Most Influential Modern Rock Albums, Part 1

I haven’t had much time lately to think about posting much — in fact, I’m sure my Mac is feeling neglegted…

But, one thing I can do while working and driving to work, is listen to music on my iPod. When I read Jason Kottke’s reaction to some recent Critics’ picks for the best albums from the last twenty years, I started thinking about my own list.

First, it seems arbitrary to draw a line at 20 years — I prefer to put the seperation between classic rock, and modern rock, since most of the important music of the past 20-30 years, (for me), falls into the latter category.

For the next 5 days, (weekend excluded), I will post my list for the Most Influential Modern Rock Albums, in no particular order. Here is my first choice:

Blur, Parklife : Though today I more admire the earlier Modern Life is Rubbish, I can’t deny that Parklife was a transformative album for me. Released in 1994, when I was still in high school, it came to represent everything that wanted to be – clever, articulate, sarcastic, pop-aware, and paranoid.

Drawn largely on Martin Amis’ characters, especially from the novel London Fields, the album revelled in pre-Millenial malaise, and got me to sing along… la la la la.