Damon Albarn: Top 50 Songs

Damon Albarn Top 50 Songs

Damon Albarn is a singer/songwriter who was born 3/23/1968 in Whitechapel, London, England. He first achieved fame during the Britpop era with his band Blur. He later formed Gorillaz and the supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen. He has also worked as a solo artist. Click here to see other best-of lists from performers and here to see other best-of lists from songwriters and/or producers.

Awards:

Top 50 Songs Dave’s Music Database lists are determined by song’s appearances on best-of lists as well as chart success, sales, radio airplay, streaming, and awards. This list includes songs by Blur; Gorillaz; The Good, the Bad & the Queen; and Damon Albarn as a solo artist. DMDB Top 1%: 1. Song 2 (Blur, 1997) DMDB Top 2%: 2. Feel Good Inc. (Gorillaz with De La Soul, 2005) 3. Girls & Boys (Blur, 1994) DMDB Top 5%: 4. Clint Eastwood (Gorillaz, 2001) 5. Parklife (Blur, 1994) 6. Dare (Gorillaz with Shaun Ryder, 2005) DMDB Top 10%: 7. This Is a Low (Blur, 1994) 8. Country House (Blur, 1995) 9. There’s No Other Way (Blur, 1991) 10. Out of Time (Blur, 2003) DMDB Top 20%: 11. Beetlebum (Blur, 1997) 12. The Universal (Blur, 1995) 13. Stylo (Gorillaz with Mos Def & Bobby Womack, 2010) 14. Tender (Blur, 1999) 15. 19-2000 (Gorillaz, 2001) DMDB Top 20%: 16. Coffee + TV (Blur, 1999) 17. Chemical World (Blur, 1993) 18. Charmless Man (Blur, 1995) 19. On Melancholy Hill (Gorillaz, 2010) 20. To the End (Blur, 1994) 21. She’s So High (Blur, 1990) 22. For Tomorrow (Blur, 1993) 23. Dirty Harry (Gorillaz, 2005) 24. Kingdom of Doom (The Good, the Bad, & the Queen; 2007) 25. End of a Century (Blur, 1994) 26. Music Is My Radar (Blur, 2000) 27. Tomorrow Comes Today (Gorillaz, 2001) 28. Kids with Guns (Gorillaz, 2005) 29. Crazy Beat (Blur, 2003) 30. Doncamatic (Gorillaz with Daley, 2010) 31. No Distance Left to Run (Blur, 1999) 32. Humility (Gorillaz with George Benson, 2018) 33. On Your Own (Blur, 1997) 34. El Mañana (Gorillaz, 2005) 35. Popscene (Blur, 1992) 36. Rock the House (Gorillaz, 2001) 37. Stereotypes (Blur, 1995) 38. Heavy Seas of Love (Damon Albarn, 2014) 39. Rhinestone Eyes (Gorillaz, 2010) 40. Herculean (The Good, the Bad, & the Queen; 2006) 41. Mr. Tembo (Damon Albarn, 2014) 42. Good Song (Blur, 2003) 43. Under the Westway (Blur, 2012) 44. M.O.R. (Blur, 1997) 45. Ascension (Gorillaz with Vince Staples, 2017) 46. The Valley of the Pagans (Gorillaz with Beck, 2020) 47. We Got the Power (Gorillaz with Jehnny Beth, 2017) 48. Green Fields (The Good, the Bad, & the Queen; 2007) 49. Bang (Blur, 1991) 50. Everyday Robots (Damon Albarn, 2014) Resources and Related Links: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Damon Albarn DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Blur DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Gorillaz Dave’s Music Database: “Best-of Lists for Performers” Dave’s Music Database: “Best-of Lists for Songwriters and/or Producers” First posted 1/26/2022.

Gorillaz chart with “Feel Good Inc.”

