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Parklife

Blur - Parklife Audio CD

A fair review of the Blur "Parklife" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Blur reviews here, or go back to the Blur tabs.

Band: Blur
Title: Parklife
Rating:

Release Date: 1994-06-14
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Girls & Boys 2: Tracy Jacks 3: End of a Century 4: Parklife 5: Bank Holiday 6: Badhead 7: Debt Collector 8: Far Out 9: To the End 10: London Loves 11: Trouble in the Message Centre 12: Clover over Dover 13: Magic America 14: Jubilee 15: This Is a Low 16: Lot 105

Limey Tunes
Sixteen tracks of crafty such a much to lap your lugs in here at any rate and maybe even a morsel more when you consider that that's the great Phil Daniels there in the title song drinking a cuppa tea and feeding the pigeons. Moody sort of blighter is Damon Albarn but his particular brand of arty snark is easily forgiven when it's warbled within the insanely catchy and right sprightly arrangements of Graham Coxon and company. Sometimes the sparrows too, bless his heart. Touch of the Ray Davies about Parklife I shouldn't wonder and none the worse for all that. Nice one in Ninety Four and a nice one yet.

Parklife
Another amazing track is "This is a Low". Parklife being blur's 1994 release and their 3rd studio album was a huge hit in the UK and peaked at #1 in the UK album charts and had such great singles such as "Girls & Boys", "End of a Century", "To the End". The booklet is a mixed bag. The photograph on the front is nice with the racing dogs. For each track listing we get a list of whom plays what. All the lyrics are also included along with the guitar chords for the track. 5/5.

No stars
First of all, it's annoying. Never in my life have i heard such a terrible album. Second of all, it's boring. It's not trendy, not unique. . . i can't find anything good about it. I picked it for $10 and i want my money back. I was hyped up about getting into Blur, hearing top stuff about them, but this was just a horrible experience. I'm not picky with music either. . . i barely throw back anything, and i listen to a huge variety of music including alternative rock, punk, ambient, electronic music, acoustic music, electronic music, doom/drone metal, jazz, blues, funk, rap, JEEZ the list goes on and i hope to never hear Blur again.

The beginning of Brit Pop.
One thing for certain, there is at least some good reason to believe that Brit Pop is somewhat reactionary, as an antidote to the imported grunge rock coming from the states, and the general "Americana" that had suddenly eclipsed what was by all accounts a major British music movement that never seemed to reach stateside with the intensity it had in England, that being Madchester, representative of bands like Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Farm, Flowered Up, and the New Fast Automatic Daffodils, among others. It seems I have some explaining to do right from the get go: for all those who claim that Blur's Parklife is the beginning of Brit Pop, there are just as many--maybe more--who would place this "movement" if not squarely at the release of Suede's first album, or even Oasis' "Definitely Maybe", then surely the its inception is more vague, consisting of a slow build, and based upon several releases and a general change in attitude. Even the first Blur album, "Leisure", was to some degree associated with the Manchester sound.

But truth be told, the naissance of Brit Pop belongs to all of the above. As with any "movement" there are all sorts of reasons converging and catalysts a plenty. Nevertheless, I hold steadfast in my assertion: Parklife is the Beginning of Brit Pop. But why? Why not other bands, or even previous releases by Blur? Surely Modern Life is Rubbish should be considered! It is, after all, quintessentially English if not more than a little anti-American. But if Brit Pop is to be remembered as more than a one dimensional idea qua philosophy replete with an attitude, style, and general mode of being its crystallization must be found in once source, and that source is Parklife.

Unlike previous Blur albums and certainly the other great albums by Brit Pop's elite, Parklife mixes its metaphors and is an interpretive history of all that is and has been noteworthy within popular British history: Mod, Punk, Northern soul (subtly its there), James Bond cool, Pub dirge, a show tunes a la Noel Coward. And with guest appearance from Phil Daniels of "Quadrophenia" fame, as well as L�titia Sadier from Stereo Lab (never mind she's French) it marked itself as a timeless as well as timely remark on why it was much cooler to turn on to a style that was ostensibly slick as opposed to turn off and be disenfranchised and angry, or maybe indifferent, which was what, essentially, American music was offering--or at least it seemed that way at the time. Whereas the Seattle scene was donning flannel and ratty jeans, Brit Pop was about wearing trainers, football jerseys, and haircuts. It sounds superficial now, but if you were listening to The Smiths, The Bunnymen, etc. in the eighties, then the Manchester and Shoegaze bands of the late eighties/early nineties, American grunge was disappointing.

But all this is not to trivialize Blur or Brit Pop. It was, and is, certainly not just a style without substance. To the contrary, its substance and content are rooted in its context, and Parklife is the seminal expression of the convergence of all of this. In short, Parklife discloses the mood and feel, dare I say optimism, of the early to mid-nineties.

Listen to it with an old copy of the NME, Melody Maker, or a Select, and you will know what I'm talking about!

.

one of blur's best
Quite honestly, playing this album makes you want to like. . Walk through the streets of the UK toting your guitar case headed towards band practice while wearing your union jack bearing leather jacket in the chilly november air. It's inspiring. While listening to it, you're wishing you could make music like this. I love blur. I think it's always been a close tie between them and oasis, but blur always comes out on top because of Albarn's voice. Definitely one of the best albums of the 90s, definitely one of the best in my personal collection, and definitely one of blur's best. you get this, you won't regret it and you'll play it everyday for about 2 months.

You can see a complete list of all Blur discography, or go back to the Blur tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.