Hey all! I've expanded my music collection fairly significantly in the past 3 months, so there will be plenty to review. Today, I'll start with three of the most famous Britpop albums ever released, that sort of epitomize the genre warts and all. Coming up in hopefully the near future I'll have some music by bands I've never reviewed before as well as more music from some of my old favorites.
BLUR -- PARKLIFE -- 9/10
For some reason I decided to introduce myself to Blur with The Great Escape, an album with a couple terrific tracks but largely filled with music that could be described as generic Blur. While "The Universal" and "Yuko and Hiro," among others, deserve to be classics, the rest of the album didn't quite live up to their brilliance. Now knowing what Blur had preceded The Great Escape with, it looks a whole lot worse (though objectively I would not say it's terrible). One of my complaints with The Great Escape is that most of the songs sort of sound like the same, retro-sounding, punk inspired commentaries on middle class life. What is so astounding about Parklife is just how varied the songs on the album are. It's got a bunch of the same brash indie pop that you'll find on Blur's other releases, like "Girls & Boys", "Tracy Jacks", and the title track, but they're just better here. "Girls & Boys" is the perfect opener, energetic and spunky, it defines what will come to be a theme throughout the album, paranoia, in a nuanced way, superficially hidden by a bouncy and aggressive beat. "Tracy Jacks" follows up with a typical Blur sound, but with hints of sensitivity, as well as a line that for some reason strikes me as incredibly clever when Damon matter-of-factly sings "Tracy Jacks works in civil service: it's steady employment". "Tracy Jacks" covers the same "middle class malaise" subject that The Great Escape would, but does so with a bit more nuance I think. Even the slowed down bridge feels a bit more sensitive. The similarly upbeat "Parklife" is an anthem for middle-class drudgery, a song that seems to poke fun at the mundanity of life while also bringing together all of those who suffer helplessly through it, the chorus "All the people - so many people - and they all go hand in hand: hand in hand through their parklife". Parklife becomes a real concept here, with the spoken lines by the guy from Quadrophenia illustrating that utter pointlessness of the things that we all do just to get by in our own parklives, that we dress up with this and that decoration, while deep down it fails to satisfy us. This inner suffering is reflected beautifully in some of the other songs on this album. It seems to me no coincidence that "End of a Century" reflects a deep satisfaction, typical of fin de siecle malaise. The line "we all say we don't want to be alone. We wear the same clothes just to feel the same" brings us from the mundanity of everyday life to the existential crisis that we all face in failing to give our lives some satisfactory significance. This helplessness is repeated in the chorus of "Badhead" and in the paranoid confusion of "London Loves", "Trouble in the Message Centre", and "Clover over Dover", descend into a darkness I did not expect from this album and makes it a very complex collection of songs. Meanwhile, in "To the End" is a very interesting musical arrangement that is clearly "The Universal" in embryo (The Last Year at Marienbad inspired music video is rather amusing as well). While the chorus is weaker in "To the End" than in the latter, the verses are just as compelling, if not more so. "Magic America" and "Jubilee", while standard Blur fare, are enjoyable listens as well and evoke the bored suburban spirit of Parlife as a whole. "This is a Low" is a proto-Radiohead finale that encompasses all of the latent paranoia present in the album. All in all, the album has a great variety of musical aesthetics brought together that make it a very captivating and entertaining listen, good for a peppy feel-good listen or a more brooding sit and think for background music. There are a few tracks that are not worth listening to, but in the end it is clear why Parklife is one of the magnum opi of the Britpop movement. Highlights include "End of a Century", "Parklife", "Trouble in the Message Centre".
