Album Of The Day

Jan 10 2022

3

Some people are too smart for their own good. You've probably met those sorts of guys before. They're often sitting in the back of the office or the classroom, having that distanced 'I-can't-be-bothered' stare, idly turning their head towards the urban smog outside the window, as if listening to their own inner teacher or boss instead of the real man in charge. If you're a little intrigued by all that cynical, borderline-nihilistic reserve, you sometimes find yourself talking to such a person during coffee breaks, just to see what they're all about. Soon, however, you realize you won't gain much from the conversation anyway, and often leave that coffee break even more nonplussed than you were before. You admit still being fascinated a little, but the unobtrusive words exchanged on the surface keep on screaming "boredom" to your ears. The only real problem being that you don't know for sure if said boredom actually belongs to that person you talked to, or if it's just *yours*. That bloke is *Modern Life Is Rubbish*-era Damon Albarn. Too smart for his own good, and thereby missing a chance to genuinely impress or fully convince you. Admittedly, this doesn't mean there's absolutely anything Damon and his pals from Blur couldn't say with some sort of force or intent when they recorded their second, aptly-named, album. There is, actually. "For Tomorrow" is nothing but a stellar opener, for example (more on that later), nicely paying homage to a oh-so-brit tradition established by the Kinks--whose shadow obviously looms above the first part of Blur's career (minus-*Leisure*) with decidedly good aftereffects overall. Here the vocal melody floats with a bittersweet, mock-happy-go-lucky charm that belies the existential dread underneath the song itself, and it takes a full string section towards the end of that gem to reveal the full tragedy at hand in that tale about postmodern dread. Following that great introduction, "Advert" is a little punky masterpiece that snarls and rattles the point of the album's title home even better than the opener. The schoolboy's lament "Pressure on Julian", a swampy track that foretells left-field, grungy elements from *Blur* and *13*, owes a lot to Graham Coxon's admirable chops on his six strings, the sort of musical sprinkling that can't hurt a second-tier song. As for "Turn It Up", it is a bouncy pop song that gives some needed levity at the eleventh hour (even though it's no "Song 2" or "Girls And Boys" either). This list of assets could go on, of course. Production is flawless (courtesy of long-time collaborators Steve Lovell and Stephen Street). Arrangements are artful. But are those tracks *memorable*? Do you remember *that* guy from your old classroom now, as well-dressed as he was? Probably not. Let's just hope that lad's nihilistic stance hasn't triggered him to do the worst and harm himself at some later points of his life at least. "He's a twentieth century boy / With his hands on the rails / Trying not to be sick again / And holding on for tomorrow". This is how the album starts, namely as an inverted T-Rex anthem where contemplations about suicide have taken the place of the usual calls to hedonism enacted throughout the history of rock'n'roll. On the same song, Damon tells a little more about the alienated individuals having such self-destructive thoughts: "Jim stops and gets out of the car / Goes to a house in Emperor's Gate / Through the door and to his room / And then he puts the TV on / Turns it off and makes some tea". Vacant life at its most obvious here. See also "Blue Jeans": "Blue, blue jeans I wear them every day / There's no particular reason to change / My thoughts are getting banal, I can't help it". Uh, OK, Damon, we *get* it. Consumer society and constant commodification play their parts gnawing us all into tiny little squibs devoid of all life. But the point is: do *you* have to sound so bored yourself to hammer that idea home? Isn't that overkill? C'mon, chin up. Shake a leg. You're turning into an annoying, humourless slob here, and this might go against your first intent, don't you think? Because... well, yes, duh: *Modern Life Is Rubbish* says it straight right from its title. You can't relax ("Star Shaped"), you're barfing on food and drugs to vent your frustrations out ("Chemical World"), there are leeches in the close-cropped lawns and "eating between meals stifles the appetite". Nice program, right? You also have to deal with publicity sponsors ("Colin Zeal"), militaries ("Sunday Sunday"), or even the CIA agency on "Miss America", an overlong dirge that saps what's left of the album momentum on side 2. This is a record that ends with a song called "Resigned", folks! Even though at that point, we're not necessarily caring any longer either, mind you, as harsh as it sounds to say so. All this performative angst might actually be nothing short of rosy under the sun for amateurs of works driven by wry, pessimistic hot takes about our late capitalistic societies. But the crux of the issue here is that overall, *Modern Life Is Rubbish* is almost a complete misfire on those topics, bordering on self-indulgence in the expression of mundane banalities, and becoming itself the sort of bane that it supposedly tries to tackle in the first place. And in a way, the music itself is burdened by the exact same sort of problems that are plaguing Albarn's lyrical conceits throughout the record. There is no sense of direction to the whole thing. Melodically speaking, some songs, especially those with the most "Britpop" inflexions, appear lively on the surface, but there's none of that catchy *spark* in them, none of the sheer tongue-in-cheek inventivity and directness Blur will become known for in *Parklife* for instance. It is probably no coincidence the latter was released only a year after this one, as if the Essex boys had felt the need to course-correct the many shortcomings witnessed here as soon as possible, before it was too late and they lost that peculiar zeitgeist they were aiming at in that tentative effort here. Likewise, what could pass for melancholy or mystery in some of those songs will be better explored later on, first with "To The End" on *Parklife*, and then further in parts of *The Great Escape*. But mostly, it is during the post-Britpop period that this specific dimension will finally bloom. Before those glorious days ahead, what we have is merely a sketch of the promising future, drawn thanks to a somewhat mechanical hand on auto-pilot. The sarcastic Village Green Preservation Society of days yonder has turned brown, and then bare. Blur still tries to summon its wry, ironic poetry, but their heart's not in it, as if squashed by the weight of their own conceptual pretensions. Fortunately, they found a way out of this conundrum, given that there isn't anything in *Modern Life Is Rubbish* that Blur hasn't done *better* in the three albums that followed it, gving Albarn and company the opportunity to finally have their cakes and eat it too. In those later records (*Parklife*, *The Great Escape* and *Blur*) not only has Blur allowed themselves to grind their axe about the pitfalls of modernity, but this time they also managed to have fun on the wayside. The music there does not merely *snarls*, it also *giggles*, *guffaws* and *rolls on the floor with laughter. Sometimes it also jumpstarts, gets genuinely angry, croons and even cries. In the core of those emotions, commodification and the unavoidable existential responses it triggers in us all are still lying there somewhere, honoring the initial program established in the band's second album. But to target those themes for what they are, you still need to contrast them with a little spice, a little flavour, and it's a lesson Blur has probably learned the hard way through this transitional second LP. Overall, we *do* agree with you, Damon: "modern life is rubbish" indeed. But no one said you *can't* have a wholehearted laugh about it, at least. [Number of albums I listened to from the list: 2 Albums left to listen to: 999 Number of albums I've found genuinely relevant: 0 Number of different albums you should listen to before you die: 2 (including this one)]

👍

Jun 05 2021

Modern Life Is Rubbish

Blur

1993

Rating

Votes

Genres

Keywords

Reviews