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Blur Girls And Boys Official Music Video

In the face of negative press and weak public support, Blur nearly broke up in early 1996, but they instead decided to spend the entire year out of the spotlight. By the end of the year, Albarn was declaring that he was no longer interested in British music and was fascinated with American indie rock, a genre that Graham Coxon had been supporting for years. These influences manifested themselves on Blur's fifth album, Blur, which was released in February of 1997 to generally positive reviews. -- the album and its first single, "Beetlebum," debuted at number one and quickly fell down the charts -- as Blur's mass audience didn't completely accept their new incarnation. With the success of Parklife, Blur opened the door for a flood of British indie guitar bands that dominated British pop culture in the mid-'90s. Oasis, Elastica, Pulp, the Boo Radleys, Supergrass, Gene, Echobelly, Menswear, and numerous other bands all benefited from the band's success.

The sessions with Partridge proved unsatisfactory, but a chance reunion with Stephen Street resulted in him returning to produce the group. After discovering they were £60,000 in debt, Blur toured the United States in 1992 in an attempt to recoup their financial losses. The group released the single "Popscene" to coincide with the start of the tour. Featuring "a rush of punk guitars, '60s pop hooks, blaring British horns, controlled fury, and postmodern humor", "Popscene" was a turning point for the band musically. The band's third single, "Bang", performed relatively disappointingly, reaching only number 24.

Although Blur won the battle, with "Country House" becoming the group's first number one single, they ultimately lost the war, as Oasis became Britain's biggest band with their second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? The result was Blur, the band's fifth studio album, released in February 1997. Although the music press predicted that the lo-fi sonic experimentation would alienate Blur's teenage girl fan-base, they generally applauded the effort.

The game can be played with up to four players in split screen, and the game can be taken online for a maximum of 20 players over the internet, or over LAN in the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 versions. In a custom game, options can be set before each match that determine the layout of power-ups, car classes, number of laps, blur and the car to race. A match type called "World Tour" sellbitz is essentially a quick play option for players who want to jump into a match. Here, every player is given a random car and thrown into a random series of courses with a standard ruleset. Two teams (Alpha & Omega) can put themselves head to head either publicly or private.

At the final boss challenge, all the bosses meet together for a final race. Although he had previously dismissed it, Albarn grew to appreciate Coxon's tastes in lo-fi and underground music, and recognised the need to significantly change Blur's musical direction once again. "I can sit at my piano and write brilliant observational pop songs all day long but you've got to move on", he said. He subsequently approached Street, and argued for a more stripped-down sound on the band's next record. Coxon, recognising his own personal need to—as Rowntree put it—"work this band", wrote a letter to Albarn, describing his desire for their music "to scare people again". After initial sessions in London, the band left to record the rest of the album in Iceland, away from the Britpop scene.

Coxon later pointed to Parklife as the moment when " went from being regarded as an alternative, left field arty band to this amazing new pop sensation". During the two-month American tour, the band became increasingly unhappy, often venting frustrations on each other, leading to several physical confrontations. After a poor performance at a 1992 gig that featured a well-received set by Suede on the same bill, Blur were in danger of being dropped by Food. By that time, Blur had undergone an ideological and image shift intended to celebrate their English heritage in contrast to the popularity of American grunge bands like Nirvana. Although sceptical of Albarn's new manifesto for Blur, Balfe gave assent for the band's choice of Andy Partridge to produce their follow-up to Leisure.

Recording for Blur's next album began in London in November 2001, but concerted work started in June 2002, with the sessions moving to Marrakech, Morocco soon after, and then to Devon back in the UK. Coxon said "there were no rows" and " just recognised the feeling that we needed some time apart". Before the album was released, Blur released a new single, "Don't Bomb When You Are the Bomb" as a very limited white label release.