PULP -- DIFFERENT CLASS -- 8.5/10
Different Class is widely considered to be Pulp's best work, and it is no surprise that this is the case. It includes what is by far Pulp's most famous song, "Common People", an anthem for millions of working class Britons who had spent the '80's being trod upon by conservative governments that, as they did in the United States, saw the poor as lazy dirtbags. That the album was entitled Different Class is of course a reference to the economic elitism of the '80's that could never be challenged without plaints of "class warfare", a metaphorical class and clique war that is the subject of album opener "Mis-shapes". The album also features "Disco 2000", one of the catchiest and most nostalgic songs of all time. The dance club style of the album, as ironic as it is verisimilar (I don't doubt that "Common People" found its way into quite a few nightclubs), makes Different Class extremely catchy and listenable overall as well. For all of the happy-go-lucky image that Pulp has given off over the years, perhaps attributable to Jarvis Cocker's calm and cool demeanor, despite half of His 'n' Hers and This is Hardcore being fairly dark, Different Class is not the sunshine and roses I expected. I had basically expected Pulp's most popular album to be like Blur's - an exhibition of their poppier side with a bit of irony thrown in for good measure. While the singles that I had heard backed up this expectation - "Common People", "Disco 2000", and even "Mis-shapes" have some bounce to them - there are some pretty gritty moments on Different Class. "I Spy", "F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.", and "Underwear" counting among them. As a result, in Different Class is manifested the same happy veneer followed by a dark core that His 'n' Hers and This is Hardcore exhibit. As a Pulp fan, the more the merrier, and with punchy yet desperately earnest choruses like those on the singles, as well as, most notably for me, "Underwear", "Bar Italia", and "Sorted for E's & Wizz", what's not to like? This is a solid album. The critic in me wants to say definitively, however, that I think that its successor, This is Hardcore, is just a bit better. Different Class has the most memorable singles, and I have read a number of opinions ranking "Help the Aged" and "I'm a Man" among Pulp's worst work, but, as someone who likes both songs for their energy and spunk, I think both albums are equally stocked with quality tunes. This is Hardcore, however, has a bit more variation in sound over the course of the album, so while some of the songs on Different Class tend to blend together until you listen to it enough to really know the album, the songs on This is Hardcore each stand out on their own. All in all, Different Class is still the sort of album that is essential for anyone, even, like, my mom, who generally hates my music. Highlights include "Disco 2000," "Sorted for E's & Wizz," "Underwear".
OASIS -- BE HERE NOW -- 8/10
Yeah, I'm rating this album. Sometimes it's tough being an Oasis fan. You sort of have to feel like a sell-out because everyone knows "Wonderwall" (never mind that "Live Forever" is objectively their best song) and anyone who listens to any non-Top 40 music, and that includes Coldplay and Radiohead fans, will be sure to tell you that they think Oasis sucks. Additionally, there's the fact that they're a bit hit or miss outside of their first two albums and B-side compilation. Even so, I just can't resist the brilliance that results when they do get it all right, and on Be Here Now, it does happen - just not on every single song as in (What's the Story?) Morning Glory. Also, when they get it wrong, it's not in the adorable "A for effort" way that they did with songs like "Shakermaker" and "Up in the Sky". On Be Here Now, they either do just as well as they did on Morning Glory, as in songs like "The Girl with the Dirty Shirt" and "Stand by Me", or just completely fail, both musically and lyrically, as in "Fade In-Out" and the title track, doing so in a way that sounds like every 2000's rock song that you hated on the radio, with cheesy guitar effects and silly lyrics that are only there to rhyme, like "So get on the helter-skelter" or every line from "Be Here Now". Additionally, a good 75% of the song titles on this album are uninspired. At other times, though, it's like they haven't lost a step. "Stand by Me" is like a latter day "Live Forever", and "All Around the World" and "Don't Go Away" have all the same innocent naïveté that a) most people would be loath to attribute to Oasis and b) is found on the likes of "Digsy's Dinner" and "Slide Away". Granted, it's not a matter of every song being either perfect or terrible. "I Hope, I Think, I Know" has a lot of great ideas in it, but seems a bit sloppily pinned together, though not enough to stop it from being an enjoyable and uplifting listen, and "D'You Know What I Mean?" is a bit too long - a problem they suffered from a tiny bit on Definitely Maybe in unnecessarily 6 minute "Columbia" and 5 minute "Shakermaker" and "Rock 'n' Roll Star". Looking at it objectively, this isn't an album I should enjoy as much as I do, but the unstoppable charisma of the Gallagher's when they're trying is too much to pass up. While the successor to (What's the Story?) Morning Glory maybe ideally wouldn't have been Be Here Now - their first two albums thrived on contrasts of melancholy and bliss, where the extremes of emotion aren't as large here - it's still a strong album that holds up with repeated listens, and like any Oasis album is always a great one to come back to when you remember that they actually did, often, live up to the hype. Highlights include "My Big Mouth", "Stand by Me", "It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)".
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