1. Girls & Boys

2. Tracy Jacks

3. End of a Century

4. Parklife

5. Bank Holiday

6. Badhead

7. Debt Collector  

8. Far Out  

9. To the End

10. London Loves  

11. Trouble in the Message Centre  

12. Clover over Dover  

13. Magic America  

14. Jubilee  

15. This Is a Low  

16. Lot 105

 

Rolling Stone

Not since the smiths has an Anglo act shaken significant Stateside action. And that's a shame. For while the current cadre is more defiantly British (e.g., insular, cocky, ornamental) than ever, they're also keenly fab.

The countless Yanks who never grokked the giddy theatrics of glam will find Dog Man Star revolting. But for jean genies who cream over Bowie's Aladdin Sane, it's very nearly the Second Coming. Madly making like David, London Suede's Brett Anderson emotes ecstatically, and Bernard Butler lays down lustrous doom guitar. Rushing, with splendid haircuts, to the apocalypse, these brass-knuckled poseurs pause even so to mourn for Jimmy Dean ("Daddy's Speeding"), to rip off Byron and to evoke Marilyn ("Heroine"). Smashing or what?

Suede's ultrarivals Blur are a sunnier lot. And for Suede's wondrous moody drone, this crew exchanges crazed stylistic variety. Songs echoing '80s synth pop ("Girls and Boys"), Ray Davies ("Tracy Jacks") as well as the Walker Brothers and even music-hall sing-alongs make Parklife a carny ride through the theme park of classic Brit pop. Teen-dream cute and insufferably gifted, they're prime fodder for idolatry.

Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher – whom the UK press, pissing off hippies, has compared to Lennon (a fate that, American style, befell Cobain) – has God-given cool. And with his brother Noel supplying him with sumptuous rockers (their echoing production recalls the Beatles' Revolver), it's easy to see why this quintet is next year's model. Heavier on guitar than Blur or Suede, they're the simpler, catchier outfit. And with youth's blithe arrogance, they see the world solely in black and white: "Rock 'n' Roll Star" (cool), "Married With Children" (cool's antithesis).

Amazon.com
You'd have to stretch back to 1967 to London 's psychedelic underground (a time and a place that Blur is admittedly fond of) to find a band that revels as much in its Britishness. And on its third album, Blur takes 30 years of cool English rock, throws it into an art-punk Cuisinart, and ends up with a masterpiece of timeless hooks and Cockney attitude. Like the Kinks at their satirical best, Blur paints warm and funny portraits of quintessentially English characters ("Tracy Jacks," "Parklife," "The Debt Collector"), delivering them with early Small Faces swagger, wiggy Syd Barrett-via-Julian Cope production, XTC circa " Respectable Street " vocal hooks ("ooh-we-ooh"), and a cynical Buzzcocks detachment. The band members are mods, of course, borrowing fashion tips from the pre-glam David Bowie, tempos from the Jam, and actor Phil Daniels (the star of Quadrophenia!) for a vocal cameo. "Magic America" is the best bored with the U.S.A. song since the Clash, Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier sings backing vocals, the Pet Shop Boys remixed the single, and the members of Blur love Wire so much that they hired that band's old road manager. But enough namedropping: Parklife is the album on which Blur proves that it's a force to be reckoned with on its own terms, described by front man Damon Albarn as a nocturnal travelogue of London; the only time the album leaves the Motherland is on its lead track, the unbearably catchy single, "Girls & Boys," which follows randy English youth on holiday to Greece.