Once Upon a Time in the Top Spot: Blur, Parklife

21 years ago today, Blur's third album, an effort which - along with Oasis's Definitely Maybe - would help to define the so-called Britpop movement of the mid-1990s, debuted at the top of the UK Albums chart.

Coming the heels of their commercially-disappointing sophomore effort, Modern Life is Rubbish, it's a wonder that Parklife was able to so successfully capture the attention of a nation, but it didn't hurt that Damon Albarn, who was in the midst of a highly prolific period as a songwriter at the time, was cranking out such instant classics as “Girls & Boys,” “To the End,” “Parklife,” and “End of a Century.” Weirdly, though, when the band presented the album to Food Records owner David Balfe, he was decidedly underwhelmed, actually going so far as to tell the band's management, “This is a mistake.” Bit of a bad call there, obviously, but not the last one Balfe had in regards to the album: he also suggested that they call the album London, with the cover art featuring a fruit-and-vegetable cart. As Albarn later smirked to the BBC, “That was the last time that Dave Balfe was sort of privy to any decision or creative process with us, and that was his final contribution: to call it London.”

All things being equal, we're quite happy that they decided to go with calling it Parklife instead, if only because the title track is so deliciously British that at this point it's hard to imagine it being called anything else.

While Parklife didn't even so much as crack the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, we'd expect that Blur didn't lose a whole lot of sleep over it, given its UK success. Plus, as noted, it's a very, very British affair, one which the average American probably would find mildly entertaining but wouldn't understand what all the fuss was about. That's their loss: given that it's listed in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, is featured in Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s, and sits at #34 on the British Hit Singles and Albums and NME list of the 100 Best Albums Ever, it's clear that Parklife is a proper classic.