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Could The Great Escape by Blur be the most depressing album of all time?

Music // Jim // 17th October 2004

So, the Star Wars trilogy is out on DVD, everyone is rushing out to buy it and boring the shit out of each other relentlessly, like so

“Oh it was so much better without the digital bits in”
“On the extra DVD you get to hear Prowse real voice (cue endless Wurzels impressions)”
“How much would you fuck Carrie Fisher in that metal bikini?”

All a bit depressing really, so depressing in fact that I came home the other day and decided to listen to some really miserable music as we all like to do when we are feeling a bit low.

Skirting past the obvious Smiths, Tindersticks and Morrissey CDs I found the one I was looking for. Probably the most insidiously depressing album I’ve got, the one that has shared the most misery with me; Shit day at work? Nightmare result at the football? Blown out yet again by the object of your affections in the Pub/Student Union/Queue for the free soup van? Go home and listen to The Great Escape by Blur.

TGE: Morbid

Blur made a trilogy of culturally significant albums in the 90’s; Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife and The Great Escape. Interestingly, like a Yang to Star War’s Yin, the one in the middle was the weakest and happiest while the one at the end was easily the most morbid, singing midget teddy-bears were notable by their absence.

After the colossal success of Parklife and having ridden the wave that was the ensuing Britpop phenomenon, it seems that Blur (or at least Damon Albarn) suffered some sort of nervous breakdown.

The first signs were apparent when the single Country House came out, ridiculously pitched against forgettable Oasis strum-a-long Roll With It in the most divisive musical face-off I can remember. The single seemed to be carrying on where Parklife left off, lots of brass and a big chorus, scratch beneath the surface and you have a tale of a mid-life crisis and depression. The repeating mantra “Blow me out, I am so sad, I don’t know why” should have served as a warning of the downer Blur were about to take us on.

Essentially The Great Escape is the sound of a depressed person kicking out at all the things that sicken him about his life and his circumstances over the course of fifteen mostly up-tempo pop songs. As a result it stands up as a fairly cynical critique of the UK ten years ago and now seems fairly prophetic.

Things start out with a sleazy rock and synth tale of wife swapping in the dull suburbs called Stereotypes. Considering this is the start of the album Albarn sounds really, really tired. “There must be more to life” he wails like a man hitting a painful mid-life crisis. This theme is repeated on the excellent Best Days and Specials-esque trombone-fest Fade Away. The bit where he sings “People break into a cold sweat if you said that these are the best days of their lives” will almost certainly have you reaching for the beer/tissues/razor.

The link between high and low lad culture is explored throughout the album, the drunken townie of Top Man is not a million miles away from the evil yuppie scum of Charmless Man, all is summed up expertly with the words “Who’s mobile phone gives him the bone? Who very keen on Sharon Stone?”, on the noisy and particularly upset Globe Alone.
The comment on corporate-lad-yuppie-townie-bastards even extends to the cover art with the photo of the band heavily made up in evil marketing consultant pose, grouped around a monitor. Shudder.

Blur: Corporate, Bastards

The general mundanity of life in Britain was a constant theme throughout the trilogy of albums. This time to really underline the point, Blur wheeled in Ken Livingstone in to flatly narrate the dreary tale of Ernold Same, a terminally repetitive commuter, the likes of which you can see on every train every morning.

At points the album shifts from documentary to cautionary;

Warning 1 - The people running the country are a bunch of corrupt pervs says the sixties spy melodrama of Mr Robinson’s Quango.

Warning 2 - The future is going to be really, really shit but we’ll all be too sedated to care says lush Clockwork Orange ballad The Universal.

Warning 3 - Huge corporations are taking over everything and we are going to end up like knackered Japanese factory workers, more married to the company than our spouses says quirky love song Yuko and Hiro

In fitting with the general tone of things, the best thing about this album is also the most upsetting. The track He Thought Of Cars is one of the best things Blur ever did, slow, drawn out with eery quiet bits and vaguely futuristic big scary bits. I remember reading that it was something to do with the JG Ballard novel Crash and that would certainly make sense.

I think the real allure of depressing music is twofold. On the one hand there is some kind of emotional catharsis to hearing someone pretending to go through similar feelings to yourself, it is something to identify with. The more powerful argument is that the best art often comes from feelings of pain and anger. Certainly the spiteful, genius, satirical stuff on The Great Escape would be out of place without the creepy, manic depressive mood that permeates the album.

That bit of twee Morris dancing music at the end is a right kick in the teeth too.

Anyway, that is why I think The Great Escape by Blur is the most depressing album ever, any challengers?

Links...

Blur's web site

Flash nightmare, man.

The lyrics to the album

Not recommended for suicical 15 year olds, put that Radiohead album on instead.