Blur
Parklife

THE REVIEW

November 1993: "Modern Life Is Rubbish," despite being praised by critics, turned out to be a commercial flop (during '93 it didn't exceed 40,000 copies). Blur are broke, so they begin working on a new album, even more motivated to highlight Englishness and reject grunge, to the point of wanting to feature a photo of Buckingham Palace on the cover.

By the end of January, they have in hand a handful of great tracks, which would go on to become one of the milestones of Britpop: "Parklife," released on April 25, 1994, was an enormous sales success (2 million copies in England), crowned by a slew of awards (just to mention, at the 1995 Brit Awards, they won 4 awards, a record still unbeaten). Why all this success? Surely it was due to a leap in quality: after the excellent but rather anti-commercial "Modern Life..." Blur refresh their sound, creating catchy and perfect tracks.

The album was anticipated three weeks after my birth by "Girls & Boys," the quintessential britpop-disco track alongside Pulp's "Common People." The radios immediately start playing it nonstop, and the single reaches #5 UK. When in early April various outlets like NME, Sunday Times, Select, and Loaded literally scream a miracle, calling the album a masterpiece. End of April: the album is released, shoots to number 1 on the UK charts, displacing Pink Floyd's "The Division Bell." It wouldn't budge from the UK charts until 1996.

The tracks contained are true gems, drawing inspiration from all the best music of the '60s/'70s and even '80s: in "Tracy Jacks," "End Of A Century," "Magic America" we can catch echoes of the Kinks and the more playful Beatles; "Bank Holiday" and "Jubilee" are 100% punk, with nonsensical lyrics and super-fast chords; we also have ballads, like "Badhead" and "To The End," exotic flares in "Lot 105," a march-like waltz ("The Debt Collector"), a bit of Devo-style electronica in "Trouble In The Message Centre." In the epic "This Is A Low" we can catch echoes of the more psychedelic and romantic Beatles (at times it reminds me of "A Day In The Life," I don't know why...)

But a note must be made for some tracks that define Blur's sound during 1994-1995: "Parklife," where semi-rapped verses with shamelessly cockney accent by Quadrophenia actor Phil Daniels coexist with an ultra-catchy chorus that sticks in your head. "Far Out" is sung by bassist Alex James, with sounds whose influences I can't define... the lyrics are composed only of constellation names (a bit like Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine"). I found the demo some time ago and I think it's a shame they changed the arrangement so radically: from punk to acoustic (in fact, alongside the voice there's only an organ and a guitar).

Even the tracks discarded from the lineup are extraordinary: there's a sister to "The Debt Collector" titled "The Anniversari Waltz"; there's the very bizarre "Magpie," where we catch the sounds of early Blur, quite Baggy and with a super-britpop chorus. The finale is a surprise: a crazy mess followed by a folksy part. "People in Europe" is a disco track in the style of "Girls & Boys," with lyrics composed of phrases in various European languages (including the Italian "Ciao Ciao Bella, Monaco") and a fun Pa Paa Pa Paa chorus. During these sessions Blur produced a jazz track, "Beard," where the skill of each individual member of the group comes to the fore more than in any of their other pieces.

Last note: in the booklet there are again the chords and lyrics of the tracks, this time written by hand on graph paper, receipts, hotel payment slips, and there's also the score for "The Debt Collector." One more reason to buy the original...!

Listen to this album, you won't regret it.