Countless are the cautionary tales of young bands who signed to record labels, enjoyed the first fumes of success that they dreamed of, but soon found themselves entrenched in acrimonious squabbling with the money men.
In a post ''She Loves You'' Britain every guitar band with a modicum of talent - or a pretty singer - was swiftly mop-topped and sent for a suit fitting. The Beatles were the big fish, but there was still plenty of opportunity to shift units in their slipstream.
The piggyback-the-fashion strategy has worked out marvellously for many acts through the history of popular music. You can only admire the gall of a group as influenced by 60's music - and particularly The Doors - as The Stranglers to succeed in passing themselves off as a punk band when that was what was required for them to find an audience. The jangly psychedelia that inspired them to play gave way to power chords and overdrive pedals. Subtlety run out of town by bombast, but that's revolution for you.
If you were playing in a guitar band as the decade flipped from 80's to 90's you may have got away with a mid 60's Rubber Soul haircut but the focus of attention had switched between north of England towns. Manchester was now where it was at. The look was baggy. The signature beat a hypnotic shuffle.
The scene arguably peaked not far past its dawn with The Stone Roses debut album, but still there was chart success to be found in the trusted piggyback. The Mock Turtles, The Soup Dragons and the cynically contrived cover of Dizzy by The Wonderstuff and Vic Reeves all pleased the bean counters with their chart entries.
Against this backdrop, in the south of England somebody was drawing a hump on a thoroughbred's back and calling it a camel.
Finding themselves with a young guitar band at their disposal Food Records, a small record company set up by former Teadrop Explodes keyboardist, Dave Balfe, and distributed through EMI, set about turning Blur in to big players in the lucrative baggy scene.
The result was the 1991 album, "Leisure". But the party was already winding down in Manchester, and aside from the promising single "There's No Other Way", the southerners sounding like northerners made little significant impact on the mainstream. Unlike many bands who largely failed in their attempt to ride the piggy, Blur got a second bite at the cherry. This time they would step out of the slipstream and face the headwind.
Modern Life Is Rubbish is neither Blur's most acclaimed or successful album. It is however among the most brilliant albums of its time and shows how a band standing on the abyss of debt, inertia and mediocrity played an ace that kept them in the game long enough to become principals of Britpop in the years to come.
The improvement between Blur's first two albums is astonishing. The inane repeated rhymes of 'say/play/day' which undermine Leisure had been consigned to the dustbin in Blur's only release of 1992, the single-only release Popscene. The track was a commercial failure but it undoubtedly serves as the overture to the Modern Life Is Rubbish album, and with hindsight should have found a spot on the album.
Damon Albarn began to write in a more observational way, channeling a particularly British form of songwriting guided by the footprints of Ray Davies, Steve Marriott, Syd Barrett and Paul Weller among others. He wrote his first 'character song' worthy of album inclusion with 'Colin Zeal', in the tradition of 'David Watts', and 'Arnold Layne'. This was to become a significant feature of Albarn's songs over the Britpop years with futher efforts in this vein such as 'Tracy Jacks', 'Jubilee', 'Ernold Same' and of course the eponomously anagrammed 'Dan Abnormal'. There were some earlier ventures into character songs with 'Mr Briggs' and 'Badgeman Brown' but neither were deemed of sufficient quality to be anything but B-Sides, and were probably too Barrettesque to be credible.
He wrote about London, with namechecks in 'For Tomorrow' and 'Blue Jeans'. There was also the first mention of America in a song title, with the woozy hangover paean 'Miss America'. This again was the first shapings of a pattern that would be repeated with 'Magic America' on Parklife and 'Look Inside America' on the 'Blur' album. It's perhaps more habit than obsession that sees Albarn include America in song titles in unusual proportion. Most feasible is that he finds a comfortable rhythmical musicality with the word 'America' rather than having any lingering preoccupation with the nation.
The scope of the album's music is rich and varied. Acoustic guitars were about as welcome as a Hacienda drug-bust in the 'Madchester' scene. The reverse reverb opening Modern Life Is Rubbish can be heard as a bracing inhalation before Graham Coxon's sparkly acoustic delivers four broad staccato blows to the dying horse of baggy. And so begins the critique of early 90's Britain.
Modern life is panned and a young couple, cold, and despairing of the bleakness of London's shared isolation hold on 'For Tomorrow'. The sighing Duke String Quartet add to an arrangement that is alien for its time when Seattle grunge is becoming the fashion of the moment. Chirpy la la la backing vocals counterpoint descriptions of freezing toes, disorientation and nausea. Coxon's electric guitar is cleaner and more melodic than at any time on 'Leisure'. The rhythm pattern he uses in the verses of this opening track is perhaps a signpost towards his later playing on Parklife's 'To The End'.
The frustrating circular inanity of TV advertisements are the next aspect of modern life to be given both barrells in 'Advert'. The 'Food processers are great' intro is a grab from The Shopping Channel. Exasperated at the relentless pushing of products and panaceas ranging from holidays to painkillers, Albarn screams 'Say something else'. Symptomatic of the numbing of thought brought on by exposure to pressure selling, the band bypass the opportunity to deliver a middle eight, change section or solo and fill the gap by counting out 16 uninformative bars of punked A to G.
Competing with 'For Tomorrow' as the album's killer track is the brilliant 'Chemical World'. This song is college-pop perfection. The stop-start intro demands immediate attention from the listener. Following in the album's running order from the laconic and pensive 'Blue Jeans', it's the kind of unexpected blast that triggers the 'turn-it-down' reflex in unenthusiastic parents, partners and flatmates. Those who turn it down will know not enough of this world on their deathbeds. As the intro decays, Coxon steps into the cadence with a magnificent flanging melody in the pitch of a tenor ice-cream van counterpointing the monotone call, and bouncy response vocal throughout the verses.
The chorus too is charged by the melody of the guitar. The vocal carries the melancholy weariness and dull pitch that is often characteristic of Albarn, and brings to mind The Specials' frontman Terry Hall of whom Albarn is a big fan. It demands every bit of Coxon's invention, and he delivers in spades with some of the most imaginative and melodic playing of his career. His line is allowed an extended airing through the coda; these moments are the zenith of Blur.
Having delivered their finest melodic work in the opening tracks of the album, Blur immediately veer away from anything that might be considered a predictable closer to side one of the album. Instead they indulge themselves in a piece of anarchic instrumental vaudeville that merges German musichall piano with howls of feedback and reckless acceleration. There's little regard for the ears of the audience, or intent to shift units as the ghost of a past incarnation, 'Seymour', possesses 'Intermission'. It's not a track for the ipod generation. On its own 'Intermission' means nothing. In the context of the Blur story and this album in particular, it makes perfect sense.
The bulk of Blur's trump cards are played on side one of the album, but there are a few excellent tracks on the flipside.
The overt Britishness of the band's music takes centre stage on 'Sunday, Sunday' with references to the BBC's weekly worship hymn-a-long 'Songs of Praise', a war veteran nostalgic for 'old' England and talk of Sunday roasts - not unlike the one featured in the 'There's No Other Way' video. Perhaps feeling that their enthusiastic satire of an English Sunday afternoon would be lost on their audience, the album's sleevenotes define beneath the track title: 'Legislated nostaligia: to force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess'.
'Oily Water' sees Albarn deliver his vocal through a 'Shopping Precinct Tannoy', drummer Dave Rowntree beats a jarring downtempo rhythm that rises to a wild crescendo against a backdrop of screeching and white noise. Coxon frequently cited 'My Bloody Valentine' as an influence and Kevin Shields' trademark layers of grinding distortion can be heard here.
The album's weak spot is 'Turn It Up'. Albarn has been quoted saying it was a mistake to include this song on the album, and he's not wrong. Apparently he, and the band, were overruled by Food Records boss Dave Balfe who (incorrectly) believed the American market might bite at the song. There were certainly better songs from the time left off the album that ended up as B-Sides such as 'Into Another' and 'Peach', or as mentioned earlier the single release, 'Popscene'. That being said, 14 tracks - excluding 'Intermission' and 'Commerical Break' with only one dud certainly offers value for money.
'Villa Rosie' is a track that deserves a special mention. Presumably a homage to some manner of a bordello or gentleman's club, the lines of its verses climb through a scale to peak with a 'woo-hoo' and repeat the pattern before bursting in to one of the most melodic choruses in the band's entire catalogue. Again Coxon is in top form and his playing in both the choruses and also the similar guitar break is heavily stamped by his signature technique of morphing the rhythm guitar's chord sequence in to bursts of lead playing.
The album closes with a reprise of the 'Intermission' idea of unwelcome interruptions with an escalating angry ridicule of elevator music in 'Commercial Break'.
'Concept album' is a maligned phrase conjuring images of self indulgent cape-wearing prog-rockers, but there is undoubtedly a consistent vision throughout 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'. A commonality of themes, sounds and subject matter delivers one of the most coherent, inventive, colourful and clever albums of the 1990's.
There is a school of thought - though its students may be few - that had Blur released this album after 'Parklife' it would be widely regarded as their most important album, and an all-time classic.
Track Listing:
- For Tomorrow
- Advert
- Colin Zeal
- Pressure on Julian
- Starshaped
- Blue Jeans
- Chemical World
Intermission - Sunday, Sunday
- Oily Water
- Miss America
- Villa Rosie
- Coping
- Turn It Up
- Resigned
Commercial Break
Vocals and Keyboards: Damon Albarn
Guitar: Graham Coxon
Bass: Alex James
Drums: Dave Rowntree
Producers: Stephen Street, Steve Lovell, Blur, John Smith
