Modern Life Is Rubbish

I want to like this one more than I did. Definitely think I prefer the self-titled over this one, even though this one definitely spans a broader list of genres and influences. Blur though is just a little more consistent.

I like this album more when it's hitting on post-punk like on the tracks like Colin Zeal and Pressure on Julian. Although the rest of the tracklist is still solid, although AGGRESSIVELY British sounding.

It definitely feels like Blur trying to expand their sound, searching for something to hit on.

Honestly I might not even finish this one today, it drags a bit. I love the album art but that's about all I do like about this album, not as memorable as the one I got before from them, so perhaps 2 stars here, not complete garbage either

Huh, I recently met someone in real life who's also doing this challenge and he said that this was one of his favorite albums he's had on it. And it turns out that this is actually *fantastic*. Honestly, at the moment, this is probably my favorite Brit Pop album. Their sound here has some really quirky, eclectic edges, but Blur's songwriting still has the tenets of pop music down to a science. The result is something that's *ridiculously* catchy, but fiercely creative, even explorative. It's pretty amazing that Blur have managed to write a pop album without obvious hits, which doesn't creatively suffer *at all* for it. The overall vibe ends up really fun and energetic, with some influence from grunge, electronic, Americana (maybe, briefly) and some of the weirder pop bands like XTC or Cardiacs (both of whom they were explicitly influenced by at this point). At this point in Brit Pop's development, the tropes have still not been established, so Blur is throwing a lot at the wall, and almost *all* of it sticks. Honestly, nothing stands out as a "worst" song to me. I don't know if I'm willing to call it a 5 yet, just because my enthusiasm for this album was so sudden, but it's certainly on the short list of albums I intend to revisit with the hopes of upgrading it.

Despite owning every other Blur album and having bought them roughly around release i’d never actually listened to this.

Obviously the singles are great but the rest just feels fairly middling to me and far from their best. Sunday Sunday is the highlight as it bridges this to the poppier Parklife that came next

I enjoy Blur a lot and I *really* like a lot of the tracks on this album. While I really do get why they are divisive (mostly why people might hate Damon Albarn's singing), as far as I'm concerned they make catchy songs that make me want to bounce up and down. They so often have interesting backing vocals and great little guitar twiddly bits.

I love For Tomorrow - its a great single and remains one of my favourite Blur songs. I love Sunday Sunday - yay, brass section! I (mostly) love Chemical World (there's no need for the full length of random intermission at the end, and that's coming from someone who actually likes the tune).

This is an almost entirety enjoyable album for me, but it can't get 5 stars, because it's too long. That's something that's easily fixed by removing Blue Jeans, chopping down the intermission and a couple of other tracks (Miss America could do well to lose about a minute of meandering).

I feel like I'm sounding too negative, but I do absolutely like this album... I just don't quite love it.

4/5

Whilst at least 50% of the members of Blur are annoying they do make a pretty solid band. This might be their best album, retaining their very English charm and style, a la The Kinks, and mostly keeps some of their wackier inclination under wraps.

I suppose you include this in the book because it was the starting pistol for Britpop, if you think that particular marketing campaign was as important as music writers like to make out. Suede weren't the starting pistol to their credit.

Blur are a singles band to me. The albums always seem to have more than their fair share of filler.

I can't imagine why the Teardrop Explodes peeps haven't sued over Colin Zeal's similarity to the way superior Sleeping Gas. They even add insult to injury by immediately following it up with a song called Pressure On Julian.

One amusing thing to observe is that the 1 star reviews by American participants complaining about its Britishness would no doubt have delighted early 90s Damon Albarn.

This was a rebellion against Grunge but it was also a rebellion against the perceived musical excesses of shoegaze and the influence of the likes of the Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Marychain. For me the problem with that is that they end up with a restricted pallette to work from and too many of the arrangements are a bit dull and the melodies and lyrics aren't good enough to pick up the slack.

It sounds pompous.

This is much better and more interesting than the other albums I've had of theirs. In those cases I liked the hits, and found the rest to be a bit wanting. In this case I barely knew any of the songs, and they're nearly all really good!

I really like the range of instruments and breadth of styles in here. I particularly like the brass and the funky synths. It's way more expansive than you might expect. It's also really weird and frenetic at times, but in a good way.

This was really good!

Fun at times, but three Blur albums on this list is 2 too many

Blur is a band that’s good for two great songs an album, on every album of theirs I’ve listened to.

Parklife has Girls & Boys and Tracy Jacks.
The Great Escape has Country House and The Universal.
Blur has Beetlebum and Song 2.
13 has Tender and Coffee & TV.

But I’ve never listened to this one. Can it buck the trend?

