Track Listing

1. Girls & Boys
2. Tracy Jacks
3. End of a Century
4. Parklife
5. Bank Holiday
6. Badhead
7. Debt Collector
8. Far Out
9. To the End
10. London Loves
11. Trouble in the Message Centre
12. Clover over Dover
13. Magic America
14. Jubilee
15. This Is a Low
16. Lot 105

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5458 in Music
• Released on: 1994-06-14
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Album Description
Japanese Version Featuring A Bonus Track: "Girls & Boys (Remix)".

Amazon.com essential recording
You'd have to stretch back to 1967 to London's psychedelic underground (a time and a place that Blur is admittedly fond of) to find a band that revels as much in its Britishness. And on its third album, Blur takes 30 years of cool English rock, throws it into an art-punk Cuisinart, and ends up with a masterpiece of timeless hooks and Cockney attitude. Like the Kinks at their satirical best, Blur paints warm and funny portraits of quintessentially English characters ("Tracy Jacks," "Parklife," "The Debt Collector"), delivering them with early Small Faces swagger, wiggy Syd Barrett-via-Julian Cope production, XTC circa "Respectable Street" vocal hooks ("ooh-we-ooh"), and a cynical Buzzcocks detachment. The band members are mods, of course, borrowing fashion tips from the pre-glam David Bowie, tempos from the Jam, and actor Phil Daniels (the star of Quadrophenia!) for a vocal cameo. "Magic America" is the best bored with the U.S.A. song since the Clash, Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier sings backing vocals, the Pet Shop Boys remixed the single, and the members of Blur love Wire so much that they hired that band's old road manager. But enough namedropping: Parklife is the album on which Blur proves that it's a force to be reckoned with on its own terms, described by front man Damon Albarn as a nocturnal travelogue of London; the only time the album leaves the Motherland is on its lead track, the unbearably catchy single, "Girls & Boys," which follows randy English youth on holiday to Greece. --Jim DeRogatis

Customer Reviews

A genuine cultural and musical masterpiece
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...

REALLY CLASSIC
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!

Blur's Parklife
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.