Modern Life Is Rubbish
Template:For Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates {{safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst-infobox||$params=italic_title,name,type,longtype,artist,cover,border,alt,caption,released,recorded,venue,studio,genre,length,language,label,director,producer,compiler,chronology,prev_title,prev_year,year,next_title,next_year,misc|$extra=italic_title,longtype,border,caption,language,director,compiler,chronology,year,misc|$aliases=italic title>italic_title,Italic title>italic_title,Name>name,Type>type,image>cover,Cover>cover,Border>border,Alt>alt,Caption>caption,Longtype>longtype,Artist>artist,Released>released,Recorded>recorded,Venue>venue,Studio>studio,Genre>genre,Length>length,Language>language,Label>label,Director>director,Producer>producer,Compiler>compiler,Chronology>chronology,Misc>misc|$flags=override|$B={{#ifeq:{{#invoke:Is infobox in lead|main|[Ii]nfobox [Aa]lbum}}|true|{{#if:Template:Has short description | |{{#if: 10 May 1993 | Template:Short description}}}}}}{{#invoke:Infobox|infobox}}Template:Template otherTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Main other{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Infobox album with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y|italic_title |type |name |image |cover |border |alt |caption |longtype |artist |released |recorded |venue |studio |genre |length |language |label |director |producer |compiler |prev_title|prev_year|next_title|next_year|chronology|year|misc}}{{#if:{{#invoke:String|match|error_category=Music infoboxes with Module:String errors|A|1=Leisure1991Parklife1994studioModern Life Is RubbishBlur_-_Modern_Life_is_Rubbish.jpgThe album cover in a style of a painting shows 4498 "Mallard", an LNER A4 steam locomotive, pulling a passenger train on the railway. A hill can be seen in the background.Blur10 May 1993October 1991Template:SndMarch 1993Britpop58:52Food (UK), SBK (US)Template:Hlistx|2=</?t[drh][ >]|nomatch=}}|Template:Main other}}Template:Main other}} Modern Life Is Rubbish is the second studio album by the English alternative rock band Blur, released in May 1993. Although their debut album Leisure (1991) had been commercially successful, Blur faced a severe media backlash soon after its release, and fell out of public favour. After the group returned from an unsuccessful tour of the United States, poorly received live performances and the rising popularity of rival band Suede further diminished Blur's status in the UK.
Under threat of being dropped by Food Records, for their next album Blur underwent an image makeover championed by frontman Damon Albarn. The band incorporated influences from traditional British guitar-pop groups such as the Kinks and the Small Faces, and the resulting sound was melodic and lushly produced, featuring brass, woodwind and backing vocalists. Albarn's lyrics on Modern Life Is Rubbish use "poignant humour and Ray Davies characterisation to investigate the dreams, traditions and prejudices of suburban England", according to writer David Cavanagh.<ref name="AHARDDAYSNIGHT"/>
Modern Life Is Rubbish was a moderate chart success in the UK; the album peaked at number 15, while the singles taken from the album charted in the Top 30. Applauded by the music press, the album's Anglocentric rhetoric rejuvenated the group's fortunes after their post-Leisure slump. Modern Life Is Rubbish is regarded as one of the defining releases of the Britpop scene, and its chart-topping follow-ups—Parklife and The Great Escape—saw Blur emerge as one of Britain's leading pop acts.
