香港MCB杂志评出的100张欧美最具革命性专辑之一,评语为:“吸纳了历来最优秀的英国吉他音乐精华,从而酝酿出这张不列颠流行乐潮(Britpop)推至辉煌时期的专辑。”
这是英国乐队Blur的第三张专辑,为乐队带来了商业上的成功,共有《Parklife》等四首歌曲登上歌曲排行榜,在美国也有不错的成绩,专辑中多变的吉他演奏和丰富的效果是专辑的亮点。乐队也因此获得了很高的声望,一时间被人评论为是可以和The Kinks比肩的乐队。
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Modern Life Is Rubbish established Blur as the heir to the archly British pop of the Kinks, the Small Faces, and the Jam, but its follow-up, Parklife, revealed the depth of that transformation. Relying more heavily on Ray Davies' seriocomic social commentary, as well as new wave, Parklife runs through the entire history of post-British Invasion Britpop in the course of 16 songs, touching on psychedelia, synth pop, disco, punk, and music hall along the way. Damon Albarn intended these songs to form a sketch of British life in the mid-'90s, and it's startling how close he came to his goal; not only did the bouncy, disco-fied "Girls & Boys" and singalong chant "Parklife" become anthems in the U.K., but they inaugurated a new era of Britpop and lad culture, where British youth celebrated their country and traditions. The legions of jangly, melodic bands that followed in the wake of Parklife revealed how much more complex Blur's vision was. Not only was their music precisely detailed -- sound effects and brilliant guitar lines pop up all over the record -- but the melodies elegantly interweaved with the chords, as in the graceful, heartbreaking "Badhead." Surprisingly, Albarn, for all of his cold, dispassionate wit, demonstrates compassion that gives these songs three dimensions, as on the pathos-laden "End of a Century," the melancholy Walker Brothers tribute "To the End," and the swirling, epic closer, "This Is a Low." For all of its celebration of tradition, Parklife is a thoroughly modern record in that it bends genres and is self-referential (the mod anthem of the title track is voiced by none other than Phil Daniels, the star of Quadrophenia). And, by tying the past and the present together, Blur articulated the mid-'90s zeitgeist and produced an epoch-defining record.