Review of Blur's "Modern Life is Rubbish"

Modern Life is Rubbish (1993), Blur's second album, is an album of two halves. To put it simply, the first section of Modern Life is Rubbish (whose title incidentally was taken from a piece of grafitti in London) is good, while the closing half is of a poorer standard. Side A illustrates that this is a band that can write catchy, quirky pop songs, while side B demonstrates that they are just as capable of penning ordinary, tedious tunes.

Songs like "For Tomorrow," "Colin Zeal" and "Star Shaped" show off a really fun band who produce quirky and catchy tunes. Nicely paced, not too heavy not too light and with a generous smattering of English accents, Blur seems like a very cool band. Additionally the excellent piano part at the end of "Chemical World" shows a group that's not afraid to dabble in different things.

Unfortunately the final half of Modern Life is Rubbish undoes all this good work. Fun turns to boring, quirky mundane and the catchiness all but disappears. And some of the tracks, especially "Turn It Up" and "Resigned" at the end of the album are really quite bad.

So there really isn't much more to say about this record. A good first side, but a disappointing close. Blur is a good band, but they're also a bad band.

RATING 4.5/10

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