Modern Life Is Rubbish
Encyclopedia
Modern Life Is Rubbish is the second album by English alternative rock
band Blur
, released in May 1993. Although their debut album Leisure
(1991) had been commercially successful, Blur faced a severe media backlash soon after its release, and fell out of public favour. After the group returned from an unsuccessful tour of the United States, poorly received live performances and the rising popularity of rival band Suede
further diminished Blur's status in the UK.
Under threat of being dropped by Food Records
, for their next album Blur underwent an image makeover championed by frontman Damon Albarn
. The band incorporated influences from traditional British guitar pop groups such as The Kinks
and Small Faces, and the resulting sound was melodic and lushly produced, featuring brass, woodwind and backing vocalists. Albarn's lyrics on Modern Life Is Rubbish "uses poignant humour and Ray Davies
characterisation to investigate the dreams, traditions and prejudices of suburban England", according to writer David Cavanagh.
Modern Life Is Rubbish was a moderate chart success in the UK; the album peaked at number 15, while the singles taken from the album charted in the Top 30. Applauded by the music press, the album's Anglocentric rhetoric rejuvenated the group's fortunes after their post-Leisure slump. Modern Life Is Rubbish is regarded as one of the defining releases of the Britpop
scene, and its chart-topping follow-ups—Parklife
and The Great Escape—saw Blur emerge as one of Britain's leading pop acts.
-inspired debut album Leisure
(1991) was a UK Top 10
-charting record that, according to the NME
, made the band the "acceptable pretty face of a whole clump of bands that have emerged since the whole Manchester thing started to run out of steam". However, as the baggy scene soon began to fade, Blur were—according to The Guardian
—"[s]wiftly exposed as bogus trend-hoppers, [and] they duly caught the wrath of the Madchester
backlash". Further, following their fall from public favour, the group found that they were £60,000 in debt, mainly due to mismanagement. Blur hired new manager Chris Morrison and, to recoup losses, were sent by their record label Food
to the United States as part of the Rollercoaster tour. To coincide with the start of the tour, Blur released the "Popscene
" single; the new release showcased a significant change in musical direction, as Blur traded their shoegaze
-derived sound for one influenced by 60s British guitar pop. However, the single failed to break into the UK top 30 which further diminished Blur's profile in the UK.
The 44-date tour of the United States left Blur in "complete disarray", according to writer David Cavanagh. Dismayed by American audiences' infatuation with grunge
and the lacklustre response to their music, the group frequently drank, and members often broke into fist-fights with one another. Homesick, the tour "instilled in the band a contempt for everything American", Cavanagh later wrote; frontman Damon Albarn
, who "started to miss really simple things [about England]", listened to a tape of the English pop group The Kinks
throughout the tour. Upon their return to England, the group discovered that the attention of the music press had shifted to Suede
. The newcomers' success displeased Blur who, in Cavanagh's words, "were inclined to feel that every record Suede sold was an affront to human decency". After many poor live shows, which Blur members often performed while drunk—in particular one at a 1992 gig that featured a well-received performance by Suede on the same bill—Blur were in danger of being dropped by Food.
in 2000, "There was nothing more important in my life." Albarn felt the popularity American grunge music was enjoying in Britain at the time would soon run out of steam, and argued that Blur would embody a renaissance of classic British pop on their next album. Although the singer felt Blur had finally found their musical identity, not everybody was convinced with Albarn's new British-centric manifesto. Food Records owner David Balfe
, in particular, strongly disagreed, and got into fierce arguments with Albarn over the proposed change in Blur's image. After the still-sceptical Balfe finally relented, Food warily gave Blur the go-ahead to work on their second album with Albarn's first choice of producer, Andy Partridge
of XTC
. Blur and Partridge began work at The Church, a studio in Crouch End owned by keyboardist Dave Stewart. However, the pairing didn't work out. Bassist Alex James
described the sessions as a "disaster"; he added that "as it was all being put together, they were all good parts, but it just wasn't ... sexy". The band successfully recorded four songs, but they were wary about working in the same conditions again.
Blur resumed work on their second album due to a chance meeting with producer Stephen Street
, who had previously worked with the band on their 1991 single "There's No Other Way
". With Street now producing the album, Blur recorded a mix of material spanning both the period immediately after the release of Leisure and their 1992 tour. While the band members were pleased with the recording session results, Balfe, after hearing the songs, told the band they were committing artistic suicide. Although dejected by his response, Blur gave Food the completed album in December 1992. However, the label told the group that the album was unfit for release and at the very least they should add a few more potential singles. Albarn complied, and on Christmas Day wrote the song "For Tomorrow
". Although "For Tomorrow" sated Food's concerns, Blur's American label SBK
voiced discontent upon hearing the finished tapes of the album. To appease SBK the band recorded "Chemical World
", which Blur thought would increase Rubbishs American appeal. However, Blur flatly refused SBK's demand of re-recording the album with American producer Butch Vig
, who was popular at the time for his work with Nirvana
.