Background
Blur's baggy-inspired debut album Leisure (1991) was a UK Top 10-charting record that, according to the NME, made the band the "acceptable pretty face of a whole clump of bands that have emerged since the whole Manchester thing started to run out of steam".<ref>Kelly, Danny. "Sacre Blur!". NME. 20 July 1991.</ref> However, as the baggy scene soon began to fade, Blur were—according to The Guardian—"[s]wiftly exposed as bogus trend-hoppers, [and] they duly caught the wrath of the Madchester backlash".<ref name="POPART">Shelley, Jim. "Pop Art". The Guardian. 12 August 1995.</ref> Further, following their fall from public favour, the group found that they were £60,000 in debt, mainly due to mismanagement. Blur hired new manager Chris Morrison and, to recoup losses, were sent by their record label Food to the United States as part of the Rollercoaster tour.<ref>Harris, 2004, p. 66</ref> To coincide with the start of the tour, Blur released the "Popscene" single; the new release showcased a significant change in musical direction, as Blur traded their shoegaze-derived sound for one influenced by 60s British guitar pop. However, the single failed to break into the UK top 30 which further diminished Blur's profile in the UK.<ref>Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "'Popscene' song review". AllMusic. Retrieved on 27 November 2010.</ref>
The 44-date tour of the United States left Blur in "complete disarray", according to writer David Cavanagh.<ref name="AHARDDAYSNIGHT"/> Dismayed by American audiences' infatuation with grunge and the lacklustre response to their music, the group frequently drank, and members often broke into fist-fights with one another. Homesick, the tour "instilled in the band a contempt for everything American", Cavanagh later wrote;<ref name="ONEDAY"/> frontman Damon Albarn, who "started to miss really simple things [about England]",<ref>Harris, 2004, pp. 73–75</ref> listened to a tape of the English pop group the Kinks throughout the tour.<ref name="AHARDDAYSNIGHT"/> He later stated the only pleasant memory he had of the tour was his time spent listening to the Kinks' 1967 single "Waterloo Sunset".<ref>Rogan, 2015, p. 571</ref> Upon their return to England, the group discovered that the attention of the music press had shifted to Suede. The newcomers' success displeased Blur who, in Cavanagh's words, "were inclined to feel that every record Suede sold was an affront to human decency".<ref name="AHARDDAYSNIGHT"/> After many poor live shows, which Blur members often performed while drunk—in particular one at a 1992 gig that featured a well-received performance by Suede on the same bill—Blur were in danger of being dropped by Food.<ref>Harris, 2004, p. 78</ref>
Recording
Damon Albarn, in a 2000 Mojo interview, said that "Suede and America fuelled my desire to prove to everyone that Blur were worth it ... There was nothing more important in my life."<ref name="AHARDDAYSNIGHT"/> He felt the popularity that American grunge music was enjoying in Britain at the time would soon fade, and argued that Blur would embody a renaissance of classic British pop on their next album. Food Records owner David Balfe strongly disagreed, and argued with Albarn over the proposed change in Blur's image.<ref name="AHARDDAYSNIGHT"/> After the still-sceptical Balfe relented, Food warily gave Blur the go-ahead to work on their second album with Albarn's first choice of producer, XTC leader Andy Partridge.<ref name="81-82"/> Partridge said he was dissatisfied with the songs, but was "immensely" fond of the band, likening them to XTC circa Go 2. He said he agreed to the project "for the wrong reasons, the flattery and the money."<ref name="Death"/>
Blur began working on the album with Partridge at The Church, a studio in Crouch End owned by David A. Stewart. However, the sessions ended prematurely. Bassist Alex James described the sessions as a "disaster"; he added that "as it was all being put together, they were all good parts, but it just wasn't ... sexy".<ref name="81-82"/> Partridge recalled: "I felt quite fatherly and I thought I did sterling work. They got Dave Balfe really stoned to listen to some mixes and he was rolling around going, 'This is fantastic, you're George Martin and they're The Beatles.' Next day he'd say, 'Quite frankly, Andy, this is shitTemplate:' ".<ref name="Death">Template:Cite magazine</ref> The band successfully recorded four songs, but were wary about working in the same conditions again.<ref name="81-82">Harris, 2004, pp. 81–82</ref> The Partridge-produced tracks were abandoned; three were later included on the 2012 boxed set Blur 21.