Blur在1989年组建于伦敦，最初起名为Seymour. 经过了大量的演出并录制了一盘样带后，乐队签约于EMI的子公司--Food唱片，并在公司负责人的建议下将更名为Blur。

第一首单曲 "She's So High" 和随后的There's No Other Way 分别登上Top 50和Top Ten。这两首歌都被收录到首张专辑 Leisure 中。虽然这张专辑受到了赞许并未当时死气沉沉的曼彻斯特的流行乐坛带来了新鲜空气，一些记者仍然认为乐队是包装出来的青春偶像而不予理睬。在随后的两年中，Blur 一直在努力摆脱第一张专辑的影子。

在1992年推出的单曲 " Pop Scene " 是 Blur 第一次尝试改变他们的音乐路线。这首歌的风格更加朋克，曲调更加紧凑和吸引人。不过 Blur 在 " Pop Scene " 中的成长并不适合英美1992年的流行风格，因而遭受惨败。随着单曲在商业上的失败，Blur开始准备他们的第二张专辑Modern Life Is Rubbish。

经过了一年半的反复录制，Modern Life Is Rubbish在1993年五月推出，秋季在美国上市。这张专辑在英国受到好评，最高排名15，好评如潮，但艺术的成就并不与商业的成功成正比，大碟还是没能受大众的赏识，即使当中没有多少热门曲目，虽然销量平平，这张唱片仍不失为Blur的开山之作，风格昭然。

Modern Life Is Rubbish是Blur出片史上的一次艰难旅程。

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

As a response to the dominance of grunge in the U.K. and their own decreasing profile in their homeland -- and also as a response to Suede's sudden popularity -- Blur reinvented themselves with their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish, abandoning the shoegazing and baggy influences that dominated Leisure for traditional pop. On the surface, Modern Life may appear to be an homage to the Kinks, David Bowie, the Beatles, and Syd Barrett, yet it isn't a restatement, it's a revitalization. Blur use British guitar pop from the Beatles to My Bloody Valentine as a foundation, spinning off tales of contemporary despair. If Damon Albarn weren't such a clever songwriter, both lyrically and melodically, Modern Life could have sunk under its own pretensions, and the latter half does drag slightly. However, the record teems with life, since Blur refuse to treat their classicist songs as museum pieces. Graham Coxon's guitar tears each song open, either with unpredictable melodic lines or layers of translucent, hypnotic effects, and his work creates great tension with Alex James' kinetic bass. And that provides Albarn a vibrant background for his social satires and cutting commentary. But the reason Modern Life Is Rubbish is such a dynamic record and ushered in a new era of British pop is that nearly every song is carefully constructed and boasts a killer melody, from the stately "For Tomorrow" and the punky "Advert" to the vaudeville stomp of "Sunday Sunday" and the neo-psychedelic "Chemical World." Even with its flaws, it's a record of considerable vision and excitement. [The American version of Modern Life Is Rubbish substitutes the demo version of "Chemical World" for the studio version on the British edition. It also adds the superb single "Pop Scene" before the final song, "Resigned."]