BLUR
The main problem with Parklife, of course, isn’t the accents. Peter Margasak has written about the lurking tendency in American music journalism to praise “any British band capable of not sucking (no mean trick, granted), especially if they’re doing something just a touch different.” But despite the hyperventilating praise it’s drawn from certain segments of the press, Parklife isn’t doing anything different. The album does evoke the down-market sleaze of British seaside resorts like Brighton and Blackpool quite effectively, but it does it by imitating bands who’ve done it before. The carnivalesque sounds on songs like “The Debt Collector” and “Far Out” and the liner photos of the band at a sleazy dog track are supposed to reflect the declining fortunes of modern England, I guess. The question that remains is whether you’d want to visit the tatty environs of an English version of Atlantic City. My answer is that a day trip would be OK, but a long-term visit is not in my travel plans.