A: not really. I love “for tomorrow” and the rest is ok.

I liked this 14 track 59 minute album.
I backed Oasis in the britpop wars of the 90s, but I can see why Blur were in the running.

4

-1 for a poor Pete Shelley impression throughout. Why not just get Pete Shelley in the band?

+1 for putting Mallard on the album cover

(Footnote for fuckwits:- Before spouting off in your reviews about 100s of tracks on an hours-long album, take a look at the Wikipedia tracklist to confirm what tracks were on the original release, learn how to use Spotify, and just listen to those, you dumb fuck.)

It's alright.

Forget modern life - this album was rubbish 😔

Nowhere near as good as their other album listed on here

2 ⭐️

I was an Oasis fan back in the day, and because of the rivalry, I never really gave Blur a proper chance. At the time, I saw them as a bit too middle-class and “art school” compared to Oasis.

Over the years, though, I’ve grown to appreciate them much more. Going into today, I don’t think I’d ever listened to Modern Life Is Rubbish all the way through. It also feels like a very fitting title for a day back at work, modern life really is rubbish.

This is a fun indie album with solid production and some genuinely strong tracks. For Tomorrow, Colin Zeal, and Chemical World all stand out and show the band finding their identity. That said, it does lack the big hits you get on later albums, and I’d still reach for Parklife or Blur over this.

Favourite track: Colin Zeal
Least favourite tracks: None, every song earns its place
Album artwork: Love it, I’m always a fan of a good train cover

COOOLLLLLL

This album makes me think Oasis is the best band ever and I don't really like Oasis. This album is too british for me. Nothing special at all, just boring. Too long. It's not awful, just too boring and too british. I didn't like it.

"Instilled in the band a contempt for everything American"
Big up Albarn

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump down to a 4.

It’s not exactly the superstar version of Blur that would come to pass by their self-titled album, but it’s a pretty good album nonetheless. It’s just not one that really hooked me all the way through – these are all solid to great tracks, but this album’s connective tissue feels like a band still trying to find its identity & its musical niche. The foundation for what would come down the pipeline by “Parklife” is there, but it still really needs to be molded. Damon Albarn’s vocals are solid here, lining up with this album’s “regular guy trying to make it in this godforsaken country” approach to its storytelling. The problem is, that very quaint vibe that the lyrics & vocals give off doesn’t necessarily mesh with the instrumentals a lot of the time. These are energetic, with loud guitars, pulsing percussion & and some dynamic shifting that keeps each track fresh. To my ears though, as a full cohesive album, it just relies on that energy a little too much as its driving factor towards each track. I’m not saying these are poorly written, because there are some great lines in here, but that disconnect of the quaint lyricism / delivery & the instrumentals just becomes too apparent when EVERY track does it.

That disconnect creates a sense of repetition that permeates into lots of other aspects of the album; there’s a lot of “la la la” segments, a lot of longer outros, a handful of repeating choruses, & a lot of repeating guitar effects that feel more noticeable every time they pop up. When they’re done well, they’re done very well, and this album usually does them well, making it easier to ignore it while you’re in the moment. It is, however, noticeable enough throughout this album’s hour-long runtime that it leaves each track on its own island after you’ve finished the whole thing.

That’s mostly the reason I’m down to a 4 – not because of any individually bad tracks (although “Turn It Up” has the laziest lyricism I’ve ever heard from Damon Albarn), but because this album just never gains a sense of cohesion that hooked me in as consistently as they wanted it to. I can’t sit here and say there’s a great run of tracks that all fit together; there are runs of tracks that all feel good to listen to, and the entire album works well enough, but the flow of the album itself feels interrupted by all the little bits of repetition that pile up. Obviously, I can excuse parts of it for being from a band’s second album while they’re trying to find their musical identity, but it’s too persistent. It’s the type of persistency that warrants this being the lowest rated Blur album on the site, although not by much.

Hence, a 4.5 bumped down to a 4; the individual strength of all of these tracks still certainly warrants a listen (if nothing else, “Oily Water” is cool as hell), and perhaps if it were re-edited to let the album flow more naturally, I’d be inclined to look towards a 5. As it stands though, it just never flows well enough for me to get there. I admire the swings & experimentation here, a lot of which helped to shape their style & refine it down the line, and I think this album’s warranted to be on the list as part of the growing pains that make their later albums hit as hard as they do.

P.S.: I’m starting to think I need to give “Parklife” a revisit, because I probably underrated that quite a bit. It was super early on though, so can you blame me?

I knew For Tomorrow from the best of album I have, but didn't recognize the others. Ya, I like it, very much my thing.

Oasis is so much better.