Blur

Obviously, you can't have Oasis without Blur, so let's see how their albums hold up.

Leisure (1991)

Blur's first album is a bit of a mish mash of Madchester and shoegaze, and is not very good. The Madchester-type songs are all awful barring single 'There's No Other Way', and the shoegaze songs aren't much better, though they do account for the other two good songs on the album, 'She's So High' and 'Sing'. This is fairly mediocre, sounding like a band without an identity, trying to shoehorn themselves into the two most relevant British music scenes of the time. And failing.

Rating: 1.5/5

Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993)

Blur's second album is seen by many as the beginning of Britpop. Influenced heavily by British rock acts of the past, especially The Kinks and The Who, this is a fuzzy, melodic pop-rock album, which, unlike their debut, sounds focused and like a band who know what they want. It also features some of Blur's best songs such as 'For Tomorrow' and 'Chemical World', that still sound fresh and exciting today. The album is let down by some poor songs though, and "The Who Sell Out"-style attempts at adverts and intermissions fail badly. The album is too long, and if it had trimmed some of the poorer songs, could have been a cracker.

Rating: 3/5

Parklife (1994)

"Parklife" perhaps sums up the Britpop sound and scene more than just about anything else; from the obvious and unsubtle references to British music of the past to songs about the present, including the emerging "lad and ladette" culture. Despite featuring a series of era-defining singles, 'Girls & Boys', 'To The End', 'Parklife' and 'End of a Century', this album has the same main failing as "Modern Life Is Rubbish" - it's overlong and needs editing. That said, for two-thirds of the way, this is excellent, and you can't accuse it of being boring; sonically, it jumps around all over the place, from classic rock to synth pop to punk and more.

Rating: 4/5

The Great Escape (1995)

After the massive success of "Parklife", Blur's next album, released only a year later, was much anticipated. Unfortunately, this was that album. Featuring four excellent singles, the rest of the album is terrible, and once more, overlong. Whether it was hurriedly put together or the sound of a band who had taken their sound as far as they could take it I don't know; either way, this is very forgettable stuff, and the kind of album that makes you grateful for "best of" or "greatest hits" collections.

Rating: 2/5

Blur (1997)

The ironic thing about Blur's fifth album being their best is that they had built their success and reputation on looking back to classic British rock for inspiration, criticising American culture and music in the process, whereas this album looked much more to America for inspiration, especially Pavement. The album itself has a kind of sleepy charm interspersed with some more uptempo and melodic songs such as 'Song 2' and 'Chinese Bombs', it flows well, and even though it's quite long, the quality is such that it doesn't overstay its welcome like some of their previous albums.

Rating: 4.5/5

13 (1999)

Continuing the sounds of "Blur", but adding some looser experimental works, "13" is something of a nearly album. Half of it works well, especially the songs more like those of the previous album, but the experimental songs seem too loose and unfocused and sound like they need more work to bring them together. It's not bad but feels like a bit of a comedown form the heights they reached on their previous album.

Rating: 2.5/5

Think Tank (2003)

Blur's final album is something of a stinker. Continuing the experimental sounds of "13", but without Graham Coxon's guitar sounds (he left the band at the start of recording), this is a bit of a mess, sounding like a fairly random collection of studio sketches that were never fully formed. Many of the songs sound like they would be more at home on a Gorillaz album and sit uncomfortably with Blur. best to avoid.

Rating: 1/5