Music and Lyrical Themes
| "It was me attempting to write in a classic English vein using kind of imagery and words which were much more modern. So it was a weird combination of quiet nostalgic-sounding melodies and chord progressions, these weird caustic lyrics about England as it was at that moment, and the way it was getting this mass Americanised refit." |
| —Damon Albarn summarising his songwriting effort on Modern Life Is Rubbish |
Modern Life Is Rubbish's sound is highly-influenced by the traditional guitar pop of British bands such as The Kinks, The Jam, 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"). Opening track "For Tomorrow" is, according to NME, "quintessential Blur. Damon, perennially bored, never stops singing, and Graham supplie his usual immaculate guitar accompaniment". While "Oily Water" harked back to the baggy sound of Leisure, NME described "Intermission" as "a pub piano knees-up that rinky-dinks along then gets frazzled in guitars and speeded-up drums". 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".
Deriving from "the biting humor of Ray Davies and the bitterness of Paul Weller", 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". 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".
Read more about this topic: Modern Life Is Rubbish
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