, Small Faces and The Who
. The album's songs explore a number of styles—punk rock
("Advert"), neo-psychedelia
("Chemical World
"), and vaudeville music-hall ("Sunday Sunday
"). Opening track "For Tomorrow
" is, according to NME, "quintessential Blur. Damon, perennially bored, never stops singing, and Graham [Coxon
] supplie[s] his usual immaculate guitar accompaniment". While "Oily Water" harked back to the baggy sound of Leisure, NME described "Intermission" as "a pub piano knees-up that rinky-dinks along then gets frazzled in guitars and speeded-up drums". Most of the songs on the album are melodic and lushly produced, often supplemented by a brass section, string arrangements and backing vocals. To offer contrast to the classicist songwriting, Allmusic noted that "Coxon's guitar tears each song open, either with unpredictable melodic lines or layers of translucent, hypnotic effects, and his work creates great tension with Alex James' kinetic bass".
Deriving from "the biting humor of Ray Davies
and the bitterness of Paul Weller
", Albarn's lyrics on Modern Life Is Rubbish are a social commentary and satire on contemporary suburban English life. While Rubbish celebrates modern British life, it also takes a cynical look at middle-class existence. The overt Anglo-centricism of the album was also retaliation against American popular culture
; James later explained, "it was f***ing scary how American everything's becoming ... so the whole thing was a f***ing big two fingers up to America". NME summarised the theme of the "thinly-veiled concept album
" as a "London odyssey crammed full of strange commuters, peeping Thomases and lost dreams; of opening the windows and breathing in petrol ... It's the Village Green Preservation Society come home to find a car park in its place".
in 1993 that he thought the phrase was "the most significant comment on popular culture since 'Anarchy in the UK'". Due to Blur's disdain for America at the time, the album's working title was "Britain versus America".
The painting of the steam train on the album cover was a stock image that Stylorouge
—Blur's design consultants—obtained from a photo library in Halifax. According to Design Week
magazine, the painting "evoked the feel of a Just William
schoolboy's pre-war Britain". Inside the packaging, there is an oil-on-canvas of the band dressed as mop-top skinhead
s in a tube train. The album's lyric sheets also feature the songs' chord progressions, hand-written by guitar player Graham Coxon. While Albarn explained that it was an attempt to "[let] people to know that, old-fashioned as it might seem, we write songs", Total Guitar
magazine attributed the inclusion of the chords to Coxon's "keen[ness] to demystify guitar playing".
, reaching number 28. A few weeks later, on 10 May 1993, Modern Life was released, and it peaked at number 15 in UK Album Chart. The announcement of the album's release included a press photo that featured the phrase "British Image 1" spraypainted behind Blur members (who were dressed in a mixture of mod and skinhead attire) and a mastiff. At the time, such imagery was viewed as nationalistic and racially insensitive by the British music press; to quiet concerns, Blur subsequently released the "British Image 2" photo, which was "a camp restaging of a pre-war aristocratic tea party". In the next few months Food further issued two UK Top 30-charting singles—"Chemical World
" and "Sunday Sunday
"—to support the record; however, Modern Life only managed to sell around 40,000 copies at the time. Nonetheless, the mood within the Blur camp was positive, as the band felt they had accomplished something; bassist Alex James
told writer David Cavanagh in 2000, "Modern Life Is Rubbish was a successful record because it achieved what we set out to achieve. I thought everything was shit except us".
Modern Life Is Rubbish was released in the United States by Blur's American record label SBK in December 1993—seven months after the album's UK release. This delay was because SBK's alternative-music department had closed down; Blur manager Chris Morrison later quipped, "When I asked [SBK] why, they said it was because the girl had left." Despite fears that Modern Lifes overt Englishness would be lost on the American market, SBK insisted on marketing the album to MOR stations and aimed for Top 40 airplay. The label largely ignored Morrison's arguments that Blur's best chance of exposure in America would be to court college radio-stations. SBK's strategy was to list the album at a developing-artist price (around three dollars less than standard), send the band on an intensive tour in 1994 and to target modern rock airplay with debut single "Chemical World". The record company believed this would help expand on the base audience who bought Leisure, and eventually open Blur to Top 40 radio. Further, to lessen the anglocentric feel of the record, SBK added additional songs to the track-listing—including "Popscene
". The plan fared rather poorly, as Modern Life barely had any impact in the US; the album didn't chart on the US Billboard 200
and sold only 19,000 copies, a sharp decline compared to the 87,000 units that Leisure shifted.
