I get up when I want except on Wednesdays when I get rudely awakened by the dustmen: Blur - Parklife poll

"Ah pit oan Blur's Parklife cause ah quite like the title track where ye hear the boy that wis in Quadrophenia spraffin away"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m5uJZx7xZA

wait, zis programme is called Zing if You Can and he done a "song" that's essentially just talking?

i cant believe i ever liked this band

Blur are musically very talented. They were overhyped in the 90's and albums like parklife just don't do them justice. Albums like 13 are much better. It's like judging radiohead purely on The Bends rather than their later more mature sounding music.

I think, overall, Parklife is their best and most consistently decent album. After its success they became a bit cloying, depsite some very good follow up albums.

I actually dislike Parklife the most. What a rich tapestry of taste this forum provides!!!

End of a Century was my favourite at the time but This Is a Low is the best thing they ever did. People tend to remember Parklife, Girls & Boys and the whole faux-cockney imagery of the project but this is where they hit on something sad and true about Britain and Damon's argument that it's a quasi-political record really makes sense. It ends the record (Lot 105 aside) somewhere miles away from where it started, gathering up all the melancholy threads that run through End of a Century, Badhead, Message Centre and tying them together. Also, I love the 60s-psych eerie whimsy of the lyrics and Coxon's guitar solo is a thing of wonder.

when they die, every member of blur will end up in tartarus having their entrails out by raptors each day before they grow anew, infinitely

see, I actually really like blur, and I still think they kind of deserve this.

seems like an exception could be made for dave rowntree, tho. comparatively, at least, he seems like an innocent.

DL OTM - There's a kind of running theme on Parklife of wanting to get out of monotonous kitchen-sink lifestyles to escape to... the sea?

I even like the cute bits - Alex's astral musings on 'Far Out', the barrel-organ waltz of 'The Debt Collector', 'Lot 105''s cheekie light relief after 'This Is A Low''s heaviness. It's everything I ever wanted from an album really, and I was spoilt by its consistency when I bought it on my 14th birthday. I think I assumed at the time that all albums had this kind of scope and this many great songs, with lyrics (and chords!) printed on the inner sleeve...

I never liked Trouble In The Message Centre, but grew to love it years later. The only song I never really got into was London Loves, but it's not awful.

seems like an exception could be made for dave rowntree, tho. comparatively, at least, he seems like an innocent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkNvk2MgiCc

End Of A Century, by far.

^^^^

My Favourite Blur album is "Blur", but hey.

well, I like them all for various reasons (although I can lose about 75% of Think Tank) but PL seems like the only one that has no filler. Even the interludes and less-good tracks, if taken out, wouldn't improve the album.

Pop Scene single through The Great Escape is a pretty stellar run, all told,even w/ the throwaway punk tracks & the bloat on TGE. I like a lot of that which came after, but it was just.. different.

Leisure (1991) - played once
Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) - played loads
Parklife (1994) - played loads
The Great Escape (1995) - played twice
Blur (1997) - played loads
13 (1999) - played a few times
Think Tank (2003) - played twice(?)

you only played Leisure once? It's worth having, if only for "Sing", that albums' "This Is A Low".

True, but by then I had the Trainspotting soundtrack.

(I did say, I bought it at a jumble sale. Oh, that was on a different thread. Still...)

Apart from Think Tank, which I think has at least three brilliant songs, my experience is much the same as Mark G's. Every now and then I go back to The Great Escape and 13 but they're both so patchy and alienating in their different ways.

The ballads on her would be tolerable if it weren't for the fact that Albarn just cannot pull of sincerity. He can't do it. He constantly sounds like he's taking the piss. But the best plasticky Blur pop songs are on this album, so voting for Girls & Boys.

Birthday, Wear Me Down and There's No Other Way also worth a listen. I also don't hate Bang.

<3 <3 nakhchivan for that post about tartarus, entrails &c

I am finding this really interesting as I think I see blur as a totally different band to the rest of you. I am a fan and have seen them three times. I have no nostalgia for what I think is their commercial music. For me it goes:

Leisure (1991) - played lots
Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) - played lots and loved
Parklife (1994) - played a few times, not loved
The Great Escape (1995) - played once and hated
Blur (1997) - played loads and loved
13 (1999) - played loads and loads and really loved
Think Tank (2003) - loads and loads and loved

I think the middle bit of their career was guff. Am I mad?

tamtam otm

I've seen them twice, Once at the Old Trout Windsor, in advance of their first headlining Glasto, Parklife era.

Last time at Reading Fest, 1999.

13 feels disjointed and I just can't get over Tender - 6 minutes of navelgazing insincerity is not a good way to kick off an album. And then Bugman makes its noisy entrance, ruining any sort of gravitas one might still feel from Tender. It's got its good moments though - The run from Battle through Caramel is especially nice. I also like Trimm Trabb. Oh man, you guys have got me wanting to listen to Blur for the first time since their (really brilliant and nostalgia inducing) performance at Glasto '08.