Feel Good Inc. Gorillaz with De La Soul

Writer(s): Damon Albarn, David Jolicoeur (see lyrics here) Released: May 9, 2005 First Charted: April 30, 2005 Peak: 14 US, 13 RR, 18 A40, 17 MR, 2 UK, 6 CN, 3 AU, 12 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.92 US, 1.8 UK, 5.79 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.3 radio, 807.51 video, 1154.15 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Damon Albarn became one of the most important figures in the Britpop movement of the 1990s with his band Blur. By decade’s end, he was interested in crafting a new sound that incorporated hip-hop, electronica, and world music so he formed the new group Gorillaz. The “band” was typically presented in cartoon form through fictional members. The self-titled debut album was released in 2001, reached #3 in the UK, and sold three million copies in the UK and U.S. alone. The 2005 follow-up, Demon Days, topped the UK charts and went top 10 in the U.S. It outsold its predecessor by roughly a million copies. It also gave the band their only top-40 success in the United States with “Feel Good, Inc.,” the lead single. The song reached the top ten in fifteen countries, including #1 in Spain and Greece. It was nominated for three Grammys, including Record of the Year, and won for Best Pop Collaboration. It also won MTV awards for Breakthrough Video and Best Special Effects in a Video. Songfacts.com says, “This song is about the things people do in order to make themselves feel good. The song seems to focus on the darker side of pleasure like addictions and habits, but then the chorus comes in and it seems to say that you should stop thinking about what makes you feel good and try to love others to make them feel good. It's saying that love is what makes the world go around, hence the windmill reference.” SF Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Gorillaz DMDB encyclopedia entry for De La Soul SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 7/26/2023.

Blur released “Song 2”

Song 2 Blur

Writer(s): Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James, Dave Rowntree (see lyrics here) Released: April 7, 1997 First Charted: April 12, 1997 Peak: 55 US, 25 AR, 6 MR, 2 UK, 4 AU, 3 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.2 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 191.3 video, 722.32 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Blur was an English rock band formed in 1988 by singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James, and drummer Dave Rowntree. The band became a major player in the Britpop movement of the 1990s. Blur, and Britpop in general, didn’t gain much attention in the United States. “Song 2” is the “blaring anthem” from Blur that “sounds least like the rest of its Brit-pop catalogue.” CBC It started out as a joke WK thrown together “one murky, hungover day in the studio.” CBC Albarn recorded a slower, acoustic demo with the distinctive “woo-hoo” chorus in whistle form. Coxon suggested they amp up the speed and the volume, accompanied by a deliberately amateurish guitar sound. WK Alban recorded a guide vocal with nonsense, stream-of-consciousness lyrics. According to producer Stephen Street, the words were “pure babbling” but at his suggestion the lyrics were left alone, considered perfect as they were. SF Between the cryptic lyrics and loud guitars, this was considered a song written as a parody of grunge. SF It has also been said that Blur were mocking radio-friendly songs and the record industry in general. WK As the second song on the album, it was given the placeholder name of “Song 2,” but it ended up sticking. WK It was the second single released from the band’s fifth, self-titled album. It ran two minutes and two seconds with two verses and two choruses. It peaked at #2 on the UK charts and was ranked #2 on NME magazine’s year-end list of 1997’s singles. WK It has become a popular sports anthem for soccer and hockey. Resources: CBC CBC.ca (3/27/2019). “Woo hoo! 20 things you may not know about Blur’s ‘Song 2’” by Justin Chandler SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 10/13/2021; last updated 8/25/2023.

Blur released Parklife: April 25, 1994

Originally posted April 25, 2012.

In the summer after Parklife was released, Britpop reached a feverish peak with the Blur vs. Oasis battle. The only the thing the bands truly shared, “apart from their public loathing of each other, was their preoccupation with the sixties, with the former attempting to re-write the entire Beatles back catalogue while Blur revived the archetypical English whimsy and art school artifice of The Kinks.” ^PR

However, “Blur’s admiration of The Kinks isn’t as blatant as their rivals’ fixation for The Fab Four.” ^PR While previous album “Modern Life Is Rubbish established Blur as the heir to the archly British pop of the Kinks, the Small Faces, and the Jam” ^AMG, Parklife “revealed the depth of that transformation” ^AMG by serving up “more eccentricity and more focused evocations of everyday life than Oasis’s work.” ^TB “The ghost of Ray Davies can be heard on the character sketch Tracy Jacks and there are echoes of the similarly styled Small Faces in the title track,” ^PR a “mod anthem” ^AMG in which Phil Daniels, the star of Quadrophenia, “lends his broadest ‘sarf London’ accent.” ^PR

