Parklife is the third studio album by the British alternative rock band Blur, released on 25 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". The album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom.

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. 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. Blur met at the Maison Rouge recording studio in August 1993 to record their next album. 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.

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. The songs themselves span many genres, such as the synthpop-influenced hit single "Girls & Boys", the instrumental waltz interlude of "The Debt Collector", the Oi!-influenced "Bank Holiday", the spacey "Far Out", and the fairly-hard rock "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" and "Bedhead" "lay in a much more personal space".

Release and reception

Parklife, released in April 1994, debuted at number one on the UK Album Charts. The album stayed on the chart for 90 weeks. Johnny Dee, reviewing Parklife for NME, called it "a great pop record", adding "On paper it sounds like hell, in practice it's joyous." 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. 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.

Track listing

1. "Girls & Boys" – 4:51
2. "Tracy Jacks" – 4:20
3. "End of a Century" – 2:45
4. "Parklife" – 3:05
5. "Bank Holiday" – 1:42
6. "Badhead" – 3:25
7. "The Debt Collector" – 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

Personnel

• Damon Albarn – vocals, Hammond, Moog, machine strings, harpsichord, melodica, vibraphone, recorder, some programming
• Graham Coxon – backing vocals, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, clarinet, saxophone, percussion
• Alex James – vocals on "Far Out", bass guitar, crowd noise
• Dave Rowntree – drums, percussion, crowd noise, some programming

Additional musicians

• Stephen Street – vintage keys, sound effects, some programming
• Laetitia Sadier – singer
• Phil Daniels – narration
• Stephen Hague – accordion

String quartet

• Chris Tombling
• Audrey Riley
• Leo Payne
• Chris Pitsillides

Duke strings

• Louisa Fuller – violin
• Rick Koster – violin
• Mark Pharoah – violin
• John Metcalfe – string arrangement, viola
• Ivan McCready – cello

Kick horns

• Richard Edwards – trombone
• Roddy Lorimer – flugelhorn, trombone
• Tim Sanders – tenor sax, soprano sax
• Simon Clarke – baritone sax, alto sax, flute

References

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

Notes

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