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James was referring to Blur’s 2023 reunion, which included two sold-out Wembley Stadium concerts and the release of their latest album, The Ballad of Darren. Despite initially planning a hiatus at the end of 2023, Blur extended their comeback to headline Coachella 2024 after reportedly making the decision in just five minutes. Their Wembley shows drew 150,000 fans, and was released as an album this summer, proving that Britpop’s legacy remains strong.

Moyles pressed James further, asking whether Blur’s success inspired Liam and Noel Gallagher to reunite. James responded diplomatically, noting the difficulty of maintaining relationships in bands, especially between siblings. “I’m always reading statistics about how many marriages end in divorce… They’re brothers as well. I’m genuinely delighted for them, and I genuinely won’t be going.”  

James’ comments come against the backdrop of Blur and Oasis’ definitive rivalry, which peaked in 1995 when Blur’s ‘Country House’ and Oasis’ ‘Roll With It’ famously went head-to-head for the number-one spot on the UK charts. Oasis mocked Blur’s victory at the time, but decades later, the relationship between the bands appears to have mellowed. Liam Gallagher even tweeted in October 2024, “I love Blur and at some point we need to do an old dears tour.”

I love blur and at sone point we have to do n old dears tours — Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) October 4, 2024

Blur drummer Dave Rowntree seems to echo this newfound camaraderie. Speaking after his defeat in the 2024 General Election, where he ran as Labour’s candidate for Mid Sussex, Rowntree said he’d be first in line for Oasis tickets. Guitarist Graham Coxon, in an interview with The Sun, praised the reunion, calling it “good for them and good for fans.”

Damon Albarn, Blur’s frontman, has remained silent on the topic since Oasis announced their tour. However, in summer 2023, he confidently predicted the reunion, saying the path for it was clear. 

Oasis’ reunion, announced in August 2024, has generated massive demand. Tickets for their 14-date tour sold out almost instantly, though controversy erupted over Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing, with some fans paying as much as £350 per ticket. Labour MP Rupa Huq has brought the issue to Parliament, with the second hearing of a proposed bill addressing ticket pricing set for tomorrow.

Hot off the press!

Due for debate this Friday

A Bill to make provision about transparency of ticket prices for sporting and cultural events; and for connected purposes.https://t.co/AlBGXyl9n2 pic.twitter.com/BRVAULv5fn

— Rupa Huq MP (@RupaHuq) December 4, 2024

Blur and Oasis both capitalised on nostalgia as a driving force behind their comebacks. With streaming revenue dwindling in the music industry, reunions offer bands a lucrative alternative to releasing new music. Reports suggest that the Gallaghers could earn over £50 million each from the tour, which is expected to gross £400 million.

For fans, these reunions offer a chance to relive the 1990s—a golden age defined by the rise of Britpop. As Blur’s Wembley success proved, audiences are still eager to connect with the music that shaped a generation. And with Oasis’ last performance dating back 15 years, the reunion opens the door for a new generation of fans to experience their music live.

While James’ “genuinely won’t be going” remark hints that not all rivalries are fully buried, the Oasis reunion represents a moment of celebration for fans and a symbolic end to one of Britpop’s fiercest feuds.

Coxon, in an interview with Mojo, explained that the sound and direction on the album was a very deliberate stepping back from the pop sound that made the band a leading force in Britpop and that Albarn agreed to the guitarist’s wishes to tap into preferences that he had harboured for some time.

Recalling the period and writing the album, Coxon said, “I decided to write a letter to Damon because I wasn’t confident enough to broach conversations about my needs. It was something like: ‘I’d like to start scaring people again, because at the start, we were into unease, songs like ‘Oily Water’ and ‘Resigned’. Let’s make a bloody row, and have fun.’ I didn’t get much of a reaction, but Damon did give me the steering wheel a little more. I think he was sympathetic, and keen, for everyone to express themselves, and for me to have moments to mess around with noise. I wanted to see what the guitar could do without much intervention from me.”

Speaking about how he felt Blur were painted into a Britpop corner, Coxon added, “we felt forced into this strange Britpop thing, which we had nothing to do with, but I suppose we tried to kill any stink of Britpop from our clothes and move away from our beloved Kinks – though there was still Bowie, because of Damon and [producer] Stephen Street. I think we found our own heavy psychedelia, rather than staying with Toad-of-Toad-Hall psychedelia.”

Despite initial fears by both the band and their label EMI, that the album would alienate their strong fanbase, Blur climbed the UK charts to reach top spot. The album was one of the band’s most successful in their catalogue and remains one of the band’s personal favourites.

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The 58-year-old artist has spoken on his new haunting song, “When I was in my early 20s, in Colchester, I would start to see the number 126 everywhere. I lived at a house that was 126, I’d get a bus that was 126. It felt to me that the universe was trying to alert my attention to 126 for some reason, even though the rational part of me knew that that was b*******.”

