Customer Reviews

Parklife

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It does, in some ways, bother me to give five stars to a Blur album (my self-admitted favourite band is Oasis, after all), but this CD is simply magnificent. Nowhere, not even on the best Oasis album, is 1990's Britain best captured in song. These are the best non-personal lyrics penned by Damon Albarn (his best lyrics being found on last year's "13") and this is Blur at their musical best (coincidentally, or perhaps not, at their most "British"). Some songs are better than others, yes -- "Parklife", "End of a Century", and "To The End" sit on the classic side, while "Far Out", "The Debt Collector", and "Lot 105" are somewhat strange, and in isolation would be simply weird...but all are so very necessary for "Parklife" to be what it is! This is unassailably brilliant music -- and this is coming from an Oasis fanatic. Take that as you will...

Blur is one of the last true 'album' bands in existence--that is, they focus their primary energies on making brilliant and adventurous records, à la The Beatles. Almost no band in the past decade has been so amazingly consistent, so cutting-edge and daring. "Parklife," their epochal 1994 release, still stands as the gold standard in the elustrious Blur back catalogue; it is a record that is boldly representive of its time period, yet light years ahead of it. Safely said, almost no band has ever made such a pure, diverse, and enthralling pop record, one that seems to encompass the very history of rock 'n roll. "Parklife" overflows with melody and atmosphere and Damon's lyrics unfold like a great story, jumping from one idiosyncracy of English life to the next. His characters, pulled from the everyday pages of English life, are rich and complex figures whose lives and actions beg for the listener's full attention. Yet, even if the listener is oblivious to the this record's staunch Englishness, the music is more than capable of enchanting your ear and enriching your mind. Beautiful guitar riffs, sonorous and thick bass lines, spacey organs, and sweeping horns and strings permeate these tunes. On "Girls and Boys," the catchiest bass line in the history of recorded music is intertwined with a minimalist guitar figure and a bleepy synth to make one of the best pop singles in history. On "This Is A Low," a backwards guitar figure cascades over light cymbal splashes, eventually giving way to Damon's echoey, melancholy chorus--when he longingly enunciates "This is a low/But it won't hurt you when you're alone," the hairs on my neck stand up. The instrumental track "The Debt Collector" is whimsical and memorable, "Bank Holiday" is a thick, tasty slab of mod punk, a journey to garage rock heaven that remains far beyond the reach of many latter-day bands, and "Far Out" is a mysterius space-rock mini-suite, as bassist Alex James takes the mic with his melodramatic voice. Clearly, a slightly avant-garde/psychedelic aura edges this album, adding to the thick, superbly arranged pop melodies the genius of Coxon's angular guitar work (the solos on "This Is A Low," "London Loves," "Bank Holiday," "Jubilee," and "Tracy Jacks" are all quite impressive, proof that one doesn't have to reel off raging blues motifs to be a guitar virtuoso) and Damon's restless experimentalism. Each tune brings something different and enchanting to the table, whether it's the chiming harmonics of "Badhead" or the lush accordion and strings orchestration of "To The End." "Parklife" is loaded with surprises and left turns, and its artistic diversity keeps things interesting throughout. Blur have finished what The Kinks started, and in the process have made the best British album since "The La's" or maybe even "The Queen is Dead." A must have.

Oh man, this is just one of the BEST albums! I have to say that I'm always going back and forth between the album "Blur" (The one with the "woo-hoo" song on it) and "Parklife" for my favorite Blur album. I really wish they got more attention over here and more radio play because they always kick out great songs. "Parklife" is thoroughly enjoyable. I especially like "Tracy Jacks," "End of a Century" and "Girls and Boys." And of course that ubiquitous title tune, "Parklife." Damon Albarn isn't afraid to sound silly and really plays up that whole quaint-but-cocky British thing. This album is really a fun piece of work; you need to own it and love it! One more note: I saw Blur back in 1997 in this tiny lame club in Seattle (I'm sure they were humiliated because they place was so small and filled with teenyboppers) but they put on a GREAT show, the best live show I've ever seen. They're teriffic showmen and just darn fine musicians. Get "Parklife" and everything else they've done, they are great!

I've owned this album for as many years as it's been available, and I've never gone very long without playing it. It's as densely British as The Streets or early Billy Bragg, but infinitely more accessible. It's fun and rowdy, electronic and rockin'. Its moods range from the rioutously androgynous and danceable "Girls & Boys," to the punky "Bank Holiday," to the trancey "Far Out" (which has lyrics consisting only of stars and features of outer space), to the rapid fire "Trouble In The Message Centre" and the despairing "This Is A Low." Throw in a few short, listing organ instrumentals, lots of the thickest of British accents, and great, cheeky lyrics, and you have the weird and drunken ride of an album that is "Parklife."
My wife hates it--says it sounds "too 1980s"--but I love it. I think it's among Blur's very best.

If there's one conclusion to be made after listening to Parklife, it's that Blur are most certainly English, and delight in satirising the English whilst remaining proud of their Englishness themselves. I mean, come on, for a start, the album is named after greyhound racing, and you can't get much more English than that.

