FEATURE:
“Confidence Is a Preference for the Habitual Voyeur of What Is Known As…”
ALL IMAGES/PHOTOS (unless credited otherwise): Getty Images/Press
Parklife at Twenty-Five: Blur’s Timeless Masterpiece
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THERE are a few anniversaries happening this year...
that make me feel very old indeed! U.S. sitcom Friends turns twenty-five on 22nd September and The Simpsons is thirty on 17th December. I remember watching the pilot of The Simpsons at the age of six and being moved by this very strange and wonderful show. The same sort of emotion came over me when Friends came to the British airwaves and, soon enough, it became a fixture of my life. The fact that both iconic shows get a big celebration in 2019 does make me nostalgic…but there was a distinct period of culture that spawned these great shows and moments! Alongside the great T.V. that was around in the late-1980s and the 1990s, music was really starting to inspire. Music was always inspiring but there was this same period of time when things radically changed. Think of Blur and, for most of us, the first album of theirs that springs to mind is Parklife. I have a lot of affection for their debut, Leisure (1991), and it spawned baggy wonders such as There’s No Other Way and She’s So High. The album is wonderful but many suspected Blur had better in them. By the time Modern Life Is Rubbish arrived in 1993, the band upped their games. The record was more ambitious than the debut and, with songs like For Tomorrow and Sunday Sunday among the pack, more critics were taking them seriously.
IN THIS PHOTO: Blur in 1994
Modern Life Is Rubbish is Blur’s first masterpiece and found them abandon the cores of their debut and going in with huge ambition. You could tell the band were throwing it all into the mix and had that immense sense of purpose. By the time Parklife arrived a year later, they were making waves and created a bigger, funnier and sexier version of their sophomore release. I cannot think about Blur’s path and triumph without mentioning Britpop and Oasis. Many people might cringe and balk – as many feel Britpop was overrated and a bit nauseating – but I love the battle between these two bands. Oasis made their debut later in 1994 with Definitely Maybe and it began one of the greatest rivalries of modern times – hitting a peak around 1995 and, by 1997, Blur had overtaken Oasis in terms of quality - and they survive to this very day. 1994 was a magical year and, whereas Manchester’s Oasis came in with a bombastic and anthemic tunes to get us together, Blur had their own design and intention. There was so much going on in 1994 – American Grunge was still raging – and there was this feeling of togetherness and making music that hit the heart – it seems so long ago since we had that joy and spirit in music! Blur’s lead, Damon Albarn, started writing prolifically after Modern Life Is Rubbish and you could tell the master was in inspired form.
Blur headed into the studio with the legendary Stephen Street to record their third album. Songs came together quickly and there was a feeling, quite rightly, that something special was happening. Aside from the complexity of This Is a Low, the band had no trouble getting the songs down; there were splits between the label and Blur regarding the quality and potential of Parklife. The career of Blur would mutate and evolve after 1994/1995 and embrace new sounds and directions. Parklife is the epicentre of their cheekiness, coolness and majesty. Across sixteen tracks, Blur run a gamut of emotions and tell these unique and captivating stories. From the anthemic Girls & Boys – Albarn writing about the lack of morals and rampant sex that occurred at spots like Ibiza; a sense of recklessness and abandon – through to the divine, sweeping This Is a Low…Parklife is a masterpiece! I was stunned by the album back in 1994 but I am picking up new elements twenty-five years later. It is utterly wonderful and engrossing from the very first notes to the last.
There is a nice balance between the funny/upbeat and the more mature. Tracy Jacks has that bounce and endless charm whereas End of a Century weirdly prefaced the lure and dominance of technology against romance – Albarn noticing how couples were more interested in watching T.V. endlessly than actually connecting. Parklife, with the epic commentary from actor Phil Daniels, is one of the true standouts. Endlessly quotable and sing-along, it is a song that has been used, parodied and rhapsodised since 1994. Albarn came up with the song, apparently, when living in London and watching joggers and pigeons go by. You can imagine Albarn wandering around parks and being compelled by all the buses, people and scenes going by. Parklife is so relatable now and, as I walk around London, you could soundtrack various streets and interactions with songs from Parklife. It is not exclusively British in its tones and themes but, at a time when this country is divided and cracked, an album like this snapshots a time when we were together and there was greater hope lingering in the breeze!