Rowntree continues to discuss the track’s inspiration, “So, ‘London Bridge’ was one of those. Things just started happening when I was near London Bridge, or going past on the bus, or on the tube going underneath London Bridge. I would just notice events occurring, and it was slightly unsettling. I had to confront my London Bridge demons and that’s what the song is about.”

The artist continued to discuss his new solo career, “I’m really excited to release my first single as a solo artist. It’s from a body of work that I’ve been putting together over the last couple of years, and I’m humbled to be releasing it on the legendary Cooking Vinyl label.”

Fellow Blur bandmember Damon Albarn previously gave an interview which set the rumour mill into motion when he alluded to a possible union. The Britpop icons last toured together in 2015 when they embarked on a concert series in support of The Magic Whip, the band’s comeback album was released in 2015 and was their first release in twelve years. However, the group have reunited prior, in 2019 the “Parklife” band performed live in Albarn’s hometown of Leytonstone.

Within the discussion, Albarn was asked if this was the end of Blur, the singer replied, “Not At All”. The Gorillaz co-founder continued to discuss the band’s future, “I am just about to have a conversation with people about Blur and I would love to sing all those songs again. I miss the songs. I miss playing with Blur.”

Guitarist Graham Coxon has also spoken about a possible reunion, “That’s always been the thing with Blur – they’ll do it when they really need to and not for any other reason. It doesn’t really seem genuine to just get back together and just do gigs for a bit of spondage. We need to have some sort of focus for how we would work.”

“London Bridge” has been released across all major streaming services and serves as the first taste of Rowntree’s upcoming album.  Although the artist’s hotly anticipated album has yet to be given a release date, fans are eager to hear the rest of Rowntree’s solo material.

Most will be familiar with Blur’s meteoric rise to fame in the Britpop era. Which saw Coxon’s guitar playing prowess earn him a spot in pop music history. Yet we should all know now that what comes with fame and fortune isn’t always pretty. A press release for the book reads; “Among the noise and clamour of the Britpop era, Blur co-founder Graham Coxon managed to carve out a niche to become one of the most innovative and respected guitarists of his generation – but it wasn’t always easy. Graham grew up as an Army kid, moving frequently in his early years from West Germany to Derbyshire and Winchester before settling in Colchester, Essex. A shy child, he had a thing for eating soil and drawing intense visions; his anxiety was tempered by painting and a growing love of music.”

Verse, Chorus, Monster!

The long-awaited memoir from guitarist, visual artist and Blur co-founder, Graham Coxon.

Out 6th October, pre-order nowhttps://t.co/bU6FXJHzvS pic.twitter.com/srWMnLqvJ1

— graham coxon (@grahamcoxon) June 7, 2022

The release adds; “These twin passions grew into obsessions, and as he honed his artistic skill at school, Goldsmiths and beyond, his band with school friend Damon Albarn, fellow student Alex James, and a drummer called Dave Rowntree began to get noticed. But there are things they don’t tell you before you get famous. There are monsters out there. And some may even be lurking inside yourself.”

These days Coxon has embarked on a new chapter with his musical duo The WAEVE. Featuring Rose Elinor Dougall who once played with The Pipettes and has collaborated with Mark Ronson.

Ahead of their launch gig at the Lexington on the 4^th of May 2022, the band said; “We are greatly looking forward to unleashing our new sound live at the Lexington. We’ve been locked away, busy translating the varied sounds of our songs into a dynamic live show, with the help of some great musician friends. We invite you to surrender to the world of The WAEVE.”

You can have a listen to The Waeve’s first single “Something Pretty” in the video below;

The new album, You’ve Always Been Here, comprises of 11 covers, from Matt Bellamy’s fragment of ‘We’ll Meet Again’ to the wall of sound that is ‘Love’s Gone Bad’. The group carries Northern Soul into a new dimension, full of electric guitars, feedback, and the combined talent of musicians at the very top of their game.

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YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN HERE IS OUT NOW We hope you all love it! Grateful for all your support up until this moment. Buy your copy of #YouveAlwaysBeenHere through the link in our bio!

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In case you missed it, The Jaded Hearts Club are a supergroup in every single sense of the word. They have the most stellar line-up – Miles Kane (The Last Shadow Puppets) and Nic Cester (Jet) as joint frontmen, Graham Coxon (Blur) and Jamie Davis playing guitar, Matt Bellamy (Muse) on bass and Sean Payne (the Zutons) as the drummer. Sometimes Abi Harding (The Zutons) joins them on the saxophone.

To prove it, The Jaded Hearts Club released a series of singles leading up to this release: ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ (see below), ‘This Love Starved Heart Of Mine (It’s Killing Me)’ and ‘Love’s Gone Bad’. It seems fair to say that all the energy and glamour of The Jaded Hearts Club is found among these three singles; while the rest of the album tracks are exciting, they don’t have the explosive enthusiasm of their early singles. They come with energetic, lockdown-appropriate, black-and-white music videos, and Matt Bellamy in different but equally intriguing Rule Britannia-esque accessories. It’s all very, very cool.