Next, Albarn's voice is the most blatantly cockney voice since Joe Strummer's early Clash days. Next, 'Tracy Jacks'. I mean, no-one from another country could be called that, and the lyrics certainly couldn't be about a non-English person.

Musically (with the possibly exception of the out of place but possibly best song on the album This Is A Low, which is worryingly mature) it isn't exactly complex, or wonderful, but there are come cool, catchy tunes, not least the ultimate annoyingly catchy song of the decade, Girls and Boys.

However, lyrically, Albarn shines through, with his wry, funny, witty self-satirising lyrics, along with one song that is most certainly not about England, the great 'Magic America'. Parklife does represent a culture, but it does so in a way that isn't as fantastic as the following years' Oasis and Pulp albums. It is slightly over-rated, but it remains probably their best album, with the possible exception of its polar opposite 13.

Blur's third album Parklife is an undeniable ode to British music. Taking parts from The Kinks, The Jam, Marc Bolan and quite liberally from David Bowie, the band had fashioned a very British pop record. The first track and single is "Girls & Boys" which recalls Bowie from his Thin White Duke era. The title track has a Kinks sound with lead singer Damon Albarn singing is a heavy Cockney accent amid burlesque style horns. "Jubilee" has such a Bowie sound that if you didn't know any better you'd think you were listening to a lost track from Aladdin Sane. The best track on the album is "End Of The Century", which has a syrupy melody and first rate vocals. Although Blur is heavily influenced in their music, they mold their derivative sounds together into something that sounds all their own.

This ranks among the essential alternative art-pop CDs of the nineties. Pop is really not a fair term altogether, because many of the songs on "Parklife" are not very accessible. One could go on about the hooks, and the song-writing, and the diversity, blah blah blah. The bottem line is that you can never really define what makes great music, yet you know it when you hear it. Blur just has it; it's in the touch and the sound. And even in their slower tunes their exists a drive that is lacking in so many other bands who just don't get it. Blur's respect for the great artists of Britian truly enhances their already unique sound. Quoting the hooks of Bowie, early Pink Floyd, and the Kinks will never hurt your sound. What is so amazing about this band is that if they had never changed their approach after this, they still would have been great. But after "Great Escape" they begin a revamped phase that combines the best of British alternative with American indie rock. "Girls and Boys," End of a Century," "Parklife," "This is a Low," and most every other track are fantastic. It's interesting that young americans truly adore Radiohead(and deservedly so)but have not to the same degree caught on to Blur,who ranks every bit as important among the top of the British bands. Perhaps one of Amazon's reviwers put it best when they said that Blur is better than 90% of what's out there. With this in mind, you really can't go wrong with any of their CDs.

Parklife is in my opnion, Blur's best all-round LP. MLIR, and 13 may be stunning albums, but they do not showcase ALL aspects of Blur's strengths quite as well as Parklife. From the pop genius displayed on "Parklife", "Girls and Boys", and "Trouble in the Message Centre", to the psychedelic greatness of "This Is A Low", the LP shines all over, without showing weakness. After grunge died with Nirvana (at least in the UK), it was an LP which sums up 1994 better than any other. The social comment by Damon Albarn on this album shows signs of improving from MLIR. This is unquestionably one of the top 10 British albums of all time.

yeah, we've all heard how great "parklife" is (if you've heard of blur, that is), but some of that is brainwashing from critics and people who (mistakenly) say the band can do no wrong. this album, however, is very much a near-perfect take on british life in the early 90s. it's quirky, sympathetic, antagonistic, intimate, and catchy all at once. damon and co's characters are what makes this a britpop classic. from tracy jacks' disillusionment, to the peeping neighbors on "bank holiday", to jubilee's lack of girl-awareness, there is no shortage of interesting personas to investigate. their stories add a magical quality of personality to the record. the music, of course, complements this whole lyrical mess, with the made-for-clubbing backbeat of "girls & boys", the blazing neo-punk of "bank holiday", the amusement park ambiance of "the debt collector", and the wonderfully subdued melodies of "to the end." the variety is quite striking, but it meshes in such a compellingly listenable way, that blur pulls off the intentional trick of capturing a wide scope of british life/culture within the mere span of fifty minutes remarkably well. there are no real low points on this disc, and it works very much like a good novel in that respect. fans of 90s britpop should start their collections here, as should most blur fans. if you're looking for "song 2" or "coffee & tv", this might not appeal at first, but give it a chance, and find out what makes blur so unique and intelligent.

I was very lucky to be living in the UK in the mid 1990's when a new surge of British guitar pop began to receive general airplay on a newly rejuvenated BBC Radio One. It was a genuinely exciting time to be a music fan as there was a widespread feeling that this era was producing truly classic albums to compare to the best from the 60's, 70's and 80's.

The Britpop bands unashamedly borrowed the best bits from the best British bands of the previous three decades and combined them to form a cocktail of pure commercial pop ecstasy. My top five, after five years of repeated listening, would be Dodgy (Homegrown), Boo Radley's (Wake Up Boo!), Oasis (Definitely Maybe), Blur (Parklife) and Supergrass (In it for the Money). I would suggest if you own and enjoy any of these mentioned items your collection would be far richer for owning all five.

Absolutely Gorgeous!