Pressured for another single, Blur reportedly wrote “Bang” in fifteen minutes. The single was released in July ahead of the debut album, was again named single of the week by NME, and the band were invited to perform it on Top of the Pops in advance of its release. However, the song was nowhere near as successful as “There’s No Other Way”, and seemed to suggest Blur had a limited musical range. Its failure further strained the relationship between Blur and Balfe. Albarn later said about the song: “There’s just something about ‘Bang’ which is shit.”

Blur’s debut LP, Leisure, followed a few weeks later in August and impressively debuted in the Top 10—but reviews were mixed. NME wrote: “Blur are really pretty good. But it ain’t the future. Blur are merely the present of rock and roll.” The album lasted six weeks in the charts and sold decently well in its initial release, earning a Silver certification. However, the Madchester sound that had been the preeminent style of British guitar rock since 1989 was on the verge of going out of style. In a year that saw the release of Loveless, Screamadelica and Nevermind, no one saw Lesiure as forging new ground for alternative rock. The band couldn’t help but feel the album would have been better if some of their more adventurous B-sides had been allowed on it.

Working overnight into Christmas morning, Albarn wrote a new song on his family’s piano. “For Tomorrow” was the kind of single Food was looking for and the label was happy to move forward with releasing the album. However, the band’s American label, SBK, wanted one more single that was less English sounding before they were satisfied. They also suggested the band should re-record the entire album with American producer Butch Vig (Nevermind). Blur refused to re-record but did come back with one more song, “Chemical World,” which SBK liked. Modern Life is Rubbish was finally allowed to be released. The title was taken from some graffiti the band saw in London, a statement that Albarn called “the most significant comment on popular culture since ‘Anarchy in the UK.'”

Modern Life is Rubbish was preceded by the “For Tomorrow” single and then followed by two more singles, “Chemical World” and “Sunday Sunday.” SBK preferred the demo recording of “Chemical World” to the album version produced by Street, and instead had producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley rework the original and released that as the single in the U.S. The band also left “Popscene” off the album in the UK, a decision Coxon explained to Select in 1995: “If you didn’t fucking want it in the first place, you’re not going to get it now.”

Reviews of the LP were kind but not ecstatic, and press coverage overall was minimal. David Roberts in Q called it “an energised, infectious romp around contemporary little England, by way of an exuberant trawl through a highly-coloured patchwork of its pop past.”

“I was putting my whole existence into Blur’s music,” Albarn told Mojo in 2000. “I felt very passionate – for the first and last time in my life – about being English. I just felt America had screwed me badly. It had taken away a lot of my dreams (laughs) … Suede and America fueled my desire to prove to everyone that Blur were worth it. There was nothing more important in my life.”

By all commercial metrics, the album was a failure. Within 3 weeks it was gone from the charts, and none of its singles lasted longer than 4 weeks either. SBK didn’t release the album in America until 7 months after the UK release. They also switched up the track listing, replaced “Chemical World” with the reworked version, and stuck “Popscene” on there as well. The album never charted.

The unapproved song, “Girls & Boys,” was picked to be Blur’s next single ahead of the new album. It sounded nothing like anything the band had recorded before; a disco-esque tune with a drum machine beat, a playful, iconic bassline from James, and Coxon’s restless guitar. Albarn wrote the lyrics after a vacation to Ibiza, and doesn’t indicate whether he is celebrating hedonism or satirizing it. It was exactly the right song to capitalize on the public’s growing fascination with the band and the idea of music that celebrated England. Released in March 1994, the song debuted at #5 in the UK—Blur’s highest charting song to this point and their biggest hit since “There’s No Other Way” in 1991. The band was invited to play their new hit on Top of the Pops for the first time since “Bang.” It also brought them a limited amount of American success, charting on the Hot 100, Radio Songs, Alternative Airplay, and Dance Club Songs.

The band’s third album, Parklife, dropped 6 weeks later and entered the charts at #1, knocking Pink Floyd off the top spot. It would stay on the charts for 94 straight weeks and had been certified Platinum within five months. Both of Blur’s previous albums subsequently re-entered the charts, and the band began an exuberant tour of the UK in May. “Everybody suddenly seemed to know who Blur was,” Coxon remembered in 2000, “from builders to schoolchildren to mums and dads.” Right before the album’s release, David Balfe sold Food to EMI/Parlophone (who were already its chief financiers) and retired. The man who had told Blur repeatedly their new direction was career suicide wasn’t even there to see how wrong he was. To this day, Parklife continues to land on greatest of all-time lists (NME, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and Spin).

