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In late 1994, Beverley Knight signed a record deal with Dome Records - a small, independent label that was home to artists such as Lulu and Hil St Soul. Shortly after, Beverley went in studio to write and record her debut album. The backbone of the project was produced by London production trio 2B3, with additional beats provided by Don E (Beverley's cousin), Ethinic Boyz and hip-hop act Blak Twang. The result was the critically acclaimed album The B-Funk - hailed as "the best British soul album ever" by critics when it was released in November 1995. Knight went on to win two Black Music Awards in 1996 ("Best R&B Artist" and "Best Producer" for 2B3) and was named Best R&B Act by Blues and Soul Magazine, beating a host of American stars. However, the commercial success of the album failed to match its critical success and the album peaked on the UK album chart at number one-hundred-and-forty-five. Several singles were released from the project, the biggest being "Flavour of the Old School", which peaked at number thirty-three in March 1996 when it was re-released.
In February 1997, Beverley left Dome Records after disagreements concerning her musical direction and instead signed a new four-album deal with EMI controlled Parlophone Records - home to The Beatles, Coldplay and Kylie Minogue. After returning to the studio with 2B3 and Don E and teaming up with new producers Dodge and Carl McIntosh, Beverley released her second album Prodigal Sista in August 1998. Peaking at number forty-two in Britain, the commercial success of the album proved to be much greater than her debut. The album went on to sell 135,000 copies in Britain and be certified Gold in 1999. It contained five top forty hits - the biggest of which were "Greatest Day", peaking at number fourteen, and "Made It Back 99" featuring US rap star Redman, which peaked at number nineteen.
The commercial success of Prodigal Sista marked a big step forward in Beverley's career and was reflected in the widespread critical acclaim of the project. Q Magazine called the album "a triumph not only of Knight's musical vision but also of the strength in her character" while The Times remarked "Prodigal Sista is a joy to hear - her vocal and intricate self devised and performed harmonies can make you catch your breath in wonderment". Labelled as one of the greatest British soul albums of all time, the album won three MOBO (Music Of Black Origin) Awards with "Made It Back" and "Greatest Day" winning Best R&B Act in 1998 and 1999 respectively, and Prodigal Sista winning the Best Album Award.
Throughout 2001 Beverley returned to the recording studio to write and record her third studio album. She was accompanied by a different array of writers and producers from Britain and the United States, which included James Poyser (Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu), Derrick Joshua & Derrick Martin, D'Influence and Colin Emmanuael. The result was Who I Am, which was released in March 2002. It was preceded by two singles, "Get Up!" and "Shoulda Woulda Coulda" - which became Beverley's most successful single up to that point, peaking at number ten on the UK singles chart. The success of the singles, together with wide critical praise, propelled the album to number seven on the album chart making Who I Am Beverley's most commercially successful album to date. It was re-released twice with new versions of the singles "Gold" and "Shape Of You (Reshaped)" and has sold 215,000 copies in Britain, earning it a Gold sales certificate.
The critical response to Who I Am was largely positive, with The Guardian stating "every song bubbles with the kind of expensive, polished confidence that often eludes British contenders, and she sings with the poise of an artist at the height of her powers" whilst the BBC remarked "Who I Am marks a significant change in direction for this tenacious 28-year-old singer, signifying her own personal growth as a true artist and developing songwriter....on this her most personal work to date, she takes us on an intimate journey where she bares her soul with such raw honesty that you get the distinct impression a healing process is taking place". Although the album failed to match the widespread and unanimous acclaim of Beverley's first two albums, it still earned her two Brit Award nominations ("Best Female", "Best Urban Act")NETQUOTEVAR:12 and the album was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in 2002.