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Work resumed on the album due to a chance meeting with producer Stephen Street, who had previously worked with the band on their 1991 single "There's No Other Way". With Street now producing the album, Blur recorded a mix of material spanning both the period immediately after the release of Leisure and their 1992 tour. While the band members were pleased with the recording session results, Balfe, after hearing the songs, told the band they were committing artistic suicide. Although dejected by his response, Blur gave Food the completed album in December 1992. The label rejected the album and instructed the band to record more potential singles.<ref>Harris, 2004, p. 82</ref> Albarn complied, and on Christmas Day wrote the song "For Tomorrow".<ref>Harris, 2004, p. 83</ref> Although "For Tomorrow" sated Food's concerns, Blur's American label SBK voiced discontent upon hearing the finished tapes of the album. To appease SBK the band recorded "Chemical World", which Blur thought would increase RubbishTemplate:'s American appeal. However, Blur refused SBK's demand of re-recording the album with American producer Butch Vig, who was popular at the time for his work with Nirvana.<ref name="HOWDIDTHEYDOTHAT">Cavanagh, David; Maconie, Stuart. "How did they do that?". Select. July 1995.</ref>
Music and lyrical themes
Modern Life Is RubbishTemplate:'s sound is highly influenced by the traditional guitar pop of English bands such as the Kinks, the Jam, the Small Faces and the Who. The album's songs explore a number of styles—punk rock ("Advert"), neo-psychedelia ("Chemical World"), and vaudeville music-hall ("Sunday Sunday").<ref name="AMGREVIEW">Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Modern Life Is Rubbish review". AllMusic. Retrieved on 27 November 2010.</ref> According to music critic Jim DeRogatis, the album “may have been a stylistic mess, but it was valuable psychedelic garbage nonetheless.”<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Opening track "For Tomorrow" is, according to NME, "quintessential Blur. Damon, perennially bored, never stops singing, and Graham [Coxon] supplie[s] his usual immaculate guitar accompaniment".<ref name="NMEREVIEW"/> While "Oily Water" harked back to the baggy sound of Leisure,<ref name="STLOUISREVIEW"/> NME described "Intermission" as "a pub piano knees-up that rinky-dinks along then gets frazzled in guitars and speeded-up drums".<ref name="NMEREVIEW"/> Most of the songs on the album are melodic and lushly produced, often supplemented by a brass section, string arrangements and backing vocals. To offer contrast to the classicist songwriting, AllMusic noted that "Coxon's guitar tears each song open, either with unpredictable melodic lines or layers of translucent, hypnotic effects, and his work creates great tension with Alex James' kinetic bass".<ref name="AMGREVIEW"/>
Deriving from "the biting humor of Ray Davies and the bitterness of Paul Weller",<ref name="STLOUISREVIEW"/> Albarn's lyrics on Modern Life Is Rubbish are a social commentary and satire on contemporary suburban English life. While Rubbish celebrates modern British life, it also takes a cynical look at middle-class existence. The overt Anglo-centricism of the album was also retaliation against American popular culture; James later explained, "it was f***ing scary how American everything's becoming ... so the whole thing was a f***ing big two fingers up to America".<ref name="UNDERTHERADAR">Redfern, Mark. "Britpop: A Decade On". Under the Radar. Summer 2005.</ref> NME summarised the theme of the "thinly-veiled concept album" as a "London odyssey crammed full of strange commuters, peeping Thomases and lost dreams; of opening the windows and breathing in petrol ... It's the Village Green Preservation Society come home to find a car park in its place".<ref name="NMEREVIEW"/>
Packaging
The album's title derives from stenciled graffiti painted along Bayswater Road in London, created by an anarchist group.<ref>Harris, 2004, p. 88</ref> For Albarn, the phrase reflected the "rubbish" of the past that accumulated over time, stifling creativity. Albarn told journalist John Harris in 1993 that he thought the phrase was "the most significant comment on popular culture since 'Anarchy in the UKTemplate:' ".<ref name=shite>Harris, John. "A shite sports car and a punk reincarnation". NME. 10 April 1993</ref> Due to Blur's disdain for America at the time, the album's working title was Britain Versus America.<ref>Sutherland, Mark. "Altered States". Melody Maker. 21 June 1997.</ref>
