Parklife

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For other uses, see Parklife (disambiguation).
Parklife
BlurParklife.jpg
Studio album by Blur
Released 25 April 1994
Recorded August 1993 – January 1994
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Genre Britpop
Length 52:39
Label Food, SBK
Producer Stephen Street, Stephen Hague, John Smith and Blur
Blur chronology
Modern Life Is Rubbish
(1993)Modern Life Is Rubbish1993		 Parklife
(1994)		 The Special Collectors Edition
(1994)The Special Collectors Edition1994
Singles from Parklife
  1. "Girls & Boys"
    Released: 7 March 1994
  2. "To the End"
    Released: 30 May 1994
  3. "Parklife"
    Released: 22 August 1994
  4. "End of a Century"
    Released: 7 November 1994
  5. "This Is a Low"
    Released: 3 January 1995

Parklife is the third studio album by the English rock band Blur, released in April 1994 on Food Records. After disappointing sales for their previous album Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife returned Blur to prominence in the UK, helped by its four hit singles: "Girls & Boys", "End of a Century", "Parklife" and "To the End".

Certified four times platinum in the United Kingdom,[1] in the year following its release the album came to define the emerging Britpop scene, along with the album Definitely Maybe by rivals Oasis. Britpop in turn would form the backbone of the broader Cool Britannia movement. Parklife therefore has attained a cultural significance above and beyond its considerable sales and critical acclaim, cementing its status as a landmark in British rock music. It has sold over five million copies worldwide.

Recording

After the completion of recording sessions for Blur's previous album, Modern Life Is Rubbish, Damon Albarn, the band's vocalist, began to write prolifically. Blur demoed Albarn's new songs in groups of twos and threes.[2] Due to their precarious financial position at the time, Blur quickly went back into the studio with producer Stephen Street to record their third album.[3] Blur met at the Maison Rouge recording studio in August 1993 to record their next album.[2] The recording was a relatively fast process, apart from the song "This Is a Low".

While the members of Blur were pleased with the final result, Food Records owner David Balfe was not pleased with the record, telling the band's management "This is a mistake". Soon afterwards, Balfe sold Food to EMI.[4]

Music

Blur frontman Damon Albarn told NME in 1994, "For me, Parklife is like a loosely linked concept album involving all these different stories. It's the travels of the mystical lager-eater, seeing what's going on in the world and commenting on it." Albarn cited the Martin Amis novel London Fields as a major influence on the album. Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher was once quoted saying that Parklife was, "Like Southern England personified".[5] The songs themselves span many genres, such as the synthpop-influenced hit single "Girls & Boys", the instrumental waltz interlude of "The Debt Collector", the punk rock-influenced "Bank Holiday", the spacey, Syd Barrett-esque "Far Out",[6] and the fairly new wave-influenced "Trouble in the Message Centre". Journalist John Harris commented that while many of the album's songs "reflected Albarn's claims to a bittersweet take on the UK's human patchwork", he stated that several songs, including "To the End" (featuring Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab) and "Badhead" "lay in a much more personal space".[7]

Title and cover

The album was originally going to be entitled London and the album cover shot was going to be of a fruit-and-vegetable cart. Albarn stated tongue-in-cheek, "That was the last time that Dave Balfe was, sort of, privy to any decision or creative process with us, and that was his final contribution: to call it London".[8] The cover refers to the British pastime of greyhound racing.[9] Most of the pictures in the CD booklet are of the band in the greyhound racing venue Walthamstow Stadium, although the actual cover was not shot there.[10] The album cover for Parklife was among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January 2010.[11][12]

Release

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 5/5 stars[13]
Chicago Tribune 3.5/4 stars[14]
Drowned in Sound 10/10[15]
Los Angeles Times 3.5/4 stars[16]
NME 9/10[17]
Pitchfork Media 9.5/10[18]
Rolling Stone 4/5 stars[19]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide 4.5/5 stars[20]
Select 5/5 stars[21]
The Village Voice (choice cut)[22]