Modern Life Is Rubbish was well-received by the British music press. NME
reviewer Paul Moody was mostly enthusiastic about the record and rated it seven out of ten. While he felt the album had "enough faults to give a surveyor nightmares", he was impressed that, unlike their peers, "Blur [had] thrown on their old clothes and stormed into No Man's Land with all guns blazing". Moody also praised the improvement in Albarn's lyrics, which had hitherto "[made] Eurovision Song Contest
entries seem like great works of poetry". Q
s David Roberts, in a favourable four (out of five) star review, called Modern Life "an energised, infectious romp around contemporary little England, by way of an exuberant trawl through a highly-coloured patchwork of its pop past". Roberts placed Coxon as the leading contender for "the vacant crown of[ Smiths
guitarist] Johnny Marr
". American publications also spoke favourably of Modern Life. Writing for the Chicago Tribune
, rock critic Greg Kot
felt the album was a vast improvement over Leisure, which he found "highly derivative" of the Madchester
genre. "Nothing on [Leisure] prepares the listener for the adventurousness of 'Modern Life is Rubbish,'" he wrote, going on to describe the album as "a swirling, intoxicating song cycle that enriches superior popcraft with wiggy studio experiments." St. Louis Post-Dispatch
writer Paul Hampel commended Blur for having "taken a bold step [with Modern Life] – backward", and pointed to their attempt at "a communion with past masters of smart, satirical Brit pop". He concluded his positive review of the album by calling it a "series of pleasant surprises [that] offers numerous signs that great things are to come from Blur".
(1994).
Parklife saw Blur expanding upon the themes and sounds they had first explored on Modern Life Is Rubbish; the NME described it as " 'Modern Life Is Rubbish's' older brother - bigger, bolder, narkier and funnier". Parklife debuted at number one on the UK charts, and helped Blur emerge as one of Britain's most popular acts. As Jim Shelley wrote in The Guardian, "a year after Blur were dismissed as too mannered, too retrograde and too English, Parklife was embraced for exactly the same reasons". Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife, along with The Great Escape (1995), formed what would be later referred to as the "Life" trilogy of Blur albums revolving around British themes.
Modern Life Is Rubbish remains highly regarded by critics, and is seen as one of the early, defining releases of Britpop
, a genre that would dominate British pop music in the mid-1990s. Writing for The Guardian, John Harris
called the album "one of the 1990s' most influential records". Stephen Thomas Erlewine
of Allmusic felt that "Modern Life Is Rubbish established Blur as the heir to the archly British pop of the Kinks, the Small Faces, and the Jam" and that it "ushered in a new era of British pop". Mark Redfern wrote in Under the Radar
magazine that following Modern Life Is Rubbish, "[a] whole wave of Britpop bands followed in [Blur's] footsteps, and for a while, it was cool to be British again".
" in between "Turn It Up" and "Resigned"; Blur had refused to include "Popscene" on the British version of Modern Life, disappointed by the public reaction to the song when it was released as a single. "We thought, If you didn’t fucking want it in the first place," Graham Coxon explained to Select magazine, "you’re not going to get it now". The American version also features several tracks with a few seconds of silence (tracks 18 to 67 on the CD), followed by two "For Tomorrow" B-sides ("When the Cows Come Home" and "Peach") as hidden track
s 68 and 69.
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Blur
Blur (band)
Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...
, released in May 1993. Although their debut album Leisure
Leisure (album)
Leisure is the debut album by English alternative rock band Blur. The album was released on 26 August 1991 in the United Kingdom via Food Records, and peaked at #7 in the UK Albums Chart. It was released in the US a month later with a different track listing. The album was certified Gold in the...
(1991) had been commercially successful, Blur faced a severe media backlash soon after its release, and fell out of public favour. After the group returned from an unsuccessful tour of the United States, poorly received live performances and the rising popularity of rival band Suede
Suede (band)
Suede are an English alternative rock band from London, formed in 1989. The group's most prominent early line-up featured singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Bernard Butler, bass player Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert. By 1992, Suede were hailed as "The Best New Band in Britain", and attracted...
further diminished Blur's status in the UK.
Under threat of being dropped by Food Records
Food Records
Food Records was a record label set up in 1984 by David Balfe, who later took on Andy Ross as his partner. Originally formed as an independent record label with distribution going through Rough Trade Distribution, Food licenced acts to the Polygram offshoot London and Warner's WEA Records, before...
, for their next album Blur underwent an image makeover championed by frontman Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...
. The band incorporated influences from traditional British guitar pop groups such as The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
and Small Faces, and the resulting sound was melodic and lushly produced, featuring brass, woodwind and backing vocalists. Albarn's lyrics on Modern Life Is Rubbish "uses poignant humour and Ray Davies
Ray Davies
Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...
characterisation to investigate the dreams, traditions and prejudices of suburban England", according to writer David Cavanagh.