The painting of the steam locomotive Mallard on the album cover was a stock image that Stylorouge—Blur's design consultants—obtained from a photo library in Halifax. According to Design Week magazine, the painting by Paul Gribble "evoked the feel of a Just William schoolboy's pre-war Britain".<ref>Austin, Jane. "Blurred Vision – Covers of Albums and CDs". Design Week. 2 September 1994.</ref> Coxon has stated that the band chose "a Ladybird Books-style painting of the classic Mallard locomotive (because) nothing could be further from what most people expected of an alternative rock LP".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Inside the packaging, there is an oil-on-canvas of the band dressed as mop-top skinheads in a tube train. The album's lyric sheets also feature the songs' chord progressions, hand-written by guitar player Graham Coxon.<ref name="NMEREVIEW"/> While Albarn explained that it was an attempt to "[let] people to know that, old-fashioned as it might seem, we write songs",<ref name="BILLBOARD1"/> Total Guitar magazine attributed the inclusion of the chords to Coxon's "keen[ness] to demystify guitar playing".<ref>"Blur's Reluctant Guitar Hero". Total Guitar. 1 September 2001.</ref>
Release
To promote Modern Life Is Rubbish, Food released "For Tomorrow" as the album's lead single in the UK in April 1993. The single, which showcased Blur's new sound and attitude, performed moderately well in the charts, reaching number 28.<ref>Harris, 2004, p. 90</ref> A few weeks later in May 1993, Modern Life was released. The announcement of the album's release included a press photo that featured the phrase "British Image 1" spraypainted behind Blur members (who were dressed in a mixture of mod and skinhead attire) and a Mastiff. At the time, such imagery was viewed as nationalistic and racially insensitive by the British music press; to quiet concerns, Blur subsequently released the "British Image 2" photo, which was "a camp restaging of a pre-war aristocratic tea party".<ref>Harris, 2004, p. 89</ref> The album peaked at number 15 on the UK Album Chart.<ref name="UKChart">"Blur Single & Album Chart History". Official Charts Company. Retrieved on 21 August 2012.</ref> In the next few months Food further issued two UK Top 30-charting singles—"Chemical World" and "Sunday Sunday"—to support the record; however, Modern Life only managed to sell around 40,000 copies at the time. Nonetheless, the mood within the Blur camp was positive, as the band felt they had accomplished something; James told writer David Cavanagh in 2000, "Modern Life Is Rubbish was a successful record because it achieved what we set out to achieve. I thought everything was shit except us".<ref name="AHARDDAYSNIGHT">Cavanagh, David. "A hard day's night". Mojo. November 2000.</ref>
Modern Life Is Rubbish was released in the United States by Blur's American record label SBK in December 1993—seven months after the album's UK release. This delay was because SBK's alternative-music department had closed down; Blur manager Chris Morrison later quipped, "When I asked [SBK] why, they said it was because the girl had left."<ref name="ONEDAY">Cavanagh, David. "One day, all this will be ours". Q. April 1997.</ref> Despite fears that Modern LifeTemplate:'s overt Englishness would be lost on the American market, SBK insisted on marketing the album to MOR stations and aimed for Top 40 airplay. The label largely ignored Morrison's arguments that Blur's best chance of exposure in America would be to court college radio-stations.<ref name="ONEDAY"/> SBK's strategy was to list the album at a developing-artist price (around three dollars less than standard), send the band on an intensive tour in 1994 and to target modern rock airplay with debut single "Chemical World". The record company believed this would help expand on the base audience who bought Leisure, and eventually open Blur to Top 40 radio. Further, to lessen the anglocentric feel of the record, SBK added additional songs to the track-listing—including "Popscene".<ref name="BILLBOARD1">Sprague, David. "SBK bets on Blur to clear way for Brit bands in U.S.". Billboard. 11 December 1993.</ref> The plan fared poorly, as Modern Life had little impact in the US; the album did not chart on the US Billboard 200 and sold only 19,000 copies, a sharp decline compared to the 87,000 units that Leisure shifted.<ref name="BILLBOARD2">Duffy, Tom. "SBK, Blur focus on U.S. market.". Billboard. 28 May 1994.</ref>
Contemporary reviews
