The Ballad of Darren

Albarn wrote the songs in 2022 while touring with Gorillaz, and by New Year's Eve he had 24. The opening track, The Ballad, reworks Half a Song, a demo he recorded in 2003 during the Think Tank tour and released on his Democrazy EP. Blur began recording at Studio 13 in London and in Devon in January 2023 with producer James Ford, and finished in the first week of May. Albarn called it the first legitimate Blur album since 13, because they made it together in the room.

The title refers to Darren Evans, known as Smoggy, the band's bodyguard, who now works for Albarn. The cover is a 2004 Martin Parr photograph of a man swimming alone in the Gourock Outdoor Pool in Scotland. At under 40 minutes it is their shortest album.

It was released on 21 July 2023 on Parlophone and Warner Records and went to number one in the UK. It was also number one in Belgium, Ireland, Scotland and Switzerland, and reached 8 on the US Top Album Sales chart. Metacritic gives it 84. Mojo ranked it first among the albums of 2023 and NME put it tenth. Pitchfork's Jazz Monroe gave it 7.2 and called it the prettiest and tightest of their nine albums. The singles were The Narcissist, St. Charles Square and Barbaric.