CMJ Blur is more than just a bunch of rambunctious, pop-loving British miscreants (as they'd have you believe). With their fourth album, The Great Escape , the band's members make it glaringly apparent that they are capable of pulling off almost anything they set their minds to. By gathering up its favorite elements from the history of British pop music culture - early Who and Kinks, `80s new wave, BBC camp - and pairing them with its own personal fascinations - the banality of everyday living, high-society scandal, English stereotypes - Blur purports a colorful pop dialectic, one that relies as much on a short attention span as it does clever songwriting. Blur tunes are not just fun bits of cheeky pop culture, they're perfectly compacted balls of trend, style and tongue-in-cheek commentary. Musically, Blur is a consummate purveyor of variety, pulling off everything from vibrant, kitschy guitar pop to stylized cockney struts, replete with horns, organs and synths. While the rest of the world occupies itself with the new wave of new wave, Blur documents the entire spectrum of Brit-pop's legacy with limitless imagination and tenacity. Escape to "Country House," "Charmless Man," "The Universal" and "Entertain Me."