I was told recently. By an excellent friend I have known since I was 15 that I have an excellent memory. He put it in stronger terms than that but as he probably has the worst memory of anybody I've ever known in my entire life, So I won't take the compliment terribly seriously and allow it to go to my head.
But my memory is pretty good. I have no idea why that is but I've discovered it's pretty remarkable. It can take me to places. So I might as well try to make the most of it. here. One emotion I can access and unpack relatively easily is the act of coveting something. In a shop window or a market stall. Should I buy it? I've decided with time that I should. Because otherwise it will nag at me until I do. . .
This isn't an emotion I feel about anything but records really. I'm lucky in that respect. I have an itch I can scratch. I don't yearn for sports cars or country houses or Rolex watches or designer label clothing or settees to impress the neighbours. I'm relatively content and so can live within my means.
Dortmund, Germany. 1993 I'm working as a freelance job as an EFL teacher at a school just off the Westenhellweg a long thoroughfare that bisects the city centre a five minute vertical stroll from the main train station. I'm looking at the cover of Blur's second album Modern Life Is Rubbish . It's got an old school image of a steam train on it. That will do me. I want it!
My governing emotion? I'm coveting it. I get the sense that Blur are getting interesting. Establishing an identity after starting off a couple of years earlier as mouthy but melodic chancers from Colchester, attaching themselves to any scene going. Shoegazing, Madchester, Whatever, if there are drinks and cheap drugs on the rider.
Anyway. I don't buy it. I should have. I own a vinyl copy now. I respect the coveting emotion these days. But back then vinyl copies had to be hauled around. I still bought records occasionally Parklife, Suede. Gram Parsons Siamese Dream. But the clock was ticking on me as with the rest of humanity in the early Nineties. . Vinyl is closing. CDs the practical but emotionally void corporate vacuum is here. For another decade and half. Until the world sees sense.
Modern Life Is Rubbish today is probably best understood by seeing it as Blur planting a flag. Marking out the territory. That Blur were still contenders. Parklife would be their moment. Where they wedded themselves to their artistic destiny and birth rights. Paid off the mortgage to the House in the Country. Before Damon and Graham guided them back to where they should be heading. Sounding a bit like Pavement and reheated Grunge meets Bowie.
Modern Life Is Rubbish isn't rubbish. It's pretty good. It ticks off the Damon / Justine plan for world domination. There are no end of lifts, stroke steals from XTC, Teardrop Explodes, Wire, Specials, Gang of Four et al. Then it tails off perilously towards the end. A couple of tracks could be pruned and wouldn't really be missed.. All of the band's signature elements are present and correct. Oi Oi Knees up Mather Bran. Next stop enormodome arenas.
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