10 Rock Stars Who Never Wanted To Be Famous

The entire war over Britpop was a bit of a media circus to put it bluntly. Stoked by the Gallagher Brothers relishing in the spotlight, the battle lines between Oasis and Blur were pretty cut throat through the back half of the '90s. To add insult to injury, it's not like Damon Albarn exactly loved the spotlight either.

Though Blur was founded with Albarn as the lead singer, he had never intended the group to blow up as large as they did. Whereas other people want to have the spotlight and then make their classics, Albarn was content to just hang in the background and have a slow ascent to the top. Once Parklife and the band's self titled blew up though, Damon was thrust into the limelight whether he liked it or not, often at the expense of the Gallagher Brothers heckling them for being the more posh version of Britpop.

This kind of circus ended up having a drastic effect on Damon's creative process, turning to drug addiction in the back half of Blur's catalog before getting clean. Given the tornado of media attention around him, it makes sense that Albarn's next move was as far removed from the stage as possible, giving life to Gorillaz with the help of Jamie Hewlett's visuals. Though the initial run of fantastic Blur albums were fun for what they were, this gives Damon an opportunity to be creative without compromising his introverted tendencies.