ALBUM REVIEW: Blur - The Great Escape

    Let's go back a bit: if you remember, Damon Albarn is quoted as saying that Blur would become the quintessential English band of the 1990s, thus taking us back to the current with a lesson in being careful what you wish for. Albarn was, in many ways, proven just right with the release of Parklife, an album that stayed on the UK charts for 90 weeks, yielded four Top 20 singles, has since been certified 4x Platinum (Platinum is 250,000 units in England for my US readers, so over a million units), and helped propel Blur straight back into the spotlight - upon getting there, though, Damon Albarn would discover just how uncomfortable the media attention was. The resulting media frenzy around the group would weigh heavy on his, and the rest of the group's, shoulders, and the following material that would emerge out of it would be echoing of this stressful period, which Albarn would later say lead to many moments of mental duress and panic attacks. One of the most famous episodes of this media scrutiny was during the publicized, and completely manufactured, rivalry with Oasis during the "Battle of Britpop" in the wake of two competing singles and, eventually, two albums (that is, of course, a review for another time). Compared to the cheeky nature of the preceding Modern Life and Parklife, The Great Escape is a real downer of an album, filled with themes of isolation and loneliness, making for the darkest album in their catalog up to this point. Blur's final album in the "life" trilogy of albums is just as adventurous in musical sounds as its predecessor, and it proves a captivating listen, even if the end result is probably the weakest of the trilogy.

    By this point, Blur had their formula of artsy and explorative Britpop down pat, so in some ways The Great Escape sees a greater furthering of the things they started in Modern Life and continued with Parklife, but now with even more offbeat moments and variation in the sounds. It's in this category where The Great Escape sees its greatest successes, a cornucopia of sounds and ideas from chamber pop, an even greater influence from new wave, and even some hinting at what's to come with full-blown art pop and even some influence from indie rock at moments (there's even, and I'm not kidding here, a ska song with "Fade Away"). These landscapes of ideas and sounds, sometimes in the form of punching, dissonant synth parts, other times in drum grooves, others in the still amazing work of Graham Coxon's guitar, help create what is possibly Blur's most consistently diverse and fascinating work of their Britpop days, one that constantly leaves the listener wondering what will come next - it helps that many of the performances on the album are similarly offbeat, even in terms of the witty energy and sarcastic character pieces on Parklife. While the album may remain in the same lane musically, the album's lyrical themes verge much more dark than its distinctly British and sarcastic predecessors - as previously mentioned, Albarn's feelings of isolation and loneliness from fame greatly influenced much of the album's lyrical contents, such as the somber "He Thought of Cars" where the song's main characters is showered with material wealth in the form of cars, but when thinking of who to go with, "there was no one". Another prominent example is the melancholy of "Best Days", a reflection on the recent sadness he's felt in his life. Other themes work their way in, such as the surprising optimism of "The Universal" or their label's owner selling it and running off to a simpler life on the chart-topping "Country House", but all of the song's are united in a certain dire nature from start to finish.

    While the theme of the album keeps it cohesive in the face of musical exploration, it doesn't completely save some weak moments, particularly in the album's back-half. After the interstellar heights of "The Universal", the album's consistency begins to take a dive as every other song becomes either too weird for its own good or just lacking any starting momentum - "Mr. Robinson's Quango" is a knock at right-wing politics that is all but ruined by Damon's ridiculous bridge where he calls himself a "naughty, naughty boy". Penultimate song "Entertain Me" has some musical elements that almost feel like a repeat of "Girls & Boys", but without the strong hook to justify itself. That isn't to say that the first half is devoid without some real drivel (see the ska song "Fade Away") or that the second half is a complete trainwreck - after all, there's "He Thought of Cars" and the ethos-summarizing "Dan Abnormal" here - but it can't consistently stick the landing with great hooks quite like the album's front-half, although I imagine having all four of the album's singles on one side will do that to you. Speaking of those singles, these showcase the real growth of Blur, from the off-kilter organ and guitar work on opening track "Stereotypes" to the deceivingly upbeat sound of "Charmless Man", quite possibly the album's highlight single-wise, to the Britpop Battle winner "Country House", a decently lighthearted romp, albeit one that feels a bit tonally out of place with the album. Some of the album's more offbeat moments also prove surprisingly fun, such as "Top Man" or the psychedelia of the closing track "Yuko and Hiro", both of which showcase the better side of the album's sound wandering.

    The Great Escape, for what it's worth, received near universal acclaim... for about a month - in October, Oasis released Morning Glory and the entire music press collectively realized that praising Oasis would get them more magazine readers, and magazine Q even apologized for their initial review of The Great Escape in the months following Oasis' second album. Outside of proving that music magazines are, indeed, only after selling more magazines and don't care about music, I imagine this sudden turn probably soured the group's retrospective on the album - Albarn himself called it a messy record, and even said it's one of two bad albums the group made, with the other being their debut. I think that's a real shame, because while The Great Escape is a messy album, it's far from a bad one. It's themes are realized, the music is adventurous, and it combos with some of the group's best singles yet. While it doesn't match up to its two predecessors in the "Life" trilogy, The Great Escape is still a mighty fine album, one whose themes of isolation hold up surprisingly well all this time later: classify this record under the "slow burner" category, as I can only see my love for this one growing more in the future.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to The Great Escape.