Great Escape is a drug album - that drug being Prozac. It's Albarn staring blankly out the window all day, feeling conflicted about his fame and imagining a silent environmental apocalypse raining down outside. While some people saw it as Parklife Mk2, it's a lot stronger in concept but lacks the carefree bounciness of the previous two records and can be a deeply troubling listen in places. It's Coxon's songwriting contribution (I think he wrote it?) Best Days that's the most affecting though.

I saw them 5 or 6 times I believe. And I'm in Canada so that was a hell of an acheivement! MILR & Blur do it for me; I like their fuzziness. But the ballads in the middle albums were fantastic, the poppy songs perfect for the Britpop time and place.. but 13 never did much for me. Damon should've saved that stuff for The Good, Bad, Queen.

Remember Me Me Me's Hanging Around? That was a good Britpop tune! And Graham.. just NO at your stupid solo albums. Though I liked the 'Graham'est albums of Blur's career, he really needs Alex or Damon to pop him up slightly.

Voted This is a Low.

Yeah I never really got into Coxon's solo stuff (except the first album, which is cute and came out in the same era as 13).

"Hanging Around" is the quintessential Britpop song I reckon.

"...she said talk about thungs"

I was the one who got the blur_girl @ hotmail email address. But sadly and stupidly I lost the password! So now my gmail references obscure bside Theme from an Imaginary Film. Which reminds me. The bsides on the Great Escape singles were fantastic! Stereotypes especially - Ludwig! Tame!

I saw them at Wembley 1997, The b-sides gig in camden 1999 and at Glastonbury 2009.

B-sides gig being the most enjoyable for me.

I remember every 3 months or so that I love them and listen to their albums.

xp to dog - yes, I too went for the Sky is too High and I think the next as well - but then I had to admit defeat ;)

"Girls & Boys"

I totally agree with Matt DC. At the time when I was around 18, I really liked modern life and parklife. but then I realized they were very annoying and fake. Albarn, especially (in his delivery/songwriting, not the public personae which is something else). the only song I would save is "girls&boys" indeed which is so superficial in criticizing superficiality that it's great !
also, I always thought the real strength in the band was the bass. many great lines that made the tracks (on the other hand I never liked the guitars much).

The bsides on the Great Escape singles were fantastic! Stereotypes especially - Ludwig! Tame!

The Horrors and A Song were also very good. Blur were a great b-sides band. I wish people would look through Albarn's singing and public persona and appreciate them for their eclecticism and songwriting.

'Mr Briggs' 'People In Europe' and the wonderful 'Inertia' my fav B sides. As for this poll - This Is A Low, and if the poll wasn't confined to just this album and was instead their entire recorded output it would still be This Is A Low.

ahhh, Inertia! Reminds me of my own mellow b-side favourite.. Into Another.

http://www.ryan-mclaughlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/vonnegut2.jpg

hahaha I am b-side obsessed, clearly

Best Blur B-side
Best Blur B-side

Peach, When The Cows Come Home, Imaginary Film... Too many

Young & Lovely managed to win BOTH polls! Impressive.

funny that you started those polls within a year of each other.

I know, I am ridiculous :(

Still, the latter one actually got a quantity of votes.

This is one of the albums I loved at that time that I still play a lot now. So many great songs on here but my favourite by far is Trouble in the Message Centre. That's probably the most underrated song in their back catalogue.

Badhead, This is a Low, To the End and Tracy Jacks are all amazing too. The title track is the only one I really skip these days.

I think the middle bit of their career was guff. Am I mad?

Yes. Or at least you don't appreciate genius pop music. The middle bit of their career (also including "Modern Life Is Rubbish" and the poppier tracks on "Blur") was the best part. The last two albums were really, really bad considering they were Blur albums.

speaking about Blur B-sides, i just counted and have 30 singles in my collection. the last one i bought was the 2CD set of "Music Is My Radar" which came out in 2000...i really liked Blur. don't really listen to them now, weird.

Xpost No, I really don't appreciate genius pop music. In that sense I am a savage. I like bad blur music :S

also, raptors

I was just thinking about how much I like the lyrics 'everyday got closer/he knew in his heart it was over' from 'Tracy Jacks', but I've just googled it and all the lyrics sites seem to have it as 'everyday he got closer' which is not nearly as good imho.

Regarding whether Parklife has aged well, obv this a matter of opinion, but I think Blur sound less tied to this particular era than any other big britpop bands? I feel like most of Parklife could have been recorded in the early to mid 80s, whereas Oasis and Suede, for example, have a very 90s sound, even if they were doing retro stuff.

Still think this is their best album. I never need to hear the title track again in my life but apart from that I enjoy the rest of it. To me the albums that came after this contain moments that sound way more dated to me especially Think Tank and 13. B.L.U.R.E.M.I, Trailer Park, Crazy Beat etc haven't aged well in the slightest.

Also completely agree that Trouble is the best track. I'm sure I read the band don't rate it much and described as sounding tinny.