With Parklife, Albarn created a series of sketches that outlined a portrait of the British working class that was at once affectionate and crass. This was due in part to Damon Albarn, a temperamental creative genius if there ever was one. They were a band unashamed to use synthesizers at a time when - to my American, grunge-soaked ears - that was just a great big no. In many ways Parklife made the new feel connected to the old.
Parklife blur mod#
Blur touch on David Bowie/Gary Numan-style new wave, Pet Shop Boys’ dance pop, mod rock, punk, space rock, waltzes, grungy alt-rock, and power pop on Parklife, and instead of feeling careless and patchwork, the transitions are all seamless. I also liked some “cool” things like Better Than Ezra and the Presidents of the United States of America - how things change in the space of a few years! But when Parklife came in the mail and I popped it on the stereo, I heard the synthesis of so many different genres of pop music. I knew I loved some things that were deemed “uncool” like the Cars and Cheap Trick and some other ’80s rock. When I bought the album, I was a 15-year-old high school sophomore immersed in the mainstream alternative rock of the time, and highly conscious of what was “cool” (by a 15-year-old’s standards, of course) and what wasn’t. What excited me so much at the time was that Parklife opened up musical doors for me. Why I love this album is the question at hand, however. What’s known about it is that it’s a hallmark of ’90s (or any era, really) Britpop, the album that (along with either of the first two Oasis discs) more or less blew up the Britpop scene, spawning countless imitators from Menswear to Ooberman in the process. Of course, many have bought this album, many have heard this album, many have praised this album. It’s tied up the loose ends of my tastes and my collections it’s tied into my love of middle-class suburbia and my love of music written by temperamental, self-absorbed geniuses who produce as much dreck as brilliance. A whole bunch of albums that made my spine tingle and made me jump around the room playing air guitar - when I was 10, when I was 15 - and hell, even now - when I’m 22.īlur’s Parklife, however, has resonated through my music buying patterns like few others. Of course that credit isn’t due to just one disc, but a whole bunch of discs from a whole bunch of bands. It’s damn hard to write a review of the album that made you want to do it in the first place. It’s really easy to analyze new releases from every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there.
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