Modern Life Is Rubbish was a moderate chart success in the UK; the album peaked at number 15, while the singles taken from the album charted in the Top 30. Applauded by the music press, the album's Anglocentric rhetoric rejuvenated the group's fortunes after their post-Leisure slump. Modern Life Is Rubbish is regarded as one of the defining releases of the Britpop
Britpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...
scene, and its chart-topping follow-ups—Parklife
Parklife
Parklife is the third studio album by the English alternative rock band Blur, released in April 1994 on Food Records. After disappointing sales for their previous album Modern Life Is Rubbish , Parklife returned Blur to prominence in the UK, helped by its four hit singles: "Girls & Boys", "End of a...
and The Great Escape—saw Blur emerge as one of Britain's leading pop acts.
Background
Blur's baggyBaggy
Baggy was a British dance-oriented music genre popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s.The scene was heavily influenced by Madchester, although it was not geographically confined to Manchester. Many Madchester bands could also be described as Baggy, and vice versa...
-inspired debut album Leisure
Leisure (album)
Leisure is the debut album by English alternative rock band Blur. The album was released on 26 August 1991 in the United Kingdom via Food Records, and peaked at #7 in the UK Albums Chart. It was released in the US a month later with a different track listing. The album was certified Gold in the...
(1991) was a UK Top 10
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
-charting record that, according to the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
, made the band the "acceptable pretty face of a whole clump of bands that have emerged since the whole Manchester thing started to run out of steam". However, as the baggy scene soon began to fade, Blur were—according to The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
—"[s]wiftly exposed as bogus trend-hoppers, [and] they duly caught the wrath of the Madchester
Madchester
Madchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England, towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music...
backlash". Further, following their fall from public favour, the group found that they were £60,000 in debt, mainly due to mismanagement. Blur hired new manager Chris Morrison and, to recoup losses, were sent by their record label Food
Food Records
Food Records was a record label set up in 1984 by David Balfe, who later took on Andy Ross as his partner. Originally formed as an independent record label with distribution going through Rough Trade Distribution, Food licenced acts to the Polygram offshoot London and Warner's WEA Records, before...
to the United States as part of the Rollercoaster tour. To coincide with the start of the tour, Blur released the "Popscene
Popscene
"Popscene" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur. It was released 30 March 1992 as a single. The low chart placing came as a confidence blow for the band, who were struggling financially at the time...
" single; the new release showcased a significant change in musical direction, as Blur traded their shoegaze
Shoegazing
Shoegazing is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. It lasted there until the mid 1990s, with a critical zenith reached in 1990 and 1991...
-derived sound for one influenced by 60s British guitar pop. However, the single failed to break into the UK top 30 which further diminished Blur's profile in the UK.
The 44-date tour of the United States left Blur in "complete disarray", according to writer David Cavanagh. Dismayed by American audiences' infatuation with grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
and the lacklustre response to their music, the group frequently drank, and members often broke into fist-fights with one another. Homesick, the tour "instilled in the band a contempt for everything American", Cavanagh later wrote; frontman Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...
, who "started to miss really simple things [about England]", listened to a tape of the English pop group The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
throughout the tour. Upon their return to England, the group discovered that the attention of the music press had shifted to Suede
Suede (band)
Suede are an English alternative rock band from London, formed in 1989. The group's most prominent early line-up featured singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Bernard Butler, bass player Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert. By 1992, Suede were hailed as "The Best New Band in Britain", and attracted...
. The newcomers' success displeased Blur who, in Cavanagh's words, "were inclined to feel that every record Suede sold was an affront to human decency". After many poor live shows, which Blur members often performed while drunk—in particular one at a 1992 gig that featured a well-received performance by Suede on the same bill—Blur were in danger of being dropped by Food.
Recording
"Suede and America fuelled my desire to prove to everyone that Blur were worth it." Albarn told MojoMojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
in 2000, "There was nothing more important in my life." Albarn felt the popularity American grunge music was enjoying in Britain at the time would soon run out of steam, and argued that Blur would embody a renaissance of classic British pop on their next album. Although the singer felt Blur had finally found their musical identity, not everybody was convinced with Albarn's new British-centric manifesto. Food Records owner David Balfe
David Balfe
David Balfe is most notable for playing keyboards with The Teardrop Explodes, founding the Zoo and Food record labels, signing Blur and for being the subject of their number one hit - "Country House".-Biography:...
, in particular, strongly disagreed, and got into fierce arguments with Albarn over the proposed change in Blur's image. After the still-sceptical Balfe finally relented, Food warily gave Blur the go-ahead to work on their second album with Albarn's first choice of producer, Andy Partridge
Andy Partridge
Andrew John "Andy" Partridge is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has been known as Sir John Johns and Melchior and rose to fame as a founding member, guitarist and chief songwriter of the pop/new wave band, XTC. He lives in Swindon, Wiltshire, where he was raised.Partridge also...
of XTC
XTC
XTC were a New Wave band from Swindon, England, active between 1976 and 2005. The band enjoyed some chart success, including the UK and Canadian hits "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Senses Working Overtime" , but are perhaps even better known for their long-standing critical success.- Early years:...