Parklife

However, the band doesn’t just utilize “Ray Davies’ seriocomic social commentary” ^AMG; “Parklife runs through the entire history of post-British Invasion Britpop in the course of 16 songs, touching on psychedelia, synth pop, disco, punk, and music hall along the way.” ^AMG “From the fairground-style dembellishments and novelty instrumentation to the flirtations with punk and psych-pop, Parklife constantly surprises with its diversity of material and infectious good humour.” ^PR “Damon Albarn even manages a fair stab at Syd Barrett on Far Out.” ^PR

Indeed, Albarn “intended these songs to form a sketch of British life in the mid-‘90s, and it’s startling how close he came to his goal; not only did the bouncy, disco-fied Girls & Boys and singalong chant Parklife become anthems in the U.K., but they inaugurated a new era of Britpop and lad culture, where British youth celebrated their country and traditions.” ^AMG However, it was still “a thoroughly modern record in that it bends genres and is self-referential.” ^AMG “And, by tying the past and the present together, Blur articulated the mid-‘90s zeitgeist and produced an epoch-defining record.” ^AMG

Girls and Boys

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Awards:

• one of the top 1000 albums of all time
• BBC Top 100 Albums
• Brits Award for Best British Album
• Q Magazine’s Top 100 Albums of All Time
• one of the top 100 albums of the 1990s

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Resources and Related Links:

• DMDB page for Parklife
• Blur’s DMDB Music Maker Encyclopedia entry
• ^AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
• ^PR Paul Roland (2001). CD Guide to Pop & Rock. B.T. Batsford LTD: London. Page 32.
• ^TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 273.

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Blur “Girls and Boys” released

Girls and Boys Blur

Writer(s): Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James, Dave Rowntree (see lyrics here) Released: March 7, 1994 First Charted: March 19, 1994 Peak: 59 US, 59 CB, 38 RR, 4 MR, 5 UK, 19 AU 12 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.6 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 49.8 video, 168.91 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The rock band Blur formed in London in 1988 with singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James, and drummer Dave Rowntree. Their debut album, 1991’s Leisure connected to the Madchester and shoegazing scenes of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s while their second album, 1993’s Modern Life Is Rubbish, showcased them more as a guitar pop group. With their third album, 1994’s Parklife, Blur established themselves as one of the pillars of the Britpop movement of the 1990s. It became their best-selling album in the UK with more than a million sold. It was their first of seven consecutive albums to top the UK charts. The album produced four top-20 singles in the UK, with the lead single, “Girls and Boys,” being the most successful. Blur didn’t generate as much of an audience in the United States, although this song was one of a handful to reach the alternative rock chart, becoming their biggest hit. Damon Albarn was inspired to write the song while on vacation in Spain where he saw what he called “a rampant sexual scene among visitors.” WK Songfacts.com called it “a send-up of the hedonistic club culture of the ‘90s” SF which “deals with sexual roles, and freedom of sexual preference.” SF Radiohead’s Thom Yorke said it is one of the songs he wished he’d written. SF Graham Coxon said audiences responded to “Girls and Boys” because “there’s nothing too complicated about it and it’s got a chanty sort of chorus.” SF Alex James described itas “disco drums, nasty gutiars and Duran Duran bass.” WK Billboard’s Larry Flick said it was “a detour into clubland with an amusing, word-twisting ditty fleshed out with a trance-like synth energy and a hard, syncopated beat, courtesy of the Pet Shop Boys.” WK Vibe’s James Hunter called it “a brilliant turn on new wave disco that boasts the year’s best bent guitars.” WK British music magazines NME and Melody Maker both named “Girls and Boys” the single of the year. It was nominated for best song at the MTV Europe Music Awards. AllMusic.com’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine said the song was “undeniably catchy” and “one of the best Blur ever recorded.” WK Resources: SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 8/24/2023.