Highly Recommended Music: The Great Escape by Blur

You are Blur. Youre daring, fun, and a breath of
fresh air. Some people may find you
intimidating, but generally youre well liked.
You have a tendency to speak without thinking,
which usually comes back to bite you in the
arse but you have a good heart and everything
you say should be taken with a pinch of salt.


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The Great Escape
Blur
Food Records
1995
Click here for lyrics

Track Listing
1.Stereotypes*
2.Country House*
3.Best Days
4.Charmless Man*
5.Fade Away
6.Top Man
7.The Universal*
8.Mr. Robinson's Quango
9.He Thought of Cars
10.It Could Be You*
11.Ernold Same
12.Globe Alone*
13.Dan Abnormal
14.Entertain Me
15.Yuko and Hiro
(* = Highly recommended)

Think this: British; brilliant music, happy tunes, decent level of drugs and alcohol; gorillas. What's the first thing that comes to your head? 'British' and 'gorillas' will make you think of the Spice Girls, but then, there's 'brilliant music'. 'Happy tunes' rules out Radiohead and The Killers. 'Decent level of drugs and alcohol' rules out a whole host of artistes, from Oasis to Beck, with the Sex Pistols in between.

What else is there except the happy-go-lucky, effervescent, pre-Tender sounds of Blur. The Great Escape is Blur's fourth excursion following the similarly-happy, potent trio of 1991's Leisure, Modern Life Is Rubbish in 1993 and Parklife following that. In this album, Damon Albarn's maturity in terms of songwriting really shines through, though the album is darker and bleaker than its predecessors.

The tunes, however, remain catchy and upbeat, with It Could Be You, Charmless Man, Country House and Stereotypes being significant examples. However, they are ironically negative, lyrically. It Could Be You donates a few lines to Damon's need to lament about the dog-eat-dog world of the Music Industry (No silver spoon/Sticky teeth, they rot too soon/You’ve got to have the best tunes/Or that’s it/You’ve blown it); Charmless Man, if you read the lyrics without having the tune in your head, suggests Damon's insecurity and jealousy towards a wealthy, rather awkward person who is nonetheless learned. Stereotypes denounces desperately perverse, horny people and Country House is well, just...wrong. Which sane, socially-accepting mind would rhyme balzac and prozac and moan, "blow, blow me out, I am so sad, I don’t know why" in a song? This album really foreshadows Damon's foray into Song 2 territory (I got my head checked/By a jumbo jet).

What is really disappointing to us consumers is that the release of this album is overshadowed by Blur's rivalry with Oasis, making for hype-defyingly disappointing sales for what is otherwise a fantastic album that rather properly defines Britpop.

Overall rating: 7.5/10