You listen to the song and picture all these scenes; the everyday and comical alongside one another. It is a classic track and one of many on Parklife. The album’s first half is its finest and exhausting. Bank Holiday, Badhead and The Debt Collector complete a woozy, exhilarating and packed opening half. The first track is about Bank Holidays and the barbeques, neighbours and working-class scenes. It is a thrilling rush and insatiable song that, again, has plenty of wit, evocative imagery and tangible familiarity. Badhead is more sombre and introspective: a tale, seemingly, of cross words and regrets after an argument; the need to correct things but there being this sense of stalemate and confusion. The Debt Collector is an instrumental that swoons and staggers and, after so much rouse and words, it is a nice break and, actually, quite a strong track. There are a couple of tracks on the second half that are not up to the standard of the other cuts. Far Out is Alex James’ (the band’s bassist) look at the stars and the galaxies; a bit too weird and far-out-there to connect and resonate. Clover Over Dover is a little slight whereas Lot 105 is a terrible way to end the album. If it should have been included – there must have been better songs in the vault than this throwaway song?! - then bury it towards the middle! This Is a Low is a perfect, emotional way to end Parklife…but it is undercut and cheapened by a silly song like Lot 105.
In any case, there are some gems and underrated jewels that continue the pace and take Blur into new territory. Trouble in the Message Centre is often overlooked but it is a great track and one that gets into the head; London Loves has a terrific bounce and catchiness abound; Magic America is glistening and gorgeous. If the opening half had the stellar Girls & Boys, Parklife and End of a Century, the second half has the stunning To the End and This Is a Low. With its gorgeous orchestration and giddy waltz, To the End investigates a bad patch in a relationship and a couple trying to get through things. Parklife is synonymous with the polemic of humour and joy marked against the tender, bombshell moments that one would not expect from such a young band. The depth and range of the material is clear and riding high in the mix if the should-be-swansong, This Is a Low. The song started as an instrumental and there were various attempts at cementing the composition. Albarn was struggling to come up with lyrics and the breakthrough was tricky. Alex James revealed that he bought Albarn a handkerchief with a map of the shipping forecast regions on it. Oddly, this quirky gift compelled the lyrics and gave This Is a Low new dimensions and multiple layers – using meteorology and the weather to describe personal loss and split.
Aside from embracing the mood of the time and capturing something wonderful in the Blur camp, there is not really a concept running through Parklife. I guess there is a sense of Britishness and, in some ways, interwoven stories that takes us behind bedroom doors and over garden walls. The lyrics jump from these charming little scenes of parties and raves to the rawer edges where relationships are destroyed and lives changed. Blur covered a multitude of lyrics and the range of compositions is dizzying. There is Waltz, Punk and Pop and, when you consider the finest songs on Parklife – This Is a Low and To the End, for example– they seem to come much more from Damon Albarn’s personal space and situation rather than a general observation of British life. We often associate albums of the time (and Britpop) with a joyfulness and spritz but bands like Blur were producing these emotional and affecting songs that dug much deeper than mere fun and frivolity. This is one of the reasons why Parklife has picked up such a legacy: its balance of moods, emotions and themes. I think the album will continue to grow and amaze people decades from now!
PHOTO CREDIT: Terry O'Neill/Iconic Images/Getty Images
In 2007, AllMusic reviewed Parklife and provided their take:
“The legions of jangly, melodic bands that followed in the wake of Parklife revealed how much more complex Blur's vision was. Not only was their music precisely detailed -- sound effects and brilliant guitar lines pop up all over the record -- but the melodies elegantly interweaved with the chords, as in the graceful, heartbreaking "Badhead." Surprisingly, Albarn, for all of his cold, dispassionate wit, demonstrates compassion that gives these songs three dimensions, as on the pathos-laden "End of a Century," the melancholy Walker Brothers tribute "To the End," and the swirling, epic closer, "This Is a Low." For all of its celebration of tradition, Parklife is a thoroughly modern record in that it bends genres and is self-referential (the mod anthem of the title track is voiced by none other than Phil Daniels, the star of Quadrophenia). And, by tying the past and the present together, Blur articulated the mid-'90s Zeitgeist and produced an epoch-defining record”.
Pitchfork gave their views in a 2012 review:
“Parklife is the masterpiece of this era. Pop-art bright, stingingly funny, and at times suddenly poignant, it remains the defining artifact of Britpop. It's a nationalistic record in the same way Born in the USA is a nationalistic record: It might look like sloganeering patriotism if viewed from outer space, but up close it's a finely detailed, intricately cracked document of a very particular national malaise. The disco smirk "Girls & Boys" (propelled by one of Alex James' best basslines) finds its hedonistic vacationers "avoiding all work, 'cause there's none available," while the tragicomic "Tracy Jacks" sketches a lonely civil servant who goes quietly mad. With humor, pathos, and nostalgia, Parklife tells of a modern world where dreams have been boxed in by materialism, conformity and routine, and even the once-space-age future has lost its sparkle. "End of the century," Albarn shrugs over Coxon's minor chords. "It's nothing special."