A second single, “To the End,” was released in May and went to #16. The band hired Stephen Hague (who had worked with Pet Shop Boys and New Order) to produce this one song with its full orchestral arrangements. Lætitia Sadler of the band Stereolab sings in French on the track as well. Blur and Sadler performed the song on Top of the Pops in June.

The third single off the album, “Parklife,” would become one of Blur’s biggest hits, peaking at #10 in September. A manifesto on life from a Cockney narrator, Albarn felt inauthentic inhabiting the character on its spoken word verses. Instead, he invited chilhdood idol Phil Daniels (star of the Quadraphenia film) to record the verses while Albarn sung the chorus. Daniels would also appear on the song’s music video and perform it with the band on Top of the Pops.

The album’s final single, “End of a Century,” also made the top 20 upon release in November and the band made their fourth straight appearance on Top of the Pops. “The mainstream was suddenly in the hands of us irresponsible, drunk, rude kids. We were having the time of our lives,” reminisced James in 2000.

Despite all the British success, none of the singles after “Girls & Boys” made any of the charts in the US, and Parklife never made it even one week on the US albums chart. A UK phenomenon was completely ignored by a Post-Grunge obsessed America.

Blur’s fourth album, The Great Escape, hit stores a couple weeks later to rapturous reviews and a #1 ranking. NME wrote it was “so rammed with tunes, ideas, emotions, humour, tragedy, farce, and edgy beauty that it’s utterly beyond contemporary compare.” Q gave it perfect marks while Melody Maker gave it a score of 12 out of 10. The LP went platinum right away and reached double platinum status by the end of the year. Blur launched a tour of English seaside towns and even played a rooftop concert in London like The Beatles once did. After touring the US and Japan, the band returned for an arena tour of the UK including three sold-out shows at Wembley Arena that featured a new component for the band: screaming teenage girls.

The Great Escape followed the same template as Blur’s previous two LPs, with the band writing character studies and social analysis of English life set to an eclectic array of musical influences and arrangements. Second single, “The Universal,” went to #5 in November. The song’s sweeping orchestral arrangement and grand singalong chorus almost cover up the fact it is about a future society whose citizens are subdued by a Prozac-like drug. “Stereotypes” was the only single off the LP that sounded like it was made by a rock band, reaching #7 in February 1996. Final single “Charmless Man,” another cheeky upbeat pop number, made it to #5 in May. The latter two singles were performed on Top of the Pops in February and September, respectively.

Fame was taking its toll on the band. When they recorded Modern Life is Rubbish and Parklife, they were pretty much nobodies. With no money and little attention, they were free to live their London lives as they pleased. During the recording of The Great Escape, the foursome were picking up prestigious awards and being besieged by fans and journalists everywhere they went. The extraordinary success of Parklife put a lot of pressure on them to achieve something even grander with their next LP, especially when Oasis got to a #1 single before they did. As lush and ambitious as The Great Escape sounded, there is a bleakness and an alienation that runs through it all. Even the upbeat romp of “Country House” contains a middle section of “Blow, blow me out, I am so sad, I don’t know why.” Not only would Blur have to spend a year touring this darker material, they would soon have to do it in the shadow of Oasis.

At the conclusion of The Great Escape tour in the spring of 1996, Blur were burnt out. They released their first live album—recorded the previous October—as a Japanese-only release and took a break from each other.

“Beetlebum,” a song abstractly about heroin, was chosen for the first single and released in January 1997. Some initial reactions in the press were critical of Blur’s new sound, seeing the change of direction as admitting defeat to Oasis on the Britpop turf that Blur had pioneered. But the band didn’t see it that way, at least with this song. What they were doing with “Beetlebum” was reminding the British public how eclectic and adventurous The Beatles sounded later in their career when making The White Album. Albarn couldn’t resist telling NME that “I want Noel to listen to “Beetlebum” and realise that it is… closer.” The single entered the charts at #1, the band’s second chart-topper, and the band performed the song twice on Top of the Pops.

