Parklife
Encyclopedia
Parklife is the third studio album by the English alternative rock
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 April 1994 on 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...

. After disappointing sales for their previous album Modern Life Is Rubbish
Modern Life Is Rubbish
Modern Life Is Rubbish is the second album by English alternative rock band Blur, released in May 1993. Although their debut album Leisure had been commercially successful, Blur faced a severe media backlash soon after its release, and fell out of public favour...

(1993), Parklife returned Blur to prominence in the UK, helped by its four hit singles: "Girls & Boys", "End of a Century
End of a Century
"End of a Century" is a song by Blur. It was the last single to be released from their third album Parklife and reached #19 on the UK Singles Chart in 1994. The video is a live performance recorded at Alexandra Palace....

", "Parklife
Parklife (song)
"Parklife" is the title track from Blur's 1994 album Parklife. When released as the album's third single, "Parklife" reached #10 in the UK singles chart...

" and "To the End". Certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, in the year following its release the album came to define the emerging 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. Britpop in turn would form the backbone of the broader Cool Britannia movement. Therefore Parklife attained a cultural significance above and beyond its considerable sales and critical acclaim, cementing its status as a landmark in British rock music.

Recording

After the completion of recording sessions for Blur's previous album, Modern Life Is Rubbish
Modern Life Is Rubbish
Modern Life Is Rubbish is the second album by English alternative rock band Blur, released in May 1993. Although their debut album Leisure had been commercially successful, Blur faced a severe media backlash soon after its release, and fell out of public favour...

, 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'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
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...

 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
This Is a Low
"This Is a Low" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur for their third studio album, Parklife.- Music and lyrics :The song is in the key of E major and is in 4/4 time. In total, the song contains two verses, two choruses, a guitar solo and two further choruses. The music commences with a...

".

While the members of Blur were pleased with the final result, 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:...

 was not pleased with the record, telling the band's management "This is a mistake". Soon afterwards, Balfe sold Food to EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

.

Music

Blur 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...

 told 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...

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
Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...

 novel London Fields
London Fields (novel)
London Fields is a black comic novel murder mystery by British writer Martin Amis, published in 1989. Regarded by Amis's readership as possibly his strongest novel, the tone gradually shifts from high comedy, interspersed with deep personal introspections, to a dark sense of foreboding and...

as a major influence on the album. The songs themselves span many genres, such as the synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...

-influenced hit single "Girls & Boys", the instrumental waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...

 interlude of "The Debt Collector", the punk rock-influenced "Bank Holiday", the spacey, Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett , born Roger Keith Barrett, was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and painter, best remembered as a founding member of the band Pink Floyd. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter during the band's psychedelic years, providing major musical and stylistic...

-esque "Far Out", and the fairly New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

-influenced "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 "Badhead" "lay in a much more personal space".

Original title and cover concept

The album was originally going to be entitled London, and the album-cover shot was going to be of a fruit-and-vegetable cart. Chuckled Albarn, "That was the last time that Dave 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:...

 was, sort of, privvy to any decision or creative process with us, and that was his final contribution: to call it London.

Cover

The album cover
Album cover
An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...

 for Parklife was among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail
Royal Mail
Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...

 for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

s issued in January 2010.

Reception

Parklife remains one of the most acclaimed records of the 90s, 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
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...

, called it "a great pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 record", adding "On paper it sounds like hell, in practice it's joyous." Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

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."

In 2006, British Hit Singles & Albums and 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...

organised a poll of which, 40,000 people worldwide voted for the 100 best albums ever and Parklife was placed at #34 on the list.

Accolades

Parklife has been receiving accolades since its official release and is largely seen not only as one of the best albums of 1994 and its decade, but of all time. The album was nominated to the 1995 Mercury Prize
Mercury Prize
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize and currently known as the Barclaycard Mercury Prize for sponsorship reasons, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established by the British Phonographic Industry and British...

 and won Best British Album at the 1995 Brit Awards
Brit Awards
The Brit Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain" or "Britannia", but subsequently became a backronym for British Record Industry Trust...

. Some of the most notable appearances are listed below, as taken from Acclaimed Music, which currently ranks Parklife the 164th most critically acclaimed album of all time and the 28th best release of the 90s. The album was also listed as one of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a musical reference book edited by Robert Dimery, first published in 2005. The most recent edition consists of a list of albums released between 1955 and 2010, part of a series from Quintessence Editions Ltd...

.

Track listing

All music by Blur and all lyrics by Albarn, except "Far Out" written by James.
  1. "Girls & Boys" – 4:50
  2. "Tracy Jacks" – 4:20
  3. "End of a Century
    End of a Century
    "End of a Century" is a song by Blur. It was the last single to be released from their third album Parklife and reached #19 on the UK Singles Chart in 1994. The video is a live performance recorded at Alexandra Palace....

    " – 2:46
  4. "Parklife
    Parklife (song)
    "Parklife" is the title track from Blur's 1994 album Parklife. When released as the album's third single, "Parklife" reached #10 in the UK singles chart...

    " (starring Phil Daniels
    Phil Daniels
    Philip W. "Phil" Daniels is an English actor, most noted for film and television roles as "cockneys" such as Jimmy in Quadrophenia, Richards in Scum, Stewart in The Class of Miss MacMichael, Mark in Meantime, Kevin Wicks in EastEnders, DCS Frank Patterson in New Tricks and Edward Kitchener "Ted"...

    )
    – 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
    This Is a Low
    "This Is a Low" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur for their third studio album, Parklife.- Music and lyrics :The song is in the key of E major and is in 4/4 time. In total, the song contains two verses, two choruses, a guitar solo and two further choruses. The music commences with a...

    " – 5:07
  16. "Lot 105" – 1:17

Personnel

  • 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...

     – lead-backing vocals, keyboards, hammond organ , moog synthesizer, machine strings, harpsichord on "Clover Over Dover", melodica, vibraphone, recorder, programming
  • 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...

     – backing vocals, guitar, clarinet, saxophone, percussion
  • 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...

     – vocals on "Far Out", bass guitar, noise
  • Dave Rowntree
    Dave Rowntree
    David 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, percussion, programming, noises

Additional musicians

  • 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...

     – vintage keys, sound effects, some programming
  • Laetitia Sadier – vocals on "To the End"
  • Phil Daniels
    Phil Daniels
    Philip W. "Phil" Daniels is an English actor, most noted for film and television roles as "cockneys" such as Jimmy in Quadrophenia, Richards in Scum, Stewart in The Class of Miss MacMichael, Mark in Meantime, Kevin Wicks in EastEnders, DCS Frank Patterson in New Tricks and Edward Kitchener "Ted"...

     – narration on "Parklife
    Parklife (song)
    "Parklife" is the title track from Blur's 1994 album Parklife. When released as the album's third single, "Parklife" reached #10 in the UK singles chart...

    "
  • Stephen Hague – accordion

Duke strings

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

Kick horns

  • Richard Edwards
    Richard Edwards (musician)
    Richard Edwards is a London-based classical and jazz trombone player as well as composer/arranger.His professional career includes:* Numerous film, recording sessions, television and radio productions...

     – trombone
  • Roddy Lorimer
    Roddy Lorimer
    Roddy Lorimer is a Scottish musician who has performed with a number of bands, including Blur, Gene, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton, Suede and The Waterboys. He is currently a member of the horn section Kick Horns....

     – flugelhorn, trombone
  • Tim Sanders – tenor sax, soprano sax
  • Simon Clarke – baritone sax, alto sax, flute
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK