10 Incredible Blur Songs You’ve Probably Never Heard

10. Popscene

While Blur would become the architects of Britpop their debut album Leisure saw them chasing rather than setting trends. Early hit There’s No Other Way just barely transcended it’s Madchester influences but elsewhere the band, bedecked with bowl cuts, felt dragged down by the baggy beats and indie-dance vibes.

Popscene said a very firm goodbye to all that. Probably the best known song on this list, the stand-alone single was built around the drum pattern from Can’s Mother Sky, featured prominent brass and a sneering, angry vocal. It’s a direct, precise track without an ounce of fat on it.

The lyrics are a statement of intent, Damon spitting his disgust at an underachieving music scene of identikit also rans. “Everybody is a clever clone... so in the absence of a way of life, repeat it again and again.” In attacking the self congratulatory London indie scene Blur announced their intention to transcend it.

The single was inexplicably panned by the music press and only limped into the lower reaches of the charts. They left it off The Best Of Blur as if to punish us for not buying it the first time.