The self-titled Blur dropped a few weeks later and went straight to #1 in the UK. Reviews were all over the map. Some loved it, some hated it, some couldn’t decide. But just like with Modern Life is Rubbish, the band knew they were on to something and the public would eventually catch on. For all the talk of a complete reinvention, the LP still sounded like a Blur album—just one with a new sonic palette informed by a wider array of influences. But the band’s craft and variety of expression remained intact.

While recording the album, Blur decided to play a prank on their label by recording an absurdly loud and extreme song and telling them it should be a single. The label listened to it and said it absolutely should be. Because the track was supposed to be a joke the band hadn’t even named it. And yet “Song 2” would become the biggest international hit of Blur’s career, receiving a generous amount of play on MTV and providing sports stadiums with one of their favorite songs.

“Song 2” gave Blur the success in America that had always eluded them. The LP rose up the US charts after the single’s success and was certified Gold by the end of the year. Worldwide Blur became their most successful album, even though in the UK it wouldn’t match the heights of Parklife or The Great Escape.

Two more singles were released. “On Your Own” continued Blur’s UK top 10 streak and is the closest to a singalong Britpop number the band would go. “M.O.R.”—a driving rock song which borrowed its chord progression from David Bowie’s “Boys Keep Swinging”—almost made the US Hot 100. Both singles were performed on Top of the Pops in June and September. The band spent most of 1997 touring America and the world before capping the year off with a UK stadium tour.

After a NYE TV performance of “Song 2,” Blur took most of 1998 off from performing except for a headlining performance at Glastonbury in June. Since it was the late ’90s and everyone was doing it, the band released a remix album, Bustin’ and Dronin’, in Japan in February. DJs and producers including William Orbit, Adrian Shewood, Moby, Tortoise’s John McEntire and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore. The album managed to chart in the UK as a result of import sales.

Lead single “Tender” was released in February 1999 and peaked at #2, held off the top spot by Britney Spears’ “Oops I Did It Again.” The song showed Blur’s ever-growing musical interests, incorporating a backing gospel choir alongside Coxon’s completely stripped down lo-fi guitar playing. It even had vocals shared between Albarn and Coxon. But most significantly, “Tender” showed the band’s singer unashamedly writing in the first-person as he processed his emotions about his break-up. This was the rawest and most personal Blur had ever sounded on record. For their performance of the single on Top of the Pops, the band were joined by the London Community Gospel Choir who helped them record the song.

The band’s sixth album, 13, dropped in March and gave them their fourth #1 album in the UK. The LP went Platinum within a month and stayed on the charts for much of the year. It also charted in the US, although nowhere near as successfully as Blur. Reviews were mostly positive and the LP landed on many Best of the Year lists (NME, Pitchfork, Melody Maker, Q, Village Voice).

Two more singles were released. “Coffee & TV” featured Graham Coxon singing lead vocals on a song he wrote about his alcoholism struggles. Coxon was initially unwilling to sing the song on tour and other options for a single were considered instead. The song peaked at #11 in the UK, below expectations for a second single from such a popular band. A quirky music video featuring an anthropomorphic milk carton became a favorite on MTV, and a Top of the Pops performance aired in July.

Third single “No Distance Left to Run” was another iteration of Albarn exploring his break-up in an unexpectedly raw and vulnerable way. The arrangement is almost acoustic with just Albarn’s voice and Coxon’s guitar painfully probing the aftermath of the rleationship. The band turned in their most solemn performance on Top of the Pops in November—a long way removed from dancing with a cardboard chicken head like they once had for “Bang.”

In October, Food/EMI released the band’s first greatest hits compilation, Blur: The Best Of. The LP contained 17 of the band’s 23 singles—leaving off “I Know,” “Bang,” “Popscene,” “Chemical World,” “Sunday Sunday,” and “Stereotypes”—plus non-single “This is a Low”. A focus group had concluded the market was ready for a Blur retrospective and they were proved right with strong sales.

One new song, “Music is My Radar,” was also included on the compilation and released as a single. It went to #10 in the UK and showed the band experimenting with dance rhythms—and seemingly having more fun than on 13. The band’s October trip to Top of the Pops became a mini-concert as in addition to “Music Is My Radar” they also played “Girls & Boys,” “This is a Low” and “Song 2.” After playing a few other TV programs and award shows, Blur went silent for the rest of the year and all of 2001.