After touring Britain in 2002, Knight set about creating her fourth album and entered the studio in the summer of 2003. In an attempt to appeal to a larger mainstream audience, she enlisted the help of pop producers such as Guy Chambers (Robbie Williams, Britney Spears) and Peter-John Vettese (Annie Lennox, Pet Shop Boys) as well as collaborating with R&B producers such as DJ Munro. The result was Affirmation, which was released on Parlophone Records in June 2004. The album entered the charts at number eleven and was preceded by the single "Come As You Are" - a rock/pop orientated song written with and produced by Chambers. The song marked a more mainstream pop sound that alienated Knight's largely urban fan base and the song was not well received by urban radio stations. Nevertheless it became her biggest hit to date, peaking at number nine on the singles chart. The song was followed by two more singles, "Not Too Late For Love" and "Keep This Fire Burning", which helped boost album sales and resulted in the album being awarded a Gold sales certificate in December 2004.
The themes running throughout the album, which were influenced by the events she had witnessed over the previous two years, marked a milestone in Knight's career as a lyricist. The main essence of the project was centred on Beverley's relationship with Tyrone Jamison - a gay man whom she described as her "soul mate" and who died of an AIDS related disease in 2003. Throughout the album, lyrics on tracks such as "Remember Me" ("One day we will be reunited, least I hope that is our destiny, so while you chill in the arms of angels, remember me, remember me") and "No One Ever Loves In Vain" clearly point to Beverley's close relationship with Tyrone and rank as her most personal work to date.
Compared to the praise of her previous albums, the critical response to Affirmation was mixed. The mainstream press such as The Guardian praised her for branching out, whilst the black music press such as The Voice and Blues and Soul accused Knight of selling out and being manipulated away from urban music by her record label, a claim she flatly denies: "Everything I've done musically has been completely me. I write my own songs so I'm not just a vocalist who can easily be dictated to."
In February 2006 Knight consolidated her move into the mainstream audience by appearing on BBC1 music show, Just The Two Of Us. The show, featuring celebrities who duet with established singers, ran for two weeks and proved to be a relative disappointment in terms of audience figures - averaging between fifteen and twenty-five percent audience shares. Nevertheless it provided a platform for Knight to reach out to a bigger audience and demonstrate her talent by performing a different array of songs than she would otherwise be known for. Reaching out to new audiences was also a driving force behind Knight's decision to join Take That on their reunion arena tour. Take That - The Ultimate Tour 06, which runs from April to July, sold 270,000 tickets in less than four hours on sale at the box office and will feature Knight as a Blur were one of the English bands who appeared in the wake of the Stone Roses's eponymous album, mixing psychedelic pop rock with very loud guitars. Following an image change in the mid-'90s, the group emerged as one of the most popular bands in the U.K., establishing themselves as heir to the English pop tradition of the Kinks, the Small Faces, the Who, the Jam, Madness, and the Smiths. In the process, the group broke open the doors for a new generation of bands who became labelled as Britpop. With Damon Albarn's wry lyrics and 'mockney' vocals, Graham Coxon's remarkable guitar work and the group's pop mastery, Blur were one of the leaders of the Britpop movement. However they quickly became bound to it; since they were one of its biggest bands, they nearly fell apart when the movement itself subdued. Through some reinvention, Blur reclaimed their position as an art pop rock band in the late 1990s by incorporating pseudo-indie-rock and lo-fi influences of the American bands in the style of Pavement and R.E.M., which finally gave them their elusive American success in 1997. But the band's legacy remained in Britain, where they helped reinvent the guitar pop music by skilfully enriching the country's pop traditions.
Albarn, Coxon and James attended Goldsmiths College, whose alumni also include Damien Hirst and Julian Opie. Hirst later directed the video for Blur's "Country House" and formed Fat Les with James. Opie created the vector-realistic images used on the cover of Blur's Best Of compilation. The impact of Goldsmiths College on the band should not be overlooked.
After "She's So High", the group's first single, made it into the Top 50 - Morrissey producer Stephen Street contacted the band and proposed to them to produce their album. The band agreed, and this would be considered a very wise move, considering the band's later success. The partnership between Blur and Street would be incredibly successful and would last for the next half-decade. Street's exceptional production help, which aided the band immensely on their way to stardom, often lead to him being dubbed the band's fifth member by fans and press.