Among contemporary reviews, NME reviewer Paul Moody was mostly enthusiastic about the record and rated it seven out of ten. While he felt the album had "enough faults to give a surveyor nightmares", he was impressed that, unlike their peers, "Blur [had] thrown on their old clothes and stormed into No Man's Land with all guns blazing". Moody also praised the improvement in Albarn's lyrics, which had hitherto "[made] Eurovision Song Contest entries seem like great works of poetry".<ref name="NMEREVIEW">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> QTemplate:'s David Roberts, in a favourable four out of five star review, called Modern Life "an energised, infectious romp around contemporary little England, by way of an exuberant trawl through a highly-coloured patchwork of its pop past". Roberts placed Coxon as the leading contender for "the vacant crown of [Smiths guitarist] Johnny Marr".<ref name="QREVIEW">Roberts, David. "Blur – Modern Life Is Rubbish". Q. April 1993.</ref>
Writing for the Chicago Tribune, rock critic Greg Kot felt the album was a vast improvement over Leisure, which he found "highly derivative" of the Madchester genre. "Nothing on [Leisure] prepares the listener for the adventurousness of Modern Life is Rubbish," he wrote, going on to describe the album as "a swirling, intoxicating song cycle that enriches superior popcraft with wiggy studio experiments."<ref name="CHICAGOTRIBUNEREVIEW"/> Although they found the album to be "overly lengthy", Billboard agreed with Kot, dubbing Modern Life "a giant leap forward artistically" from Leisure.<ref>"Album Reviews: Modern Life Is Rubbish". Billboard. 11 December 1993.</ref> St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Paul Hampel commended Blur for having "taken a bold step [with Modern Life] – backward", and pointed to their attempt at "a communion with past masters of smart, satirical Brit pop". He concluded his positive review of the album by calling it a "series of pleasant surprises [that] offers numerous signs that great things are to come from Blur".<ref name="STLOUISREVIEW">Hampel, Paul. "Recordings: Modern Life Is Rubbish". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 9 December 1993.</ref>
Aftermath and legacy
In August 1993, Blur set off on the Sugary Tea tour of the UK to promote Modern Life Is Rubbish. Named after a lyric in "Chemical World", the tour was a success, as Blur reclaimed some of their popularity. A key performance was at that year's Reading Festival which, according to David Cavanagh, was "brilliant". On the tour, Blur performed a number of songs that would end up on the group's follow-up album, Parklife (1994).<ref name="AHARDDAYSNIGHT"/>
Parklife saw Blur expanding upon the themes and sounds they had first explored on Modern Life Is Rubbish; the NME described it as " 'Modern Life Is Rubbish's' older brother – bigger, bolder, narkier and funnier".<ref>Dee, Johnny. "Blur – Parklife". NME. April 1994.</ref> Parklife debuted at number one on the UK charts, and helped Blur emerge as one of Britain's most popular acts. As Jim Shelley wrote in The Guardian, "a year after Blur were dismissed as too mannered, too retrograde and too English, Parklife was embraced for exactly the same reasons".<ref name="POPART"/> Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife, along with The Great Escape (1995), formed what would be later referred to as the "Life" trilogy of Blur albums revolving around British themes.<ref name="ONEDAY"/>
Modern Life Is Rubbish remains highly regarded by critics;<ref name="SEVENAGESOFROCK"/> Ian Wade of BBC Music wrote that the album was Blur's "first masterpiece... which established them as worthy of being mentioned alongside their heroes."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is seen as one of the early, defining releases of Britpop, a genre that would dominate British pop music in the mid-1990s.<ref name="SEVENAGESOFROCK"/> Writing for The Guardian, John Harris called the album "one of the 1990s' most influential records".<ref>Harris, John. "Remember the first time". The Guardian. 12 August 2005. Retrieved on 18 January 2008.</ref> Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic felt that "Modern Life Is Rubbish established Blur as the heir to the archly British pop of the Kinks, the Small Faces, and the Jam"<ref>Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Parklife review". AllMusic. Retrieved on 27 November 2010.</ref> and that it "ushered in a new era of British pop".<ref name="AMGREVIEW"/> Mark Redfern wrote in Under the Radar magazine that following Modern Life Is Rubbish, "[a] whole wave of Britpop bands followed in [Blur's] footsteps, and for a while, it was cool to be British again".<ref name="UNDERTHERADAR"/> In 2007, IGN listed the album at no. 4 in a 'Top 25 Britpop Albums' list. Their contributor wrote: "With so many seminal albums to their credit, it's hard to pinpoint one, but this is the one if you are forced into a corner."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Track listing
All lyrics by Damon Albarn. All music by Damon Albarn/Graham Coxon/Alex James/Dave Rowntree. Template:Track listing
Notes
- Track 7, "Chemical World" ends and "Intermission" begins at 4:02.
