I am listening to tapes at the moment. My car only has a tape player and I drive a lot, so I buy tapes from charity shops. They cost almost nothing, have their own special 'sound' (shit and warped, like vinyl only more defunct), and connect me with a period of music that I am not that familiar with. The late 80s/early 90s was the period right before my own interest in music began and seems like, the 'Anxious Interval' between music becoming important to me, and a defined period of music that older people liked. So far, I have Blur's The Great Escape,  Paul Simon's, The Rhythm of the Saints, and David Bowie's, Alladin Sane.

It occurred to me that Pop is a philosophically aspirational tool. Pop musicians are basically older, cooler kids who have listen to more music, watched more films, and read more books than you. So, David Bowie allowed you in to a world of gender bending space travel, Paul Simon took you to Africa to throw pennies at musicians, and Blur... well Blur basically took you to Goldsmiths to do a B.A in cultural studies and then to a pub where everyone did coke and talked about how much coke everyone else did and how stupid they were for doing it.

It doesn't mean that it isn't a good album, but with lyrics like,

'Other people turn around and laugh at you, If you said
That these are the best days
Of our lives'

It isn't exactly whisking you away to the magical world of rock and roll.