The follow-up to "She's So High", "There's No Other Way", went Top Ten. Both singles were included on their debut album, Leisure. Although it received good reviews, the album managed to fit into both the dying Madchester pop scene and the Baggy scene, causing some journalists and music critics to dismiss the band as manufactured teen idols. During a tour of America, documented in the film Starshaped, the group became increasingly unhappy, often venting frustrations on each other, leading to several violent confrontations. For a couple of years, Blur struggled to abandon this title and prove the critics wrong. Their next single was called 'Bang',which was a massive underground hit.
The band (and especially Albarn) began to formulate the idea of an album directed against American culture, originally titled Blur vs America, which they began work on on their return to the UK. XTC's Andy Partridge was originally slated to produce the follow-up of Leisure - which later became Modern Life Is Rubbish. However the relationship between him and the band soon deteriorated, so Street was again brought in to produce the record. After spending nearly a year in the studio, the band delivered the album to Food records. However the record company rejected the album, declaring that it needed a hit single. The band went back into the studio and recorded "For Tomorrow", which turned out to be a British hit. Food were ready to release the record, but their U.S. record company, SBK, said there was no American hit single on the record and asked them to return to the studio. They angrily complied and recorded "Chemical World" which pleased SBK for a short while; the song would become a minor alternative hit in the U.S. and charted at number 28 in the U.K. Modern Life... was set for release in the spring of 1993, when SBK asked Blur to re-record the album with producer Butch Vig (Nirvana and Sonic Youth). Understandably angry and irritated by the suggestion the band refused.
The record was released in May in Britain; it appeared in the United States that Autumn. Often cited as the first Britpop album, Modern Life Is Rubbish received good reviews in Britain, peaking at number 15 on the charts, yet it failed to make much of an impression in the U.S. In spite of Albarn's stated disdain at the time for American culture, particularly grunge, the liner notes for the album in fact carried a quote directly from Canadian writer Douglas Coupland's 'grunge novel' Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture ("Legislated nostalgia: to force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess.") Modern Life is Rubbish was recently voted sixth in NME's top 100 British albums of all time, and listed as the highest rated 'Forgotten Gem'. It is often voted as Blur's best album by their fanbase.
Modern Life... turned out to be a dry run for Blur's breakthrough album - Parklife, whose East End stylings were inspired by Martin Amis' London Fields. The follow-up entered the charts at number one and catapulted the band to stardom in Britain. The new wave dance-pop single "Girls & Boys" entered the charts at number five; the single managed to spend 15 weeks on the U.S. charts, peaking at number 52, but the album never cracked the charts. It was a completely different story in Britain, as Blur had a string of hit singles, including the ballad "To the End" and the mod anthem "Parklife", which featured narration by Phil Daniels, the star of the film version of the Who's Quadrophenia.
With the success of Parklife, Blur opened the door for many British bands who dominated the British pop culture in the mid-'90s and which were labelled as Britpop. Elastica, Pulp, the Boo Radleys, Supergrass, Gene, The Verve, Echobelly, Menswe@r, Mansun, Radiohead and numerous other bands all benefited from the band's success. By the beginning of 1995, Parklife went triple platinum and the band became superstars. The group spent the first half of 1995 recording their fourth album and playing various one-off concerts, including a sold-out stadium show. February of that year saw Blur receive a yet unbeaten 4 awards at the Brit awards, for best album (Parklife), best video (Parklife), best single (Parklife) and best British group.
Blur released "Country House", the first single from their new album, in August amidst much media attention, as Albarn had requested the single's release moved up a week to compete with the release of "Roll With It", a new single from Blur's chief rivals, Oasis - sparking the much hyped "battle of the bands". The strategy however backfired, as even though the band won the battle, with "Country House" beating "Roll With It" to become the group's first number one single, they ultimately lost the war, as Oasis became Britain's biggest band at the time with their second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, overshadowing Blur's fourth The Great Escape. While The Great Escape entered the U.K. charts at number one and earned overwhelmingly positive reviews, it sold in smaller numbers, and by the beginning of 1996, Blur were seen as has-beens, especially since they once again failed to make impression on the American market, where Oasis had been successful.