. Blur and Partridge began work at The Church, a studio in Crouch End owned by keyboardist Dave Stewart. However, the pairing didn't work out. Bassist Alex James
Alex James (musician)
Professionally known as Alex James is an English musician, songwriter, journalist and cheesemaker. He is best known as the bass player and occasional vocalist of band Blur...
described the sessions as a "disaster"; he added that "as it was all being put together, they were all good parts, but it just wasn't ... sexy". The band successfully recorded four songs, but they were wary about working in the same conditions again.
Blur resumed work on their second album due to a chance meeting with producer Stephen Street
Stephen Street
Stephen Street is an English music producer best known for his work with The Smiths in the 1980s, as well as Blur and The Cranberries in the 1990s. Street also collaborated with Morrissey on some of his most popular work after The Smiths broke up, playing instruments and co-writing songs...
, who had previously worked with the band on their 1991 single "There's No Other Way
There's No Other Way
"There's No Other Way" is a song by Blur and was released 15 April 1991 as their second single. The song was the band's first top ten and top 40 hit and was also featured on the band's debut album Leisure. The single was also a minor hit in the United States, reaching number 82 on the Billboard Hot...
". With Street now producing the album, Blur recorded a mix of material spanning both the period immediately after the release of Leisure and their 1992 tour. While the band members were pleased with the recording session results, Balfe, after hearing the songs, told the band they were committing artistic suicide. Although dejected by his response, Blur gave Food the completed album in December 1992. However, the label told the group that the album was unfit for release and at the very least they should add a few more potential singles. Albarn complied, and on Christmas Day wrote the song "For Tomorrow
For Tomorrow
"For Tomorrow" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur. It is the lead track to their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish . Released 19 April 1993 as the first single from the album, "For Tomorrow" charted at number 28 in the UK Singles Chart...
". Although "For Tomorrow" sated Food's concerns, Blur's American label SBK
SBK Records
SBK Records was a record label of the EMI Group that was founded in 1988.Stephen Swid, Martin Bandier, and Charles Koppelman formed the production company SBK in 1989 after they purchased the music publishing division of CBS Records in 1986....
voiced discontent upon hearing the finished tapes of the album. To appease SBK the band recorded "Chemical World
Chemical World
"Chemical World" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur, featured on their second album Modern Life Is Rubbish . It was released on 28 June 1993 as the second single from that album, equalling their previous release "For Tomorrow" at number 28 in the UK Singles Charts...
", which Blur thought would increase Rubbishs American appeal. However, Blur flatly refused SBK's demand of re-recording the album with American producer Butch Vig
Butch Vig
Butch Vig is an American musician and record producer, best known internationally as the drummer of the Madison, Wisconsin-based alternative rock band Garbage and the producer of multi-platinum selling album Nevermind by Nirvana....
, who was popular at the time for his work with Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
.
Music and lyrical themes
Modern Life Is Rubbishs sound is highly-influenced by the traditional guitar pop of British bands such as The Kinks, The JamThe Jam
The Jam were an English punk rock/New Wave/mod revival band active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were formed in Woking, Surrey. While they shared the "angry young men" outlook and fast tempos of their punk rock contemporaries, The Jam wore smartly tailored suits rather than ripped...
, Small Faces and The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
. The album's songs explore a number of styles—punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
("Advert"), neo-psychedelia
Neo-psychedelia
Neo-psychedelia is music that emulates or is heavily influenced by the psychedelic music of the 1960s. It began to be revived among British post-punk bands of the later 1970s and early 1980s and was taken up by groups including bands of the Paisley Underground and Madchester scenes, as well as...
("Chemical World
Chemical World
"Chemical World" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur, featured on their second album Modern Life Is Rubbish . It was released on 28 June 1993 as the second single from that album, equalling their previous release "For Tomorrow" at number 28 in the UK Singles Charts...
"), and vaudeville music-hall ("Sunday Sunday
Sunday Sunday
"Sunday Sunday" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur, featured on their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish. It was released 4 October 1993 as the final single from that album, and charted at number 26 in the UK Singles Charts...
"). Opening track "For Tomorrow
For Tomorrow
"For Tomorrow" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur. It is the lead track to their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish . Released 19 April 1993 as the first single from the album, "For Tomorrow" charted at number 28 in the UK Singles Chart...
" is, according to NME, "quintessential Blur. Damon, perennially bored, never stops singing, and Graham [Coxon
Graham Coxon
Graham Leslie Coxon is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter. He came to prominence as the lead guitarist, backing vocalist and occasional lead vocalist of rock band Blur, and is also a critically acclaimed solo artist, having recorded seven solo albums...
