Hello! 😊👋
Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!
Today’s music pick marks a return to form for Blur, replete with knowing themes and nostalgic production.
Genre: Alternative Rock
Label: Parlophone
Release Date: July 24, 2023
Vibe: 😌
I remember the first time I heard Blur’s Parklife, the band’s 1994 debut that instantly thrust them into the Britpop spotlight. I was slightly underwhelmed. I admired the songwriting craftsmanship and Damon Albarn’s eagerness to commit to the bit, but it all felt a bit much when the record ended. Too needy somehow. Maybe too eager to please. Nearly 30 years later, Blur’s back with The Ballad of Darren, a full-length answer to that criticism, though they surely had no way of knowing. Clocking in at less than 40 minutes, this album is as lean and cuttingly realistic as you’ll likely find in the group’s discography. Essentially, it’s a midlife crisis album that’s fittingly couched in so much 90s nostalgia it masks the prevailing sentiments of regret and sadness that seep into nearly every crack and crevice.
Consider a track like “St. Charles Square,” a riff-driven blues-rock ditty that harkens back to a specific version of twentysomething angst. But, beneath that veneer, Albarn grapples with a remorse he can’t shake: “'Cause there's something down here/And it's livin' under the floorboards/It's grabbed me 'round the neck/With its long and slender claws.” Similar ground is covered on “Barbaric,” where the singer admits that it’s definitely him, not her, and the aptly-titled single “The Narcissist,” one of the oddest and somehow most satisfying ego takedowns I’ve heard in a long time. As Albarn told Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson, “I’m officially a sad 55-year-old […] If you’ve managed to get to 55—I can only speak because that’s as far as I’ve managed to get—and not had any sadness in your life, you’ve had a blessed, charmed life.”
Overall, this is a thoughtful, thoroughly relatable return to form for the beloved Britpop mainstays.
👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