- Track 14, "Resigned" ends and "Commercial Break" begins at 5:13.
American release
The American release of Modern Life Is Rubbish features an altered track listing. Blur's American label SBK Records preferred the group's original demo of "Chemical World", and included it on the album instead of the Stephen Street-produced version. According to Select magazine, this "defeated the object of recording a heavy rock song in the first place".<ref name="HOWDIDTHEYDOTHAT"/> SBK inserted "Popscene" between "Turn It Up" and "Resigned"; Blur had refused to include "Popscene" on the British version of Modern Life, disappointed by the tepid response it received when it was released as a single. "We thought, If you didn’t fucking want it in the first place," Coxon told Select, "you’re not going to get it now".<ref name="HOWDIDTHEYDOTHAT"/> The American version also features several tracks with a few seconds of silence (tracks 18 to 67 on the CD), followed by two "For Tomorrow" B-sides ("When the Cows Come Home" and "Peach") as hidden tracks 68 and 69.<ref name=AMGREVIEW/>
2012 reissue
Following the release of the Blur 21 box set, a special edition of the album was released on 7 August 2012, featuring the remastered original album packaged with an additional disc of bonus material.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Track listing
Personnel
Blur
- Damon Albarn – vocals, piano (tracks 6, "Intermission", "Commercial Break"), sleigh bells (tracks 1, 7), Solina organ (track 1), Casio SK-1 (track 2), Tannoy (track 2), melodica (tracks 6, 14), bingo organ (track 8), Avon Lady keyboard (track 11), Jupiter-8 (track 12), Moog (track 12)
- Graham Coxon – electric guitars (tracks 1–14), acoustic guitars (tracks 1–3, 5–8, 10–13), backing vocals, percussion (tracks 2, 3, 10, 12, 13), black & decker (track 4), anti cat and dog tone (track 5), volume guitar (track 6), slide guitar (tracks 8, 14)
- Alex James – bass guitar, distorted bass (track 11)
- Dave Rowntree – drums (tracks 1–9, 11–14), timpani (track 1)
Additional personnel
- Stephen Street – producer (except "Sunday Sunday" and "Villa Rosie"), drumbox and handclaps (on "Advert"), S1000 (on "Colin Zeal"), typewriter bell
- Steve Lovell – producer ("Sunday Sunday" and "Villa Rosie")
- Simon Weinstock – mixer ("Sunday Sunday" and "Villa Rosie")
- John Smith – engineer; co-producer ("Intermission", "Commercial Break", "Miss America", "Resigned")
- Blur – producer ("Oily Water"), co-producer ("Intermission", "Commercial Break", "Miss America", "Resigned")
- Kick Horns – brass ("Sunday Sunday")
- Kate St John – oboe, cor anglais, saxophone ("Star Shaped")
- The Duke String Quartet – strings ("For Tomorrow")<ref>Modern Life Is Rubbish CD booklet</ref>
Charts
Weekly charts
| Chart (1993) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation | CitationClass=web
}} N.B. The High Point number in the NAT column indicates the release's peak on the national chart.</ref> |
143 |
| UK Albums Chart<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> |
15 |
| Chart (2023) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| Hungarian Physical Albums (MAHASZ)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> |
22 |
Certifications
Template:Certification Table Top Template:Certification Table Entry Template:Certification Table Bottom
Notes
References
- Harris, John. Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock. Da Capo Press. 2004. Template:ISBN
- Maconie, Stuart. 3862 Days: The Official History of Blur. Virgin Books. 1999. Template:ISBN
- Template:Cite book