Following these, You’ve Always Been Here has the best intentions in the world. The band’s desire to reinvent Northern Soul is overpowering and infectious, and you can sense how eager they were to find out what their combined talents could do. A lot, is the answer. Sometimes it completely hits the mark. Sometimes, though, it falls flat, stripping the covers of their unique qualities, leaving behind something that is undeniably very talented, but a little soulless.

Ultimately the album is technically impressive, but it wants for a sense of cohesion. In many ways so does the group themselves; the six (sometimes seven) strong and talented personalities sort of blur together. There is absolutely no doubt that this group could tackle any song in the world with spades of ability, but You’ve Always Been Here could probably have done with a bit more of a story. The Jaded Hearts Club are easily the greatest cover band in the world, but we don’t quite know what makes them tick.

All three of the album’s singles are particular highlights, as are Nic Cester’s ‘Long and Lonesome Road’ and ‘I Put a Spell on You’. To my mind, this is the version of the line-up which delivers the most. Nic Cester doing the vocals, accompanied by powerful percussion and the familiar wind instruments of Northern Soul feels like the group’s greatest strength – and where they’re strong, they’re unstoppable.

Since 2017, the group have shared powerful, covers of everything from the Beatles (their starting point) to The Isley Brothers. According to Rough Trade, Davis wanted a Beatles band to play for his birthday. He’s quoted as saying: “I knew a bunch of 1/2 decent musician friends so I asked if they’d form an early ‘60s Beatles band. Everyone had such a good time that we decided to do it again.” Their website declares that they “have been described as the ultimate Beatles cover band.”

Surely, in one of those dream dinner party games (six people on your ideal dinner table, dead or alive, you know the drill) you couldn’t come up with a better line-up. What we really want from The Jaded Hearts Club, though, is a bit of purpose – we all know that there’s a niche for them in this current moment, but none of us know why. When they do show us exactly what 21^st century Northern Soul can do, it’s completely unforgettable.

Supergroup is absolutely the right term for the combined talent of Miles Kane (The Last Shadow Puppets) and Nic Cester (Jet) as joint frontmen, Graham Coxon (Blur) and Jamie Davis playing guitar, Matt Bellamy (Muse) on bass and Sean Payne (the Zutons) as the drummer. Sometimes Abi Harding (The Zutons) joins them on the saxophone. Musically, they are as fantastic as you’d hope – Kane and Cester have different but extremely powerful voices, and the rest of the band make their instruments look and sound like a natural extension of themselves.

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OCTOBER 2ND. PRE-ORDER NOW YouveAlwaysBeenHere link in bio.

A post shared by The Jaded Hearts Club (@thejadedheartsclub) on Aug 17, 2020 at 5:10am PDT

Currently, we’ve only seen the group publish covers – mainly incredible, stripped back, guitar-based versions of Northern soul classics. There is rumour of original music, and they play all sorts at their infamous live shows, but it doesn’t look like any of this will feature on their debut album. For now, having the band re-invigorate Northern soul classics is more than good enough! The singles they’ve released in 2020 include versions of ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ (July), ‘This Love Starved Heart of Mine (It’s Killing Me)’ (April) and short little version of ‘We’ll Meet Again’, sung by Matt Bellamy.

Regarding their newest track, Kane called it: “‘Love’s Gone Bad’, a rare northern soul stomper that we dug from the underground. We beefed it up and gave it golden wings with matching loafers! Be prepared to dance!” 

The video is so cool – it’s all in black and white, set in London’s Moth Club, and Matt Bellamy is wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. It’ll have you dancing, spinning, and probably online shopping for loafers and corduroy trousers. Mainly it’s Kane dancing with a partner. The other band members do show up though, playing their instruments while Kane and his partner leap about, spectacularly in time with each other. Although, of course, The Jaded Hearts Club offer a rock-based take on Northern soul, the video is very much in the spirit of the 1960s dancehalls where the genre really took off.

The group formed in 2017. According to Rough Trade, Davis wanted a Beatles band to play for his birthday, and he’s quoted as saying: “I knew a bunch of 1/2 decent musician friends so I asked if they’d form an early ‘60s Beatles band. Everyone had such a good time that we decided to do it again.” In 2019 they recorded a live album at London’s iconic ‘The 100 Club’. Their website declares that they “have been described as the ultimate Beatles cover band.”

It’s not so long to wait for their album now – but you should know that the 12” version, on marble patterned vinyl, is already sold out for pre-orders! The Jaded Hearts Club are so fantastically energetic, even these three-minute videos feel like a true taste of what they’re like live. Hopefully there will be more of that to come, following the release of You’ve Always Been Here.