The Great Escape? Is it really that bad...?

genuine is sometimes overrated, sometimes underrated. in the ironic mid-nineties, it was underrated.

I concur on this.

And yeh, Parklife really is the best one really.

Ha! I thought maybe it was a b-side I didn't have.

I actually witnessed Albarn recording the intro to that song. he was standing in front of JA Spirits in Goldhawk Road next door to the Townhouse Studios hammering the door and yelling. This was about 7:15 on a Tuesday morning. I passed him by and said for shame alkie Albarn etc. but he explained it was only sound effects for the album. I still think that Peter Wyngarde would have narrated it better than "Red" Ken, mind you ("Neville Thumbcatch" etc.).

1. Girls And Boys - Entertain Me
2. Tracy Jacks - Mr Robinson's Quango
3. End Of A Century - He Thought of Cars
4. Parklife -
5. Bank Holiday - Globe Alone
6. Debt Collector - Ernold Same
7. Far Out - Fade Away
8. To The End - The Universal
9. London Loves - Top Man
10. Trouble In The Message Centre - It Could Be You
11. Clover Over Dover - Best Days
12. Magic America - Country House
13. Jubilee - Dan Abnormal
14. This Is A Low - Yuko And Hiro

Fair enough?

I always remember thinking that song was dumb from the opening line "Oh Mr Robinson... And his quango..." etc... It pissed me off because this line was basically the title of the song and I found it so devoid of imagination that as a 15 year old I could have written better lyrics. Also the line about herpes. And "ooooh ah'm a naughtay boyyy/Owwww ah'm a naughtay naughtay boooy" is SO annoying.

xpost blummin TIMING!

What are the lyrics to the backing vocals during the last verse of Clover Over Dover?

Coffee and Tv is great, but 'world of rubbish' is a bit harsh. Most of the songs on there are great, they just go on twice as long as they ought to.

Topman made a brief return in 2003, funnily enough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z6gYHf17wk

Oh yeah, that whistling synth was completely the sort of thing that was getting up noses at the time, I'm sure

I don't really have a problem with the choice of singles - they're all well-known, they did the job, they're major singalongs live.

One Born Every Minute is probably my least fav Blur song, even more than something like Alex's Song. And yet the '96 singles have maybe their best run of B-sides, alongside the MLIR ones. They hadn't been recorded in '95 and obv the pathway to the s/t begins there etc etc

Definitely, Ludwig being the wacky outlier. It almost feels like the other Stereotypes and Charmless Man b sides belong on a deluxe of the s/t album instead

I won this CD off the radio or in a record store, can't remember.

There are a couple of really bad ones too of course but "Yuko and Hiro" is probably my favourite Blur song.
― everything, Monday, 12 September 2005 15:37 (nineteen years ago)

I agree with this!

It totally has a very identifiable conventional chorus that they repeat several times btw

Haha, I love One Born Every Minute. Along with songs like Til The Cows Come Home and Theme From An Imaginary Film, it's 100% leaning into whatever aspect Blur were being mocked for at that stage of their career. "Oh well see how we've grown"... the chorus gets stuck in my head a lot.

"Stereotypes" doesn't work for me. An unmemorable mid-tempo plodder, like a less exciting 'London Loves' that opens with this grating guitar and synth fanfare. The lyrics don't cohere properly - in what way are these imaginary, hastily-painted wife-swappers "stereotypes"? And it kicks off an album where the running theme seems to be "Damon is existentially depressed, but it could be worse because at least he's not like these poor sods".

In fact I have a long and storied tradition of skipping the first song on most Blur albums (except MLIR, Think Tank and the S/T)

"Doesn't really have a chorus" is a bit of an unusual description of a song with a repeated identifiable chorus but I'm sorry if I've touched a nerve there

The "really" is doing some lifting there. Of course it technically has a "chorus", but I agree with CaAL that compared to pretty much all their imperial-era singles, it's more of a drone than a singalong.

So it doesn't have a good chorus then I suppose

I remember a rave review for this album on Melody Maker at the time comparing it to ABC's "The Lexicon of Love"

I was 17 when this came out - I don't recall anyone putting it on the stereo at a friend's house, although "Different Class" and (er) "Garbage" were in regular rotation. IIRC, at this point, it felt (as a teenager like Blur were a bit tired and for the normies only.

I don't think I've listened to this since I posted the first reply. Can't imagine me bothering now either tbh.

xp there was definitely a week at school around this time when Blur suddenly tipped from being a popular band for us indie kids into something "For the normies". Girls in my class who'd only ever really cared about boybands were wearing necklaces with "DAMON" written on them in a heart, etc. And the band themselves seemed to embrace their new mainstream attention. Wasn't there a quote where Damon literally said he was god's gift to women? And Alex telling a joke: "What is 30ft long and goes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!? - the front row at a Blur gig"

I used to think Ludwig was like a 2x speed knees-up remake of the Seymour track Shimmer. Having now just played Shimmer at 2x speed 'cus why not .. well there are some similarities at least.

TGE is the only 90s album not to open with its lead single (although as stated by PaulTMA above Stereotypes was the initial lead choice).

"What is 30ft long and goes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!? "

The version I heard was much ruder than this! Perhaps that laddishness should be left in the 90s, but it was a now-unacceptable dig on the extremely young pre-puberty age of their new fanbase.

It's weird because up until last year, this was the last time that I stayed up all night to buy a new album the moment it was released. (I might even have gone to a signing IIRC.) At the time, I remember thinking 'ooh this is new and grownup and mature' but I think I was maybe being a big naive and projecting 'interesting' into stuff that just wasn't actually working.

I will still rep for He Thought of Cars, Fade Away and Entertain Me! (That last one has one of the best basslines of Alex's career.) But these days I have come to accept that for me, Blur were a time and place. And I'm not a Blur fan any more.

Yeah, agree re: "time and a place". I think of myself as someone who quite liked Blur -- I saw them live twice! -- but looking at their album tracklists (especially from TGE onwards), mostly I'm thinking "hmm, this is quite a lot of annoying songs".

When I'm in a Blur mood, I just play "Clover Over Dover" and "End of the Century" and that's that. I played 13 to death at university, and even with that, looking back there's nothing there I want to hear again.

Of course there is nothing wrong with growing out of a band, nor is it the band's "fault"

"Stereotypes" doesn't work for me. An unmemorable mid-tempo plodder, like a less exciting 'London Loves' that opens with this grating guitar and synth fanfare. The lyrics don't cohere properly - in what way are these imaginary, hastily-painted wife-swappers "stereotypes"? And it kicks off an album where the running theme seems to be "Damon is existentially depressed, but it could be worse because at least he's not like these poor sods".

― Now read it backwards. (dog latin), Wednesday, 3 September 2025 09:09 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

My take on this was Damon noting to himself that he really should stop writing these "vignettes" about people he doesn't know really and resorting to stereotypes to write songs.

And, that's exactly what he did do - not write Charmless Man, Ernold Same, or things like this again, past this album and singles....

The Great Escape's depressing-cheery-More-Specials-muzak sound (especially Yuko & Hiro) later resurfaced on Gorillaz' To Binge which, like a good chunk of TGE, is among the best thing's he's ever done imo

Xp yeah I agree. Although what a funny way to start your album in which pretty much every song is "Look at the little people with their sad little lives"

Its the one great escape on the album. All downhill from there.

I quite enjoy 'Stereotypes.' If you were outside the UK and stumbled upon this album, like I did, the bitter lyrics didn't really register, I guess?