History Trivia / Blur

** The band hated "Turn it Up", an AlbumFiller track from ''Modern Life is Rubbish'' and lamet that it was chosen instead of "Young and Lovely".

* ExecutiveMeddling: One of the good examples. The band's label disliked what was to be their second album that they asked them to go back and start over again. Then when the band delivered that album to their label, the label claimed that it needed two more single-worthy songs. The album that resulted, ''Modern Life is Rubbish'', is considered one of the band's best albums. The two "singleworthy" songs, "For Tomorrow" and "Chemical World" were two of the band's biggest (at the time) and most popular songs. The already recorded first-try album was instead released as b-sides to the three singles from the new second-try (the third single being "Sunday Sunday"). Those now-B-sides are decent, but are not considered to be stronger than the material on ''Modern Life is Rubbish''.

** In a much earlier period, Blur's early material as "Seymour", which eventually came out as B-sides for the "Sunday Sunday" single and on the ''Blur 21'' box set, showed them to be primarily a fast-paced, heavily punk-influenced band. However, by the time they made it onto Food Records, {{Shoegazing}} and [[AlternativeDance Madchester]] were at their peak popularity, so the label forced them to write songs fusing together the two subgenres for their first album ''Leisure''. There's also the fact that the name Blur was chosen from a list of label-approved alternate names for the group, as Food Records disliked Seymour as a band name.

** "Never Clever", one of the B-sides to "Chemical World", was supposed to be released as a single.

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Whilst the "Blur 21" box set leaves off a number of tracks - six Seymour tracks that had been b-sides to Sunday Sunday, "I Know" (only the extended version appears), the band's charity CD cover of "Substitute" and most significantly the 2003 fan club release "Colours" (which was one of the only Think Tank-era tracks Graham Coxon played on)

* The Wiki Rule: [[https://blur.fandom.com/wiki/Blur_Wiki Blur Wiki | Fandom]]

* ChartDisplacement: Neither of their top-five Modern Rock hits was "Song 2", which peaked at #6 on that chart. However, on the Hot 100, "Song 2" was in fact their highest charter. And two of those are "Chemical World" and "Crazy Beat", which are hardly among the band's best-known songs.

** In 2014, Albarn expanded on Leisure's recording, stating that "it wasn't a particularly happy experience" and suggested the band were too keen to please the record label by capitalising on a sound that was popular at the time.

* LimeyGoesToHollywood: Inverted; the band experimented with recording abroad in Iceland (''Blur'') and Morocco (''Think Tank'').

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: "Never Clever", one of the B-sides to "Chemical World", was supposed to be released as a single.
* WorkingTitle: ''Modern Life is Rubbish'' was originally called ''Britain Versus America'', while ''Parklife'' was oiginally called ''London''.

* OldShame: Despite a generally positive critical reaction upon release, Damon has since referred to ''Leisure'' as "awful". He has similarly dismissed ''The Great Escape'' as "messy".

** ''13'' was marked by tense sessions. According to producer William Orbit, "There was a battle between Damon's more experimental direction, and Graham's punk one, and Graham prevailed. If that tension had been growing on previous LPs, it came to a head here."[ "Things were starting to fall apart between the four of us," drummer Dave Rowntree later revealed. "It was quite a sad process making it. People were not turning up to the sessions, or turning up drunk, being abusive and storming off." "I had songs," Alex James remarked. "I played them to William. He liked them. But I was sulking. I didn't play them to the others… Now I know how Music/GeorgeHarrison felt." Coxon admitted, "I was really out there around ''13'', which made for some pretty great noise but I was probably a bit of a crap to be around."

* CreatorBacklash: In later years Albarn would disown ''The Great Escape'' for being artificial and slick, and the band are especially unkind about the big brass-band knees up "Country House" (their first number one single in the UK). The only representations of the album on their 2009 greatest hits album ''Midlife'' are the fan-favourite album track "He Thought of Cars" and the singles "The Universal" and "Stereotypes".

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: An inversion, for singer Damon Albarn. A manga writer in Japan decided to name his protagonist [[Manga/SoulEater Maka Albarn]] after one of his favorite musicians.

* TroubledProduction: ''Think Tank'''s production was largely affected by Graham Coxon confronting his demons as he was suffering from alcoholism and depression, causing him to be largely absent from the production and after recording four songs (one of which ultimately made it to the final cut, along with two being B-sides and the last one being a fan club single), he left, forcing the band to continue as a trio. It went FromBadToWorse during the production in Morocco as everyone involved except for Albarn fell ill due to diarrhea to the point Rowntree nearly died as a result. While the album proved to be a critical and commercial success, it's because of this production that the band took a break from 2004 to 2008 and Albarn has considered this a very difficult album to work on.

* ChartDisplacement: Neither of their top-five Modern Rock hits was "Song 2", which peaked at #6 on that chart. However, on the Hot 100, "Song 2" was in fact their highest charter.

** Albarn has also become very critical of ''Think Tank'', mainly due to it being a difficult album to work on after the departure of Graham Coxon, which resulted in the band taking a six-year hiatus after the tour for the album was finished and explains why the band rarely performs songs from the album after their 2009 reunion.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: "Trailerpark" was originally recorded for the ''[[WesternAnimation/SouthPark Chef Aid Album]]'', but Music/RickRubin rejected it, so the band put it on ''13'' instead.
** The band's sessions for ''Modern Life Is Rubbish'' totalled 40+ songs, yet only 16 were used on the album. The band has noted at various times that they considered putting "Popscene", "Never Clever", "Young And Lovely", "Peach", "When The Cows Come Home", "Into Another", "Hanging Over" and "Seven Days" on the album and that the likes of "Turn It Up" and "Coping" wouldn't have made it on.

* BlackSheepHit: "Song 2", especially in America where it's the only song most people know by them. Ironically the song was written to parody American alternative rock at the time. Right down to the indecipherable vocals. Which isn't as much of a black sheep in the context of that album, which probably changed the course of indie rock music for the next decade.

** The band's sessions for "Modern Life Is Rubbish" totalled 40+ songs, yet only 16 were used on the album. The band has noted at various times that they considered putting "Popscene", "Never Clever", "Young And Lovely", "Peach", "When The Cows Come Home", "Into Another", "Hanging Over" and "Seven Days" on the album and that the likes of "Turn It Up" and "Coping" wouldn't have made it on.

** Albarn has also become very critical of ''Think Tank'', mainly due to it being a CreatorBreakdown that resulted in the band taking a six-year hiatus after the tour for the album was finished.

* ExecutiveMeddling: One of the good examples. The band's label disliked what was to be their second album that they asked them to go back and start over again. Then when the band delivered that album to their label, the label claimed that it needed two more single-worthy songs. The album that resulted, ''Modern Life is Rubbish'', is considered one of the band's best albums. The two "singleworthy" songs, "For Tomorrow" and "Chemical World" were two of the band's biggest (at the time) and most popular songs. The already recorded first-try album was instead released as b-sides to the three singles from the new second-try (the third single being "Sunday Sunday"). those now-B-sides are decent, but are not considered to be stronger than the material on ''Modern Life is Rubbish''.

* DuelingGames: Released one week after ''VideoGame/SplitSecond'', and the same day as ''VideoGame/ModNationRacers''.