Damon Albarn

About

From Wikipedia:

Damon Albarn OBE (/ˈdeɪmən ˈælbɑːrn/; born 23 March 1968) is a British musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-founder, lead vocalist, instrumentalist, and primary songwriter of the virtual band Gorillaz.

Raised in Leytonstone, East London, and around Colchester, Essex, Albarn attended the Stanway School, where he met guitarist Graham Coxon and formed Blur, releasing their debut album Leisure in 1991. After spending long periods touring the U.S., Albarn’s songwriting became increasingly influenced by British bands from the 1960s. The result was the Blur albums Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). All three albums received critical acclaim while Blur gained mass popularity in the UK, aided by a Britpop rivalry with Oasis. Subsequent albums such as Blur (1997), 13 (1999), and Think Tank (2003) incorporated influences from lo-fi, electronic and hip hop music.

Albarn formed the virtual band Gorillaz in 1998 with comic book artist Jamie Hewlett. Drawing influences from hip hop, dub, pop, trip hop, and world music, Gorillaz released their self-titled debut album in 2001 to worldwide success, spawning successful follow-ups Demon Days (2005), Plastic Beach, The Fall (both released in 2010), Humanz (2017), The Now Now (2018) and the first season of their latest project, Song Machine (2020). Although Albarn is the only permanent musical contributor, Gorillaz albums typically feature collaborations from a range of artists. Gorillaz are cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “Most Successful Virtual Band”.

Albarn’s other notable projects have included two supergroups: The Good, the Bad & the Queen and Rocket Juice & the Moon, working with the non-profit organization Africa Express, which he co-founded, and composing film soundtracks. He also scored the stage productions Monkey: Journey to the West (2008), Dr Dee (2012) and Wonder.land (2016). His debut, and thus far only, solo studio album Everyday Robots was released in 2014.

In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked Albarn number 18 in their list of the “100 most powerful people in British culture”. In 2016, Albarn received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to music.

In 2021, for the “McCartney III Imagined” project, Damon Albarn reimagined the song “Long Tailed Winter Bird“.

I have actually a recording of Paul and myself that I could use for a Gorillaz tune. I mean it’s quite a basic recording, but I would never release it without talking to him first. Don’t go and say I have a tune with Paul McCartney, because I don’t have a tune with Paul McCartney, but my point is, of course, I could definitely work with him. He is one of the most special pop musicians ever.

Damon Albarn – interview with Dutch podcast Kink, November 2020

[I remember] that hilarious story about your nephew getting so drunk that he doesn’t remember jamming with Paul McCartney.

Yeah he was only 15 at the time, he shouldn’t have been drinking, I’d only let him come because you know I thought it would be fun. So he was serving drinks for everyone, but I didn’t know he was finishing off a few sneaky ones on the side. And then he gets this opportunity. There was Paul Simon and Paul McCartney, Remy, myself and we starting jamming, because I had given Paul McCartney this gift of a bass which is a fantastic Marlin instrument, so he just wants to try it out, and then we invite Rudy, it’s his name, to come and play with us because we’ve got some bongos. He just loses his shit and just starts doing this “bum bum bum”, totally nothing related to what we’re playing, and it was hilarious. Everyone’s looking at each other what’s Mac and Mac was like all right man it sounds yeah you know… But he can’t remember anything about it the next day.

Damon Albarn – Interview with Zane Low, February 2023

Last updated on March 2, 2023