Damon Albarn

After spending long periods touring the US, Albarn's songwriting became increasingly influenced by British bands from the 1960s.

Damon Albarn (, ; born 23 March 1968) is an English musician.

He is the frontman and main lyricist of the rock band Blur and the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual band Gorillaz.

Raised in Whitechapel, East London, and around Colchester, Essex, Albarn attended the Stanway School, where he met the guitarist Graham Coxon, with whom he would later form Blur.

Albarn was born on 23 March 1968; he is the elder child of artist Keith Albarn and his wife Hazel, née Dring.

He has some Danish descent through his mother.

In 1968, at the age of six months, Albarn was a "testing expert" for designs for educational aids and toys for children including fibreglass furniture and play-structures fancifully called "The Kissmequiosk".

"The Apollo Cumfycraft" and "The Tailendcharlie" produced by his father's company "Keith Albarn & Partners Ltd" under the trade-name of "Playlearn, Ltd."

When Damon and Jessica were growing up, their family moved to Leytonstone, East London.

The household was described as "bohemian" and their upbringing as "liberal".

Damon and Jessica were also raised in the Quaker religion.

Albarn agreed with his parents' views, later claiming, "I always thought my parents were absolutely dead right. I went against the grain in a weird way – by continually following them."

His parents primarily listened to blues, Indian ragas and African music.

When Albarn was nine years old, his family took a holiday trip to Turkey for three months before settling in Aldham Fordstreet, Essex, an area described by Albarn as "one of those burgeoning Thatcher experiments where they were building loads of small estates".

The population of the area was predominantly white as opposed to the ethnically mixed part of London which he had become used to.

He described himself as "not really fitting in with the politics of the place."

Albarn was interested in music from an early age, attending an Osmonds concert at the age of six.

He started playing guitar, piano and violin in his youth and was interested in composing music, one of his compositions winning a heat in the nationwide Young Composer of the Year competition.

Their daughter Jessica, born in 1971, also went on to become an artist.

Hazel Albarn, originally from Lincolnshire, was a theatrical set designer for Joan Littlewood's theatre company at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London, and was working on the satirical play Mrs Wilson's Diary just before Damon was born.

Keith Albarn, originally from Nottinghamshire, was briefly the manager of Soft Machine and was once a guest on BBC's Late Night Line-Up.

He was head of the Colchester School of Art at Colchester Institute.

Damon's paternal grandfather Edward, an architect, had been a conscientious objector during the Second World War and was involved in a farming community in Lincolnshire, becoming a peace activist.

They released their debut album Leisure in 1991.

The result was the Blur albums Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995).

All three received critical acclaim, while Blur gained mass popularity in the UK, aided by a Britpop chart rivalry with Oasis.

Chart-topping albums such as Blur (1997), 13 (1999) and Think Tank (2003) incorporated influences from lo-fi, art rock, electronic and world music.

Albarn formed the virtual band Gorillaz in 1998 with the comic book artist Jamie Hewlett.

Drawing influences from hip hop, dub, pop, trip hop and world music, Gorillaz released their self-titled debut album in 2001 to worldwide success, spawning numerous successful follow-ups and continuing to release albums and tour into the 2020s.

Albarn remains the group's only consistent musical contributor.

His other notable projects include the supergroups the Good, the Bad & the Queen and Rocket Juice & the Moon.

He co-founded the non-profit musical organisation Africa Express and has composed film soundtracks.

In 2002 Edward Albarn died; Damon stated in an interview that Edward did not want to live any longer and decided to go on a hunger strike.

Albarn also scored the stage productions Monkey: Journey to the West (2008), Dr Dee (2012) and Wonder.land (2016).

In 2008, The Daily Telegraph named Albarn the 18th-most powerful person in British culture.

His debut solo album, Everyday Robots, was released in 2014, followed by The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows in 2021.

These were followed by The Magic Whip (2015), Blur's first studio album in 12 years, and The Ballad of Darren in 2023.

In 2016, Albarn received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to music.

In 2020, Albarn was granted Icelandic citizenship.