My Top 2000 Songs #1033: Parklife

I mostly sat out the whole 90s Britpop thing. Despite loving some of the earlier albums in UK rock's late 80s resurgence, like the Stone Roses, Charlatans, and House of Love, by the early 90s my attention was firmly domestically-oriented. Aside from the obvious Oasis singles that were hard to escape, it took me another decade or so to finally get around to checking out what I'd missed. 

Naturally, there was a lot of great music from Blur I'd skipped and later came to enjoy, though I still have mostly a greatest-hits-level appreciation for the band. But "Parklife," the title track from their 1994 sort-of-breakthrough record, easily stood out. Taking a familiar two-chord riff repurposed from the likes of the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" and Wire's "Strange," giving it a buoyant jangle, and topping it with a spoken-word narrative, Blur offer a birds-eye view into a sort of English sensibility that feels very foreign yet fun. Both musically and thematically, it feels like a new spin on the Kinks or Madness, and while I can't say the cultural references register in the least, it offers a much cheaper way to tour the UK than hopping on a plane.

Live 2009: