Welcome to our second installment of my Top 10 Desert Island Discs again, this is in no particular order. (Find the introduction to disc 1 here)
I don’t know what it is or why but I loved this whole album from the very first listen. This was Blur’s 4th studio album and they’d had some great songs up to day but somehow everything on this one ‘clicked’ to produce an overall great hour of listening pleasure. This disc came out at the height of the Britpop wave of new young bands. With the simultaneous release of the first single from this album; “Country House” and rival Britpop icon’s Oasis’ single; “Roll With It”, the Battle Of Britpop (to see which band claimed the coveted #1 spot on that week’s chart) grabbed headlines all around the world, propelling both bands even further into stardom. In the end, “Country House” (in my opinion a far superior single) grabbed the number one spot ahead of number 2 “Roll With It”.
This was the first of a string of great singles released from ”The Great Escape”; “The Universal” (one of my favourite songs…ever), “Stereotypes” and “Charmless Man” all followed “Country House” into the top 10 singles charts.
For those singles alone this is a great album and worthy of being on my Top 10.