Blur – Country House Review

Now the battle of the bands is behind us it is hard to see who cared for the Blur vs. Oasis rivalry bar Liam Gallagher, who still believes he can write better songs. He is yet to prove as much though when it comes to Country House the argument gets clearer. Damon Albarn and company consider the gluttony which could and would have fallen into their lives in the post-Parklife years. A quick read of Graham Coxon’s autobiography, Verse, Chorus, Monster, proves it to not be the case. But what comes clear is a band at the limit of their image – a public perception of cheeky southerners battling it out for a top spot on the charts against the working-class northern rock group. It was never that simple, but for those of the era, it is better to compartmentalise. 

With the healthy and heavy dollops of hindsight now churning in our stomachs and ears, it is clear to hear Country House for what it is. Blur desperately trying to escape the Parklife aesthetic set up for them by Phil Daniels. It is as close as the band would get to Parklife V2. Pills and spills in the lives of those isolated in the country sound almost idyllic on a first listen. Ex-Blur manager Dave Balfe serves as inspiration for a song which would mark Blur’s first chart-topping track. Considering the form they were in at the time and the songs preceding this, it feels criminal in hindsight to hear Country House marked its top spot. Despite its relative quality and the isolation getting to the house-loving protagonist, there is a sense of desperation slowly filtering through.  

The same could be said for the band as they began tearing at the foundations on which Country House was erected. The Great Escape would hear Blur become a pastiche of themselves. One Born Every Minute lingers as a twee afterthought to the rising Country House board game-like experience. It sounds more like a chilling mid-morning television show theme song, fitted with clown car horns and jangling emptiness before To the End La Comedie) swings in to save the single collection. They are B-sides for a reason. This To the End cover, and the original from Parklife a year prior, shines a light on the French influence which lingered under the likes of Albarn and Jarvis Cocker and how the period did not quite give them the stretch of material to work it through.  

Later works did and for Albarn and the Blur gang, their follow-ups to The Great Escape would be necessarily reactionary. They were indisposed and against this variation of their sound. Rattled by the experiences of The Great Escape and weighed down by the chart battle with Oasis. It was a series of outside influences which would haul Blur out of their cheesy shtick, which worked at the time and still does, but this interpretation of maturity between The Great Escape and Blur is inescapable. They rode the highs of a genre hoping to pit themselves against another band in a rivalry neither truly cared for but both benefitted from, financially that is. Country House would go on to top the charts and serve as another fine example of how, in hindsight, the public is incapable of picking out the best songs. Unchained Melody over Common People, this is not.