] supplie[s] his usual immaculate guitar accompaniment". While "Oily Water" harked back to the baggy sound of Leisure, NME described "Intermission" as "a pub piano knees-up that rinky-dinks along then gets frazzled in guitars and speeded-up drums". Most of the songs on the album are melodic and lushly produced, often supplemented by a brass section, string arrangements and backing vocals. To offer contrast to the classicist songwriting, Allmusic noted that "Coxon's guitar tears each song open, either with unpredictable melodic lines or layers of translucent, hypnotic effects, and his work creates great tension with Alex James' kinetic bass".
Deriving from "the biting humor of Ray Davies
Ray Davies
Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...
and the bitterness of Paul Weller
Paul Weller
Paul Weller is an English singer-songwriter. Starting with the band The Jam , Weller then went on to branch out musically to a more soulful style with The Style Council...
", Albarn's lyrics on Modern Life Is Rubbish are a social commentary and satire on contemporary suburban English life. While Rubbish celebrates modern British life, it also takes a cynical look at middle-class existence. The overt Anglo-centricism of the album was also retaliation against American popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
; James later explained, "it was f***ing scary how American everything's becoming ... so the whole thing was a f***ing big two fingers up to America". NME summarised the theme of the "thinly-veiled concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
" as a "London odyssey crammed full of strange commuters, peeping Thomases and lost dreams; of opening the windows and breathing in petrol ... It's the Village Green Preservation Society come home to find a car park in its place".
Packaging
The album's title derives from stenciled graffiti painted along Bayswater Road in London, created by an anarchist group. For Albarn, the phrase reflected the "rubbish" of the past that accumulated over time, stifling creativity. Albarn told journalist John HarrisJohn Harris (critic)
John Rhys Harris is a British journalist, writer, and critic.-Early life:Harris was raised in Wilmslow in north Cheshire by a university lecturer and a teacher, daughter of a nuclear research chemist...
in 1993 that he thought the phrase was "the most significant comment on popular culture since 'Anarchy in the UK'". Due to Blur's disdain for America at the time, the album's working title was "Britain versus America".
The painting of the steam train on the album cover was a stock image that Stylorouge
Stylorouge
Stylorouge is a graphic design studio currently based in Shoreditch, London. Formed by creative director Rob O'Connor in 1981, it is notable for creating record sleeve designs for bands such as Blur, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Stereophonics, Killing Joke, Sandie Shaw, Adam Ant, Catatonia, Jesus...
—Blur's design consultants—obtained from a photo library in Halifax. According to Design Week
Design Week
Design Week is a UK-based magazine launched in 1986 for the design industry. The publication was first published in October 1986 by Centaur Communications and currently [2011] published by Centaur Media plc...
magazine, the painting "evoked the feel of a Just William
Just William
Just William is the first book of children's short stories about the young school boy William Brown, written by Richmal Crompton, and published in 1922. The book was the first in the series of William Brown books which was the basis for numerous television series, films and radio adaptations...
schoolboy's pre-war Britain". Inside the packaging, there is an oil-on-canvas of the band dressed as mop-top skinhead
Skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture that originated among working class youths in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, and then spread to other parts of the world. Named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, the first skinheads were greatly influenced by West Indian rude boys and British mods,...
s in a tube train. The album's lyric sheets also feature the songs' chord progressions, hand-written by guitar player Graham Coxon. While Albarn explained that it was an attempt to "[let] people to know that, old-fashioned as it might seem, we write songs", Total Guitar
Total Guitar
Total Guitar is a monthly magazine based in the United Kingdom. The magazine is the best selling guitar magazine in Europe.The magazine is owned by Future Publishing, who publish many other magazines ranging from drums and video games to mountain bikes and knitting magazines.Total Guitar regularly...
magazine attributed the inclusion of the chords to Coxon's "keen[ness] to demystify guitar playing".
Release and reception
To promote Modern Life Is Rubbish, Food released "For Tomorrow" as the album's lead single in the UK in April 1993. The single, which showcased Blur's new sound and attitude, performed moderately well in the chartsUK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, reaching number 28. A few weeks later, on 10 May 1993, Modern Life was released, and it peaked at number 15 in UK Album Chart. The announcement of the album's release included a press photo that featured the phrase "British Image 1" spraypainted behind Blur members (who were dressed in a mixture of mod and skinhead attire) and a mastiff. At the time, such imagery was viewed as nationalistic and racially insensitive by the British music press; to quiet concerns, Blur subsequently released the "British Image 2" photo, which was "a camp restaging of a pre-war aristocratic tea party". In the next few months Food further issued two UK Top 30-charting singles—"Chemical World
Chemical World
"Chemical World" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur, featured on their second album Modern Life Is Rubbish . It was released on 28 June 1993 as the second single from that album, equalling their previous release "For Tomorrow" at number 28 in the UK Singles Charts...
" and "Sunday Sunday
Sunday Sunday
"Sunday Sunday" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur, featured on their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish. It was released 4 October 1993 as the final single from that album, and charted at number 26 in the UK Singles Charts...