The millions-selling, Brit-Award-sweeping Parklife was also the record that made Blur into bona fide pop stars, a role that some members embraced more readily than others. "I made a point of drinking two bottles of champagne a day for 18 months," is how bassist Alex James remembers 1994. "England only imports something like 100,000 bottles a year, so I reckon I drank 1% of England's total champagne import." At that point Coxon was, arguably, drinking even more, but without the joie de vivre; instead, he was increasingly uncomfortable with the band's success”.
There is a lot of debate as to which album of the 1990s is the best but everyone has to consider Parklife when compiling a top-ten. Many see the album as the definition of Britpop but Parklife is much deeper and more interesting than that. There have been articles celebrating and marking Parklife’s genius and influence through the years. As it is about to hit twenty-five, there will be new appraisal and retrospection. This article from Time five years ago argued that Parklife was a misunderstood album that was much more than Cool Britannia and this zeitgeist feeling that was circulating in Britain:
“For all that Parklife is the work of a young band — “the mind gets dirty as it gets closer to thirty,” one line goes, with the big three-oh still seeming like a distant destination — it’s a remarkably confident, even cocky album. (A line from critic David Quantick about the Beatles recording Revolver and realizing “we are young and we can do anything” — that combination of talent and the invincibility of youth — comes to mind.) But Parklife is also a kind one, as well. “We all say, don’t want to be alone” Albarn sings in “End of A Century.” In “This Is A Low,” he sings of melancholy as something that can bring comfort: “It won’t hurt you/ When you’re alone, it will be there with you…
PHOTO CREDIT: Shinko Music/Hulton Archive/1994 Shinko Music
“Even the album’s “comedy” songs show empathy towards their target characters. “Jubilee” is an outsider hated by all, who would love to be accepted but “no-one told him” how to do it, or where to go. For all that the Blur of this era would be attacked for being too arch and unemotional, Parklife is as warm and inviting as anything Oasis (or any other Britpop band) released during the same period.
Parklife may have inspired other bands to reach into their record collections, but it has a breadth and heart that so much of what followed lacked (including the band’s own The Great Escape, which feels cynical and uninspired in comparison). It has an inclusiveness towards music that stands at odds with the small-minded attitude that ended up defining so much of what Britpop became. In many ways, Parklife is larger than the genre that grew up around it, holding it up as a standard-bearer so proudly. It sounds as fresh today as it did 20 years ago — a summation of British pop music up to that point in all its occasionally contradictory, throwaway glory.
Looking back even further, to 2009, The 405 talked about Parklife as Blur’s revolution that provided the British scene with some much-needed clout and grit:
“Blur turned out as one of the bands that gave the nineties British music scene some bite, and documented the lives of twentieth century Brits in a lucid but poetic style. Parklife is Blur's best album built on social commentary: the two before were paler versions of this, and the albums after became more introverted, or just not as good...
Even if you aren't planning on listening to the original guitar style of Graham Coxon, or the lyrics, there are some pretty excellent sing-along moments on Parklife, and that will never change. The tracks 'Tracy Jacks', 'Parklife' (which still receives radio play), Girls & Boys (though a tongue-twister), and 'Badhead' are all examples of sing-along classics. As for things which don't sound so good in retrospect, Parklife has a nineties polish on it, dusted with electronics it didn't need and some sampled sound effects that don't work so well. However, a little unnecessary production cannot stifle excellent song-writing, pretty melodies and great lyrics. In the future, if nobody ever gets bored in love anymore, never wants to escape their nowhere town, never feeds the pigeons to give themselves a sense of wellbeing - maybe in this imaginary future, Blur will seem irrelevant and dated. I should think we have a good few years before then to enjoy Parklife”.
I hope lots of people mark Parklife’s twenty-fifth anniversary on Thursday and its reaches the ears of new listeners. Even if Blur’s future is questionable – they are still a group, technically, but there are no plans for albums anytime soon – one can look at their 1994 breakthrough as an essential catalyst and part of the Britpop movement – even if it was a lot more complex and rich than a lot of the albums coming from British Pop that year.
PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Postle
Even in 2019, Parklife sounds fresh and I do wonder whether more artists should be taken inspiration from it. How many albums do we hear now that have the same sense of fun and variation?! It is a staggering album that lost the Mercury Prize in 1994 – M People’s Elegant Slumming, bafflingly, won – but is seen by many critics as one of the finest albums of the 1990s. There are multiple standout moments from Parklife but, when I think of the best, it is the addictiveness and catchiness of the title track! I will spin the album now and, as all the songs sink back into my head, the sound of Phil Daniels talking about joggers’ weight problems and feeding pigeons on a Wednesday (as he is rudely awakened by the dustmen) will remain in my head the longest! That song alone leaves a massive smile on my face and, twenty-five years after its release, there will be new people discovering Parklife. It is a truly wondrous album that, wonderfully, gets stronger and more profound…
WITH age.