The relentless judgements and the reliance on what sometimes feels like mere pastiche turned a lot of critics and Blur-devotees off of The Great Escape. Graham Coxon was apparently relieved to be able to move away from Britpop with a capitol B to explore his more experimental urges on the band's eponymous next album. It's still the least loved Blur album by many a Blur devotee.
Frankly, I always felt the Great Escape haters were a bunch of tossers. It's a beautifully crafted record full of excellent songs, amusing lyrics, superb musicianship (Alex James's bass line on "Entertain Me" is one of my all-time faves), and vibrant variety. And, nasty as it can be, The Great Escape is not without its empathy ("Best Days", Albarn's best bid for his very own "Waterloo Sunset") or striking beauty ("The Universal"). I like Blur (the album, not the band, though I obviously like them too), but felt the guys wandered too far afield after that one. For me, The Great Escape is the greatest.
So I was very happy to see it get the deluxe treatment for its thirtieth birthday. The core album has been expanded with an extra disc of B-sides. This is essentially the vinyl version of the double-CD edition from 2012 but without any of the live tracks, which would have necessitated a third LP. That's fine, because the studio B-sides are generally good, with bouncy bits like "One Born Every Minute" and "Ultranol" pointing to Blur's Brit-past and the pounding and spooky "Tame" and the jagged yet absurdly catchy "No Monsters in Me" pointing the way of Blur's less cute things to come. The material on the second half of the bonus disc is more lightweight and less fully formed than the stuff on Side A, but it's still a pretty enjoyable listen all the way through.
Yet, a third LP would not have been out of line for this edition because The Great Escape is a nearly hour-long album. That's a lot of songage to cramp onto a single LP. The downside of that is that LP 1 suffers from low volume, and since my copy is plagued with surface crackles and pops, all that noise gets cranked up when cranking the volume. At least the music sounds good, with a respectable amount of detail, a decent soundstage, and a complete lack of distortion throughout all sides.
Oh, and as for the new cover art, my wife and I each came up with our own colorful phrases to describe it but both referenced vomit. I had fun painting a replacement sleeve though:
