Blur

The Great Escape - Parlophone 1995

Tracks: 1. Stereotypes / 2. Country House / 3. Best Days / 4. Charmless Man / 5. Fade Away / 6. Top Man / 7. The Universal / 8. Mr. Robinsons' Quango / 9. He Thought of Cars / 10. It Could Be You / 11. Ernold Same / 12. Globe Alone / 13. Dan Abnormal / 14. Entertain Me / 15. Yuko and Hiro / 16. Ernold Same* [Reprise] / 17. Ultranol* / 18. No Monsters in Me* / 19 To the End (La Comedie)*

Comments:

"The Great Escape" from 1995 has been called third stage of Blur's Life/Brit-pop trilogy that began with "Modern Life is Rubbish" (1993) and "Park Life" (1994). The band went after these three albums for a simpler and less produced expression.

Without being quite as consistent as its predecessor "Park Life", "The Great Escape" remains as one of milestones among Brit-pop albums. With Damon Albarn in the lead Blur continued the English pop-songwriting tradition, which was started by people like Ray Davies and Pete Townshend in the 1960’s.

The album includes some of the group's biggest hits such as "Country House", "Stereotypes" and not least the band's possibly greatest song, the grand ballad "The Universal" - a track which alone is worth the whole album.

Other tracks that lift the album up to belong among the greatest albums of its time are the delicate ballad, "Best Days", while "Top Man" and "Charmless Man" both have charm and bite.

Some of the album's less catchy tracks, can be seen as advance warning of what was to come from the band on their subsequent albums; this applies for, to pick out two, "He Thought of Cars" and "Globe Alone"

Back to Band pages