"—to support the record; however, Modern Life only managed to sell around 40,000 copies at the time. Nonetheless, the mood within the Blur camp was positive, as the band felt they had accomplished something; bassist Alex James
Alex James (musician)
Professionally known as Alex James is an English musician, songwriter, journalist and cheesemaker. He is best known as the bass player and occasional vocalist of band Blur...
told writer David Cavanagh in 2000, "Modern Life Is Rubbish was a successful record because it achieved what we set out to achieve. I thought everything was shit except us".
Modern Life Is Rubbish was released in the United States by Blur's American record label SBK in December 1993—seven months after the album's UK release. This delay was because SBK's alternative-music department had closed down; Blur manager Chris Morrison later quipped, "When I asked [SBK] why, they said it was because the girl had left." Despite fears that Modern Lifes overt Englishness would be lost on the American market, SBK insisted on marketing the album to MOR stations and aimed for Top 40 airplay. The label largely ignored Morrison's arguments that Blur's best chance of exposure in America would be to court college radio-stations. SBK's strategy was to list the album at a developing-artist price (around three dollars less than standard), send the band on an intensive tour in 1994 and to target modern rock airplay with debut single "Chemical World". The record company believed this would help expand on the base audience who bought Leisure, and eventually open Blur to Top 40 radio. Further, to lessen the anglocentric feel of the record, SBK added additional songs to the track-listing—including "Popscene
Popscene
"Popscene" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur. It was released 30 March 1992 as a single. The low chart placing came as a confidence blow for the band, who were struggling financially at the time...
". The plan fared rather poorly, as Modern Life barely had any impact in the US; the album didn't chart on the US Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and sold only 19,000 copies, a sharp decline compared to the 87,000 units that Leisure shifted.
Modern Life Is Rubbish was well-received by the British music press. NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
reviewer Paul Moody was mostly enthusiastic about the record and rated it seven out of ten. While he felt the album had "enough faults to give a surveyor nightmares", he was impressed that, unlike their peers, "Blur [had] thrown on their old clothes and stormed into No Man's Land with all guns blazing". Moody also praised the improvement in Albarn's lyrics, which had hitherto "[made] Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...
entries seem like great works of poetry". Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
s David Roberts, in a favourable four (out of five) star review, called Modern Life "an energised, infectious romp around contemporary little England, by way of an exuberant trawl through a highly-coloured patchwork of its pop past". Roberts placed Coxon as the leading contender for "the vacant crown of
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
guitarist] Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr is an English musician and songwriter. Marr rose to fame in the 1980s as the guitarist in The Smiths, with whom he formed a prolific songwriting partnership with Morrissey. Marr has been a member of Electronic, The The, and Modest Mouse...
". American publications also spoke favourably of Modern Life. Writing for the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, rock critic Greg Kot
Greg Kot
Greg Kot is an American writer and journalist. Since 1990, Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he has covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues...
felt the album was a vast improvement over Leisure, which he found "highly derivative" of the Madchester
Madchester
Madchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England, towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music...
genre. "Nothing on [Leisure] prepares the listener for the adventurousness of 'Modern Life is Rubbish,'" he wrote, going on to describe the album as "a swirling, intoxicating song cycle that enriches superior popcraft with wiggy studio experiments." St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
writer Paul Hampel commended Blur for having "taken a bold step [with Modern Life] – backward", and pointed to their attempt at "a communion with past masters of smart, satirical Brit pop". He concluded his positive review of the album by calling it a "series of pleasant surprises [that] offers numerous signs that great things are to come from Blur".
Aftermath and legacy
In August 1993, Blur set off on the Sugary Tea tour of the UK to promote Modern Life Is Rubbish. Named after a lyric in "Chemical World", the tour was a success, as Blur reclaimed some of their popularity. A key performance was at that year's Reading Festival which, according to David Cavanagh, was "brilliant". On the tour, Blur performed a number of songs that would end up on the group's follow-up album, ParklifeParklife
Parklife is the third studio album by the English alternative rock band Blur, released in April 1994 on Food Records. After disappointing sales for their previous album Modern Life Is Rubbish , Parklife returned Blur to prominence in the UK, helped by its four hit singles: "Girls & Boys", "End of a...
(1994).
Parklife saw Blur expanding upon the themes and sounds they had first explored on Modern Life Is Rubbish; the NME described it as " 'Modern Life Is Rubbish's' older brother - bigger, bolder, narkier and funnier". Parklife debuted at number one on the UK charts, and helped Blur emerge as one of Britain's most popular acts. As Jim Shelley wrote in The Guardian, "a year after Blur were dismissed as too mannered, too retrograde and too English, Parklife was embraced for exactly the same reasons". Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife, along with The Great Escape (1995), formed what would be later referred to as the "Life" trilogy of Blur albums revolving around British themes.