Parklife remains one of the most acclaimed albums of the 1990s, released in April 1994, debuted at number one on the UK Album Charts.[23] The album stayed on the chart for 90 weeks.[24] However, the album only charted at number 6 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers album chart in the United States.[25] Johnny Dee, reviewing Parklife for NME, called it "a great pop record", adding "On paper it sounds like hell, in practice it's joyous."[17] Paul Evans of Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars. Reviewer Paul Evans wrote, "With one of this year's best albums, [Blur] realize their cheeky ambition: to reassert all the style and wit, boy bonding and stardom aspiration that originally made British rock so dazzling."[19] AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine commented: "By tying the past and the present together, Blur articulated the mid-'90s zeitgeist and produced an epoch-defining record."[13] Conversely, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice indicated that the only good song on the album was "Girls & Boys".[22]

Accolades

Parklife has received accolades since its official release and is largely seen not only as one of the best albums of 1994 and its decade, but of all time. The album was nominated to the 1995 Mercury Prize, but it lost to M People's Elegant Slumming.[26] Blur also won four awards at the 1995 Brit Awards, including Best British Album for Parklife.[27] The album was listed as one of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[28]

In 2003, Pitchfork Media placed the album at number 54 on their Top 100 Albums of the 1990s list.[29]

In 2006, British Hit Singles & Albums and NME organised a poll of which, 40,000 people worldwide voted for the 100 best albums ever and Parklife was placed at number 34 on the list.[30] The album has been hailed as a "Britpop classic".[31] Parklife influenced a number of British guitar bands, including The Boo Radleys, Supergrass, Gene, Echobelly and Menswear.[32]

In July 2014, Guitar World placed Parklife in its "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" list.[33] The album was ranked at number 171 on Spin's "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985–2014)" list.[34]

Track listing

All lyrics written by Damon Albarn, except "Far Out" written by Alex James, all music composed by Blur.

No. Title Length
1. "Girls & Boys"   4:50
2. "Tracy Jacks"   4:20
3. "End of a Century"   2:46
4. "Parklife" (starring Phil Daniels) 3:05
5. "Bank Holiday"   1:42
6. "Badhead"   3:25
7. "The Debt Collector" (Instrumental) 2:10
8. "Far Out"   1:41
9. "To the End"   4:05
10. "London Loves"   4:15
11. "Trouble in the Message Centre"   4:09
12. "Clover Over Dover"   3:22
13. "Magic America"   3:38
14. "Jubilee"   2:47
15. "This Is a Low"   5:07
16. "Lot 105"   1:17
Japanese bonus track
No. Title Length
17. "Girls and Boys (Pet Shop Boys 12" Remix)" (Japanese Bonus Track) 7:17

Personnel

Blur
  • Damon Albarn – lead and backing vocals, keyboards, hammond organ, moog synthesizer, machine strings, harpsichord on "Clover Over Dover", melodica, vibraphone, recorder, programming
  • Graham Coxon – guitars, backing vocals, clarinet, saxophone, percussion
  • Alex James – bass guitar, vocals on "Far Out"
  • Dave Rowntree – drums, percussion, programming

Charts and certifications

References

  • Harris, John. Britpop! Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock, 2004. ISBN 0-306-81367-X

Notes

  1. ↑ Platinum Awards Content. BPI.co.uk. Retrieved 9 September 2008.[dead link]
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cavanagh, David; Maconie, Stuart. "How did they do that? – Parklife". Select. May 1995
  3. ↑ Harris, p. 97
  4. ↑ Harris, p. 139
  5. ↑ Moody, Paul. "We Can Be Eros Just For One Day". NME. 5 March 1994.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Harris, p. 140
  8. ↑ Essential Albums of the 90s: Blur – Parklife BBC/6music. Aired on 10 November 2010.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Harris, p. 142
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ "Oasis album voted greatest of all time". The Times. 1 June 2006
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. Parklife at AllMusic. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ http://books.google.co.uk/books?lr=&rview=1&id=TAgEAAAAMBAJ&q=blur#v=snippet&q=blur&f=false
  38. ↑ source: Pennanen, Timo: Sisältää hitin - levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972. Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava, 2006. ISBN 9789511210535. page: 280
  39. ↑ http://books.google.co.uk/books?lr=&rview=1&id=9A0EAAAAMBAJ&q=blur#v=onepage&q=blur&f=false
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  43. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  46. ↑ http://www.bpi.co.uk/certifiedawards/search.aspx

External links

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