stephen Street.

The history of BLUR can be traced back to circa 1980, when Damon Albarn (b.1968) and Graham Coxon (b.1969) met as schoolboys at Stanway Comprehensive School in Colchester, Essex. They sang together in the choir. Both were drawn to music.
Damon, a Londoner by birth (Whitechapel Hospital), was the son of Keith (a former luminary of England's late-1960's psychedelic rock scene that yielded Soft Machine and others) and Hazel (a stage designer for Joan Littlewood's theatre company). Arriving in Colchester in the late '70's, the young Damon began studying music (the piano) and drama.

Graham, who had been born on an airbase in Germany, was the son of a bandsman and he had gravitated to Colchester in 1977. Graham was encouraged at Stanway to learn the saxophone, an instrument which some 15 years later he would play for the first time as a member of BLUR on "Jubilee" (on "Parklife"). Aged 12, Graham also began to play the guitar.

Alex James grew up in Bournemouth on England's south coast, coming to London in the late '80's to study at Goldsmith's College, where he first met Graham.
Colchester-born Dave Rowntree, the son of a BBC sound engineer and a mum who played in an orchestra, "took up" the bagpipes at a young age of "very youthful indeed," graduating to drums not long afterwards.

These four men formed a bizarre, Brechtian art-punk band called Seymour. Damon on vocals (and occasional keyboards), Graham on guitar, Alex on bass, and Dave on drums. After laying a dozen or so shows in and around London, they re-named the band BLUR in 1989. BLUR signed to Food Records in late 1989. The first release from BLUR was the single "She's So High," in 1990. The story really began to gather speed with the next single, "There's No Other Way," a sizable hit in Britain in the Spring of 1991. The song saw BLUR working for the first time with the legendary producer Stephen Street (The Smiths, Morrissey, The Cranberries). Street has produced the bulk of BLUR's music ever since, including all but one track on "Parklife" and every song on "The Great Escape" and "Blur."