Blur

Blur codified the inchoate sounds of British indie at the dawn of the 1990s, turning the nascent revival of glam and new wave into a bright, bustling scene called Brit-pop. The band may have been at the epicenter of Brit-pop -- singer Damon Albarn fashioned their second album, 1993's Modern Life Is Rubbish, as a reaction to the increasing hegemony of American pop culture -- but Blur was also the first group to leave the scene behind, swapping brightly colored tunes for gnarled introspection just as Cool Britannia hit its peak. Not so much a renunciation as an evolution, Blur's...