In the face of negative press and weak public support, Blur nearly broke up in February 1996, following a major drug-fuelled scuffle between chief artists Coxon and Albarn. It was clear that the band needed rest, so they decided after touring in March to spend the entire year out of the spotlight. They spent the time till late summer recuperating and devoting to other projects. Blur started recording the follow-up to The Great Escape in summer and finished it in late autumn. Meanwhile relationship in the band significantly improved and in December, the album was swiftly mixed and mastered. By the end of the year, Albarn declared that he was no longer interested in British music and was fascinated with American indie rock (particularly Pavement and R.E.M.) and lo-fi - genres that Graham Coxon had been supporting for years. These influences sparked in Blur's eponymous fifth album, Blur, which was released in February 1997 to fantastic reviews, nearly rivalling those of Parklife.
However the band's reinvention didn't earn them initially warm reviews in U.K. - the album and the first single, "Beetlebum" (said to be heavily influenced by American indie band Pavement and Albarn's longtime girlfriend and Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann's heroin addiction) debuted at number one but quickly fell down the charts - as the group's mass audience didn't all accept this incarnation. In the U.S. the record received strong reviews and the album and its second single "Song 2" became a large hit, helped by its popularity as a pre-match anthem at ice hockey games. The album reached #61 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, while "Song 2" peaked at #6 on the magazine's Modern Rock chart. "Song 2" continues to have legs, frequently being played at U.S. sports events, though it has also branded Blur as a one hit wonder. The album wasn't making much of an impression in Britain until Autumn of that year, partly because during this time Radiohead and The Verve had released their monumental albums OK Computer and Urban Hymns and critics, fans and press didn't pay much attention to Blur. The Album's American success was eventually repeated in Britain and by the end of the year Blur bounced back into the charts. It show-cased the natural evolution of the band beyond their roots, while combining earlier work in a successful blend of Britpop and American lo-fi, which came as a stark contrast to the much-criticized third album Be Here Now by their old rivals Oasis.
As the Britpop movement disintegrated, the band decided to take a different approach to their next album, so they parted ways with long-time producer and collaborator Stephen Street, who helped immensely in establishing the band. However, many fans weren't so happy about it and criticized the band. Nevertheless, in 1999, Blur returned with 13, a more mature album than any of their previous records. It was lyrically dominated by the end of Albarn's turbulent relationship with Justine Frischmann, Elastica frontwoman, as well as their battles with heavy heroin and alcohol addictions provoked by that relationship. Graham Coxon had even bigger artistical input, singing couple of songs, including the hit single "Coffee & TV", and designing the cover of the sleeve. Darker in tone, the album was received very well, although not as well as their Britpop records. In addition, a box set celebrating Blur's 10th anniversary was released later that year. The box set featured 22 singles and all accompanying b-sides.
Exhausted by incessant recording and touring through the world, the band entered into a hiatus. Albarn said that as they didn't stop for a decade, they needed a break. For a couple of years members of Blur engaged in a variety of side-projects around this time: Coxon made a number of solo albums, Alex James joined actor Keith Allen and artist Damien Hirst (who had both contributed their talents to the video for Blur's single, "Country House" earlier) to form Fat Les, while Albarn made the cartoon supergroup Gorillaz with their self-titled debut album, and travelled to Mali on behalf of Oxfam, producing the fundraising album Mali Music.
Recording for their next album had just got under way in Marrakesh, Morocco, middle 2002, but tensions between Coxon and the rest of the band escalated during them. It appeared Coxon had already grown distant emotionally, personally and creatively, from his bandmates, as he was reported to have failed to attend recording sessions. He was apparently unhappy at the choice of dance DJ Fatboy Slim (aka Norman Cook) as the sessions' producer. After several weeks of rumour and uncertainty, Coxon confirmed that he had been asked to leave the band for reasons connected with his "attitude" at a time when he had given up heavy alcohol habit. Since then Albarn had said that the door is always opened for Graham to return, but a possible project or a collaborative work of the full line-up is not very like
