Just over 20 years ago, this was British music’s big Battle of the Bands. Did you favour the Cockney college charm of Blur, or did you prefer the sweary Mancunian bluster of Oasis? Blur were the more imaginative and experimental of the two acts, but Oasis had a distinct edge brought about in part by their unshatterable self-belief. In recent years, Damon Albarn has remained a touchstone for musical invention, while Noel Gallagher has retained his drive, passion and ability to deliver on stage. The first section of this quiz spotlights Blur and Damon’s solo projects, while the second focuses on Oasis and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. See which one nets you the most points – and then you can answer the question above.
Answers: here
1 Alongside Damon Albarn, who are the three other founding members of Blur? (3)
2 Which independent label signed Blur to their first recording contract? At the time, what was the band’s name, which they changed at the label’s insistence? (2)
3 What was Blur’s first single? (1)
4 What was the one title given to Damon Albarn’s two live albums in 2014, featuring tracks from his various projects? At which venue were the albums recorded? (2)
5 Which Blur song follows BBC Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast map around Britain? Where, on this journey, did they run into traffic? (2)
6 Which actor provided the Cockney narration on ‘Parklife’? (1)
7 What’s the title of the first Damon Albarn album to be released under his own name? Which west London neighbour appears on a couple of tracks and is also credited with ‘additional production’? (2)
8 Which Blur single pipped Oasis’s ‘Roll with It’ to number one in August 1995? What’s the band’s only other chart-topping single, released in 1997? (2)
9 Which producer was brought in to record 13, Blur’s sixth album? (1)
10 What’s the full title of the 2007 opera co-created by Damon Albarn and based on the Chinese legend of the Monkey King? And what was Albarn’s 2011 opera about a famous Elizabethan astronomer, mathematician and mystic? (2)
11 Among Blur’s catalogue of singles, what distinction is held by ‘Coffee and TV’? The video for the song features an animated object searching for Blur’s guitarist: what’s the object? (2)
12 Jamie Hewlett, Damon Albarn’s main collaborator in Gorillaz, found fame as the co-creator of which comic character? (1)
13 Which singer, hip hop band and actor provided vocals for, respectively, ‘Kids with Guns’, ‘Feel Good Inc’ and ‘Fire Coming out of the Monkey’s Head’ on Gorillaz’s album Demon Days? (3)
14 What’s the title of the video documentary about Blur that was released in 2010? And which song was released on a limited-edition single for Record Store Day just a couple of months later? (2)
15 Which American hip hop legend helped Gorillaz introduce us to the world of ‘Plastic Beach’ at the beginning of the 2010 album of the same name? (1)
16 The Good, the Bad and the Queen saw Damon Albarn collaborate with Tony Allen, Paul Simonon and Simon Tong. Allen was the drummer with which pioneering African musician? Simonon played bass for which prominent punk band? And Tong was the guitarist in which successful Britpop act? (3)
17 What name was adopted by Liam Gallagher and the other members of Oasis after Noel left in 2009? (1)
18 What instrument did Mark Feltham of Nine Below Zero contribute to tracks on Be Here Now and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants? (1)
19 Which Oasis album was voted the greatest record of all time in a 2006 NME poll? (1)
20 Alongside the Gallagher brothers, who were the three original members of Oasis that featured on their 1994 debut album? Who later joined the group as drummer, in 1995, and bass player, in 1999? (5)
21 Which Hollywood star is credited with playing slide guitar on ‘Fade In-Out’, featured on Oasis’s third album Be Here Now? (1)
22 Who played keyboards on Oasis’s Heathen Chemistry and later joined Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds? (1)
23 What was the second album released by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, a UK chart-topper in 2015? (1)
24 Which former Manchester City star features on the cover of Definitely Maybe? And which spaghetti Western is playing on the TV? (2)
25 How many studio albums have Oasis released? (1)
26 Name Oasis’s eight British number-one singles. (8)
27 What’s the title of Oasis’s only live album, recorded at Wembley in 2000 and released later the same year? And what’s the title of their singles compilation, released in 2010? (2)
28 Which venue staged two huge Oasis concerts in 1996, the biggest crowd (125,000) ever assembled for a single gig? (1)
29 After criticism from Noel Gallagher about the fact that he’d been booked to headline the festival, who opened his 2008 Glastonbury set with ‘Wonderwall’? (1)
30 Noel Gallagher has children by both of his wives: what are the ladies’ names? And which comedian/actor/broadcaster was the best man at his second wedding? (3)