Modern Life Is Rubbish remains highly regarded by critics, and is seen as one of the early, defining releases of Britpop
Britpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...
, a genre that would dominate British pop music in the mid-1990s. Writing for The Guardian, John Harris
John Harris (critic)
John Rhys Harris is a British journalist, writer, and critic.-Early life:Harris was raised in Wilmslow in north Cheshire by a university lecturer and a teacher, daughter of a nuclear research chemist...
called the album "one of the 1990s' most influential records". Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
of Allmusic felt that "Modern Life Is Rubbish established Blur as the heir to the archly British pop of the Kinks, the Small Faces, and the Jam" and that it "ushered in a new era of British pop". Mark Redfern wrote in Under the Radar
Under the Radar (magazine)
Under the Radar is an American magazine that bills itself as "The solution to music pollution" and features interviews with accompanying photo-shoots. Each issue includes opinion and commentary of the Indie music scene as well as reviews on books, DVDs and albums.Items are reviewed based on a...
magazine that following Modern Life Is Rubbish, "[a] whole wave of Britpop bands followed in [Blur's] footsteps, and for a while, it was cool to be British again".
Track listing
All songs written by Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree.- "For TomorrowFor Tomorrow"For Tomorrow" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur. It is the lead track to their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish . Released 19 April 1993 as the first single from the album, "For Tomorrow" charted at number 28 in the UK Singles Chart...
" – 4:18 - "Advert" – 3:43
- "Colin Zeal" – 3:14
- "Pressure on Julian" – 3:30
- "Star Shaped" – 3:25
- "Blue Jeans" – 3:53
- "Chemical WorldChemical World"Chemical World" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur, featured on their second album Modern Life Is Rubbish . It was released on 28 June 1993 as the second single from that album, equalling their previous release "For Tomorrow" at number 28 in the UK Singles Charts...
" – 4:02
"Intermission" – 2:27 - "Sunday SundaySunday Sunday"Sunday Sunday" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur, featured on their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish. It was released 4 October 1993 as the final single from that album, and charted at number 26 in the UK Singles Charts...
" – 2:36 - "Oily Water" – 4:59
- "Miss America" – 5:34
- "Villa Rosie" – 3:54
- "Coping" – 3:23
- "Turn It Up" – 3:21
- "Resigned" – 5:13
"Commercial Break" – 0:56
American release
The American release of Modern Life Is Rubbish features an altered track listing. Blur's American label SBK Records preferred the group's original demo of "Chemical World", and included it on the album instead of the Stephen Street-produced version. According to Select magazine, this "defeated the object of recording a heavy rock song in the first place". SBK inserted "PopscenePopscene
"Popscene" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur. It was released 30 March 1992 as a single. The low chart placing came as a confidence blow for the band, who were struggling financially at the time...
" in between "Turn It Up" and "Resigned"; Blur had refused to include "Popscene" on the British version of Modern Life, disappointed by the public reaction to the song when it was released as a single. "We thought, If you didn’t fucking want it in the first place," Graham Coxon explained to Select magazine, "you’re not going to get it now". The American version also features several tracks with a few seconds of silence (tracks 18 to 67 on the CD), followed by two "For Tomorrow" B-sides ("When the Cows Come Home" and "Peach") as hidden track
Hidden track
In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...
s 68 and 69.
Personnel
- Damon AlbarnDamon AlbarnDamon Albarn is an English singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of Britpop band Blur...
– vocals, piano, keyboards - Graham CoxonGraham CoxonGraham Leslie Coxon is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter. He came to prominence as the lead guitarist, backing vocalist and occasional lead vocalist of rock band Blur, and is also a critically acclaimed solo artist, having recorded seven solo albums...
– guitar, backing vocals - Alex JamesAlex James (musician)Professionally known as Alex James is an English musician, songwriter, journalist and cheesemaker. He is best known as the bass player and occasional vocalist of band Blur...
– bass guitar - Dave RowntreeDave RowntreeDavid Alexander De Horne Rowntree is an English solicitor, musician, animator, and political activist. He is best known as the drummer of the alternative rock band Blur...
– drums - Stephen StreetStephen StreetStephen Street is an English music producer best known for his work with The Smiths in the 1980s, as well as Blur and The Cranberries in the 1990s. Street also collaborated with Morrissey on some of his most popular work after The Smiths broke up, playing instruments and co-writing songs...
– producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
(except "Sunday Sunday" and "Villa Rosie") - Steve Lovell – producer ("Sunday Sunday" and "Villa Rosie")
- Simon Weinstock – mixerAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
("Sunday Sunday" and "Villa Rosie") - John Smith – engineer; co-producer ("Intermission", "Commercial Break", "Miss America", "Resigned")
- Blur – producer ("Oily Water"), co-producer ("Intermission", "Commercial Break", "Miss America", "Resigned")