Damon Albarn has spoken of his desire to turn Blur’s 1995 album The Great Escape into a musical. The ever-busy Albarn, who along with Blur is also the front-man of Gorillaz and The Good The Bad and The Queen and is involved in several African music projects and has so far written and performed two operas, told BANG Showbiz:
“The Great Escape I’ve always thought that could be a great musical. We wrote that record as we were playing out the Britpop explosion with Parklife. We were in the studio and every day I would go in and write about something that had happened in the papers. So it’s a snapshot in time.”
On its release, The Great Escape was something of a critical and commercial failure for Blur – failing to live up to the high expectations after the success of Parklife and the bands constant tabloid presence thanks to their ongoing spat with Oasis. Alluding to this, Albarn continued:
“Maybe at the time it was a little bit too arch in its observations because it was too close. But now with the distance it might be a good thing to stage as a period piece.”
If any Blur album is deserving of a remake then its the underrated The Great Escape. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below….