Working outside of Blur reinvigorated Albarn. Whereas Coxon’s musical passions had taken a larger role on Blur and 13, the singer was eager to push his bandmates in new directions on their seventh album. However, when they met up in November to start work on their seventh album with new producer Ben Hillier, Coxon didn’t show up to the sessions, having recently completed another round of rehab. Albarn, James and Rowntree began writing songs without him. The guitarist did join the band for more sessions in January and May 2002. Always a difficult collaborator whose genius was in countering Blur’s pop instincts with sharp-edged, left field guitar noise, Coxon could not get on the same page with Albarn. By August, Coxon was told by his bandmates to stop showing up to the sessions. After 14 years together, Blur was now a three-piece.

Recording for the album was completed in Morocco in September and Coxon confirmed to the press he had left Blur the following month. The collaborative approach Albarn employed with Gorillaz continued, with the band inviting Fatboy Slim, William Orbit and the Dust Brothers to finish production on a few tracks. Despite being leaked online two months before its premiere, Think Tank still debuted at #1 in the UK. Reviews were positive, but the LP didn’t have the staying power of previous Blur albums—and nowhere near what Albarn had recently achieved with Gorillaz.

Three singles were released from Think Tank. “Out of Time” went to #5 in the UK, the lowest charting debut single off a Blur album since “Girls & Boys”. The song prominently features Moroccan instruments and influences, with no electric guitar and minimal bass and drums. An anti-Iraq war music video (a cause Albarn had become a leading proponent of) was also released. The song is the only one from Think Tank that the band play regularly since their reunion, in a new arrangement that features Coxon on guitar.

Second single “Crazy Beat” is an attempt to recapture the sound (and success, presumably) of “Song 2”. Lighting couldn’t be caught twice, however. The song stalled at #18 in the UK and only made it to #22 on the US Alternative charts.

“Good Song” was the last single released from the LP and it only made it to #22 in the UK, the first Blur single to miss the Top 20 since “Sunday Sunday” in 1993.

Rumors of the band reuniting increased in 2007, after Coxon signalled he would be open to returning. Instead of recording new music, which they feared might lead to old tensions, the band instead decided to play some live shows in 2009. A one-night gig in London’s Hyde Park was announced for July and instantly sold out, so they added a second night. EMI put out another compilation album, Midlife: A Beginner’s Guide to Blur, to go along with the band’s reunion, one that highlighted more of their indie rock sound than The Best Of.

The band’s first gig as a foursome in eight years was played on June 13 at the East Anglican Railway Museum in Colchester, site of Seymour’s first concert. The band also played a gig at Goldsmiths College where they all first met. When the reformed legends triumphantly took the stage in London’s Hyde Park on July 2nd and 3rd, 55,000 fans were there to see them each night. The band played a setlist full of Britpop favorites, including 5 songs from Modern Life is Rubbish and 8 songs from Parklife. Both concerts were recorded and released separately as live albums the following month.

The group reunited for the 2012 Brit Awards to receive the Outstanding Contribution to Music award. At a pre-ceremony concert, Albarn and Coxon debuted a new Blur song they had written, “Under the Westway.” For the Awards ceremony, Blur performed “Girls & Boys,” “Song 2“, “Parklife” (with Phil Daniels), “Tender” (with the London Community Gospel Choir), and “This Is a Low.” Although attempts at recording more material were scrapped, the band released their new song (along with B-side, “The Puritan”) in July. It was the first official Blur single in 9 years, and the first in 12 with Coxon involved.

As a compliment to the closing ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, a Blur-headlined concert (along with New Order and The Specials) was held in Hyde Park. The setlist was again heavy on favorites from Modern Life is Rubbish and Parklife, and the concert was recorded and released as Parklive.

The Magic Whip dropped in April 2015, giving Blur their 6th consecutive #1 album in the UK. Its placement at #24 in the US was also the band’s highest ever. Reviews were glowing, with the record called “a triumphant comeback” and landed on best of the year lists from Rolling Stone and NME. A short tour took Blur around the UK, Europe, Australia, and South America, ending with a triumphant show at Madison Square Garden in New York. After having almost imploded in America over 20 years earlier, the band savored their long-coming opportunity to play one of the country’s grandest venues.