HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Parklife – Blur
When one thinks of Britpop, there’s always one of two bands that come up: Manchester’s proudest export in OASIS, and London’s everyday men BLUR. And maybe some will mention PULP but there is a time and a place for them.
BLUR are proving to be one of the most fun and nostalgic acts in British music right now, with songs that will be handed down from generation to generation and their most recent comeback with the release of their ninth studio album The Ballad Of Darren and a string of celebratory shows in 2023. The best word to call this, ‘timeless’.
At the start of the 90’s, vocalist Damon Albarn promised Mojo that they would become “the quintessential English band of the ’90s” by 1994. Little did he know he would be predicting the Britpop boom of the decade, which would see Parklife becoming part of the soundtrack of the ten-year span.
Parklife would find itself releasing just months before OASIS’ memorable debut Definitely Maybe (1994), with their debut single, the leading Supersonic being released mere days before the London act’s record. This was the beginning of what would be fuelled in the media as a feud between the two bands, due to their similar sounds, styles and aesthetics. Maybe there was a fight in this indie rock corner, maybe it was all love and hugs. Both sides had shared what seems like support and sly jabs throughout this time, but they both came out of it bigger and stronger than ever. Let OASIS run their course in due time; this is about the peak of the indie-party-synth sensation that is to become BLUR and is to come from Parklife.
Conceptually speaking, there is nothing special or mystical about the music: the album speaks of what Albarn and his friends saw as the lowest British culture at that moment. The title track alone is a half-spoken half-sung tribute to living that working class life in England; moaning about getting “rudely awakened by the dustmen”, or taking the time in the morning to “have a cup of tea”, the small things in a day in the life of the everyday Englishman. The words spoken with the help of actor and musician Phil Daniels, the old-school cockney in his voice and the naturally gruff pronunciation just hammers home that this is not a song for the top 1% of the country. This is for the ones who are walking in the park, watching the locals, and feeding the pigeons.
The album’s leading single Girls & Boys is a catchy yet confusing hit on the surface. All the mentioning of boys and girls and loving and doing, it can come across as just a vapid indie bop that exists for the sake of existing. Being an overall satirical take on young British holidayers, based on Albarn’s own experiences of visiting nightclubs across the oceans and seeing these party animals doing everything and everyone out in the open, the joke stretches to showing holiday package video footage and using official condom imagery in the promotion of this single. As stated before, there is nothing out of the ordinary with the lyrics when it comes down to it. Blur weren’t trying to stand out in a glitz-and-glam way. They were just normal men; young lads on the streets of London; just boys trying to make it in the decreasingly Great Britain.
Fast forward 30 years since this iconic record’s release and the words resonate much stronger than upon initial release. With England’s working class facing the worst challenges than they have in decades; mortgage prices shooting up to the sky and utility bills becoming unpayable, the cost of living become difficult near impossible for the majority… The best way to let off steam is to take in the small joys of everyday life.
Parklife reflects life in England now more than ever, in all ways and all aspects. When everything becomes too much, maybe the country should return to taking a walk in the park. Maybe they should watch the locals going about the same day under the same sun with the same struggles. Maybe they should give the pigeons a little feed; after all, they do love a bit of it.
Parklife was originally released on April 25, 1994 via Food Records.
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