10 Underrated Albums By Huge Bands

Blur’s fourth studio album was a sensation at the time, hitting platinum sales figures and receiving rave reviews from journos riding the Britpop hype train. Like so much of that movement, though, in the bright light of day many of those fawning over the record took measures to recant, with even frontman Damon Albarn describing it immodestly as one of the only two bad albums in his canon.

And while it’s fair to say the Mockney charm was wearing thin by 1995, its diminished status is unfair. The most Britpoppy tracks - the sneering “Charmless Man”, the ubiquitous “Country House” - are musically bold and always lyrically enjoyable, with Damon Albarn following in the wry footsteps of Ray Davies and Andy Partridge.

More importantly, The Great Escape showcases the band’s restless evolution, with string-laden wonder “The Universal” one of their finest tracks to date, and "He Thought of Cars" a more restrained gem.

It doesn’t capture the zeitgeist like Parklife or hang together like their self titled follow up, and it’s messy in parts, but when it hits, it illustrates a band with a megabudget using it creatively (something longtime foes Oasis would struggle to do on Be Here Now a few years later).