Parklife - Blur

Let me introduce Blur. Damon Albarn is the lead vocalist, and typical good looking front man. Alex James is the bass player, who is regularly seen playing his bass guitar with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Dave Rowntree is the drummer, and the comedian in the group. A few years ago when I went to see Blur live, Dave cited Prince as one of his idols, and had DAVE written on his cheeks, copying the time Prince had SLAVE written on his cheeks in protest at his record company. The final member of the group is the studious Graeme Coxon, he is the guitarist. The band were originally called “Seymour” when they formed in 1989. Parklife was the third ...  Read the complete review

Parklife was the album where Blur finally made it big, containing "Girls and Boys" and "Parklife", Blur's first big hits and still two of their best known song. It's thought by many to be their best album personally, I think it's their second best after the previous "Modern Life is Rubbish" (I've written a review of that for DooYoo as well). The album has 16 tracks and lasts for just over 50 minutes. Track listing: 1. Girls & Boys (4:50): The lyrics to this one are quite dodgy... Either they're advocating trans-sexual bi-sexual orgies or I've misunderstood the words... Very rhythmical with ...  Read the complete review

Parklife is probably Blur's best known album and was released to achieve them a peak of popularity, but perhaps not a peak in excellence... Girls and Boys is our opener. Simple, catchy and annoying as hell after half a dozen listens. It is a cleverly crafted pop song, the call and response chorus is a stroke of genius which is perfect for singing along to in a car, in a club or in your bedroom. I can imagine Graham getting very upset about having to record this one though... Next song to grab my attention is bad head. The brass loops and melodic guitars lines set a magical scene for a very English ballad about a very English life; it sounds ...  Read the complete review

At last, all the potential that Blur had shown on late night sessions with Steve Lamacq, Annie Nightingale and John Peel finally crystallised into something more solid and they pulled off what they had always promised to achieve, a solid, classic album with nary a weak link, literally dripping with hits and excellent high spots, demanding and cajoling and tugging alternatively their forelocks and your cuffs, imploring you to lend them a fiver for a cup of tea. Gone are the days when sixpence would have done. 1994-era Blur had the boys from Cheeky Charlie Land firmly ensconced in the dear seats and taking an almighty shot at becoming very big indeed. Before ...  Read the complete review

I remember the buzz. It was the summer of 1994. I’d just finished my GCSEs and I was on holiday in the south of France with a friend and her parents. We were staying on one of those huge campsites with house tents that had cookers. It was all terribly, terribly middle class. I think we were there three weeks in all but what I do know is that I had only three tapes with me (CDs were still a bit magical for me then) and anyway everybody knows vinyl is cooler anyway. Three tapes. Mysteriously one of them was Ingenue by kd lang which is something I am more proud of now than I was then. The second was a compilation of Beatles songs I had compiled myself from ...  Read the complete review