"I want McNormal & chips, or I'll blow you bits... give us it!" - Blur: The Great Escape poll

I haven't decided what to vote for yet, but 'It Could Be You' has always been a bit of a favourite of mine. It kinda reminds me of Black Sea-era XTC.

I wanted to convince myself it wasn't the universal but it's the universal.

May be "Yuko and Hiro."

Yuko and Hiro edging out He Thought of Cars.

Find the album a bit panicky and hysterical sounding, like 'Seven & the Ragged Tiger' or something. Very impatient sounding stuff.
Some bands seem to wobble a bit when they get that popular. Still loads of good stuff, but sounds like the tunes aren't coming as easy... might end up as good as what came before, but you can hear the labor a bit.

Still enjoy it.

Find the album a bit panicky and hysterical sounding, like 'Seven & the Ragged Tiger

wow -- good analogy.

thanks!

musically Fade Away is my fave but it surely has one of the coldest and meanest lyrics ever to feature on a number 1 UK album. a moneyed pop star looking at regular working people with no sympathy whatsoever.

always liked this version of Best Days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flUnDtO7_gI

1) yuko and hiro
2) the universal
3) he thought of cars

don't really like anything else on this album

It's 'Best Days' by far. Although I'm tempted by Country House cos it's just a really well-crafted pop song.

Nobody else will vote for "Ernold Same" so I will. I bet most people find it completely insufferable and stupid and Britpop's nadir, but I like it!

yes it's shit.

Oh...so it's McNormal & chips? I've always thought it was "I want some blood on the chips".

There is something very 'Society Is In The Gutter' about this album.

It's so nauseous and misanthropic yet the songs most people love - The Universal, Yuko & Hiro, Best Days - are the most humane. They're also the ones that chime with Damon's post-Britpop songwriting. I think The Magic Whip has a lot in common with that strand of The Great Escape: "In hotel cells listening to dull tones/Remote controls and cable moans/In his drink he's been talking/Gets disconnected sleepwalking back home."

I would love to see a computer algorithm that makes up a song from the words of the other songs in the life trilogy. It would probably end up very similar to Dan Abnormal to be fair.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Great photo on the back cover.

I love this album! Fuck the haters.

Yeah, I love that photo. And is that the font Apple used to use?

Good top four but He Thought Of Cars deserves way more than one vote.

Definitely the Apple font on the back cover.

Wow. I thought everyone would be sick of The Universal by now.

didn't vote for some reason, throw another one to dan abnormal or one at all to globe alone

didn't see this in time to vote, but listened to this just the other day and was surprised how much of it I enjoyed. for me, it's all about best days, universal and he thought of cars most of all - love graham's guitar - but like I said, a lot of it is really strong.

Big single still the worst song....

How did He Thought Of Cars only get one vote in this?

Best Days > He Thought Of Cars > Yuko > Country House > the embarrassing rest.

Does anyone ANYONE like Stereotypes AT ALL?

It certainly was a bizarre choice for a single.

Country House is a bit of a curates egg.

Sure there are some good bits on the album (aged 15 I loved Globe Alone) but haven't listened to it since the 90s

Terrible lyrics, but I really like the music for Stereotypes. In 1995, that was exactly how I wanted the first track of a Blur LP to sound.

I've said this before, but I always read the chorus as :

"Oh god, here I am again writing a song about unbelievable characters that don't exist, there must be more to life surely? I'll sack it after this one"

It doesn't sound terrible, but they could at least have written a chorus for it, instead of a musical shrug.

I think it's kind of wonderfully ugly. The sort of thing Albarn doesn't do any more because his head's gone soft (also he can't write songs full stop now)

It's like he forgot what a song was halfway through writing Think Tank.

Lyrically Stereotypes isn't very far from The Specials' 'Stereotype' which isn't their best song either but a darn sight better than the Blur song.

i listed to this album an infinite number of times aged 13. nowdays, i can only stomach He Thought of Cars, Yuko and Hiro and Best Days which are all wonderful. All the upbeat stuff is awful, and The Universal can't be on the above list due to gas adverts

^ this. it's a melancholy album at heart with some horrible bombast. I especially hate 'Mr Robinson's Quango'. A lot could have been left off. Incidentally, if you play the B-sides from this era together they make a great muted little art rock album https://open.spotify.com/user/1153731601/playlist/3DRiSshVe7IHx5qYJmvuiQ?si=DJw7yfe9RvWCsbPnHK-K1Q

The b-sides for Stereotypes and Charmless Man (with the exception of Ludwig) completely pave the way for the next era of Blur, although this took me forever to realise