Blur - The Great Escape Mojo Album Review Will Birch

Roll up! Roll up!

Blur - The Great Escape - Food Records

Pop music is a big wheel in the Light Entertainment Amusement Park. The wheel turns slowly clockwise and each carriage awaits its turn to arrive at 'public acceptance' at the top of the cycle, having previously encountered 'critical acclaim' at nine o'clock. Here we are at high noon, miles above the side-shows and the donkey rides.

Our carriage, swinging gaily in the breeze, is labelled English Art School How's-Your-Father Cheeky Chappie Rock. Previous occupants: The Kinks, the Small Faces, XTC and Squeeze. Current occupants with a head for heights: Blur, who've been keeping the seats warm ever since the release of Modern Life Is Rubbish, their artistic breakthrough of 1993. Following the commercial success of Rubbish and its follow-up Parklife, The Great Escape completes the trilogy. It's loaded with hits.

Down in the park, admirers glance up at Blur. They are dazzled by the group's musical cartwheels, effortless wit and sense of now. For the young shaver, a mere six weeks into a life of pop slavery, Blur is a fantastic new one-stop in the pop shopping arcade. To his father, Blur resembles a rock'n'roll car boot sale. "Look dad," squeaks the boy, "here's a great track called The Universal." "What?! The old Small Faces number?" asks dad. "Could be," replies the boy, "they're always going on about them." "Sounds like The Smiths to me," retorts dad, recalling the last group he saw live, back in '85. "The Smiths?" asks the boy, "you mean that television programme?"

Without a doubt, pop's future is looking increasingly like its past, and it could be said that Blur are another throwback, relying heavily on Face To Face and Something Else-era Kinks. They have, in fact, consumed an entire Britannica of mid-'60s music hall pop and are now regurgitating its contents over an unsuspecting generation. Crusty old cynics might add that it all sounds not unlike the legendary lost recordings of a planned 1974 Ian Hunter-Steve Harley-Dave Davies supergroup, but what the hell - only a few weeks ago we were bemoaning the lack of genuine English pop talent and talking about 'guitar groups'. (Is there any other kind?)

The Great Escape continues Parklife's preoccupation with the distractions and disappointments of the downwardly mobile. It Could Be You seizes on a slogan of the moment. (What is rock'n'roll's take on The Lottery? Has Joe Strummer bought a ticket?) Charmless Man is a harsh portrait of one who was "Educated the expensive way" and "knows his Claret from his Beaujolais", recalling a raft of Kinks songs. The Universal is a gorgeous ballad that could become Blur's biggest hit. It is charged with atmosphere and boasts a Honeybus-style chorus ("It really really really could happen...") and trumpet counterpoint - provoking memories of Herb Alpert's This Guy's In Love With You. Stereotypes is a smart rewrite of the half dozen Squeeze songs in which Chris Difford handles the lead vocal. He Thought Of Cars is Space Oddity Bowie on a collision course with the Hendrixian groove of Mr Robinson's Quango, while Country House is a second cousin twice-removed from The Kinks' House In The Country. Ernold Same (are they taking the piss?) looks at a humdrum life, Norman Normal style. You know this chestnut - he gets the same train, looks out at the same scenery... in a rare cameo, restaurant critic Ken Livingstone narrates the story, echoing Stanley Unwin's role on the Small Faces' Ogden's Nut Gone Flake.

At 15 tracks in 59 minutes, The Great Escape is ambitious and perhaps a tad longer than necessary for maximum listening pleasure, although you have to dig very deep to hit any filler. Entertain Me - a typical penultimate track - is over-long and repetitive, with all the attributes of a CD single 'bonus track', but never mind. Blur are the very best that '95 Britpop has to offer and this is a most gong-worthy sound, complete with head-slicing guitars, catchy tunes and very funny words.

Give 'em the kewpie doll.

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