Blur: The Ballad Of Darren Blue Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This indie exclusive comes on 180g blue vinyl in printed outer and inner sleeves. It became Blur's seventh consecutive UK No. 1 album and their first to reach the Top 10 of Billboard's Top Album Sales chart.

This edition

Blue vinyl
Indie exclusive
180g vinyl
Printed inner sleeve
Pressed in Germany
Obi strip

About the album

Damon Albarn wrote most of these songs in hotel conference rooms while touring with Gorillaz in 2022, and one of the best came from a view out of a Montreal window: a huge mural of Leonard Cohen, which became "The Everglades (For Leonard)." By New Year's Eve he had 24 demos and a reason to call the band.

Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree recorded it together in a room at Studio 13 in London and Devon with James Ford producing, and Albarn called it the first proper Blur album since 13. "The Narcissist" is a slow-building singalong, "St. Charles Square" lets Coxon's guitar snarl, "Barbaric" shimmers, and "The Ballad" reworks a demo Albarn first sketched in 2003. It's their shortest album, under forty minutes, and the band sound older, wiser and more tender than ever, with "Russian Strings" and "Goodbye Albert" among the loveliest things they've done.

Martin Parr's photo of a lone swimmer in Gourock's outdoor pool makes for a perfectly Blur cover. The title honours Darren "Smoggy" Evans, their longtime bodyguard, who must be the first man in his line of work to get an album named after him. Nice work if you can guard it.

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