Parklife is the third studio album by the English alternative rock band Blur, released in April 1994 on Food Records. After disappointing sales for their previous album Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife returned Blur to prominence in the UK, helped by its four hit singles: "Girls & Boys", "End of a Century", "Parklife" and "To the End". Certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, in the year following its release the album came to define the emerging Britpop scene. Britpop in turn would form the backbone of the broader Cool Britannia movement. Therefore Parklife attained a cultural significance above and beyond its considerable sales and critical acclaim, cementing its status as a landmark in British rock music.

After the completion of recording sessions for Blur's previous album, Modern Life Is Rubbish, Damon Albarn, the band's vocalist, began to write prolifically. Blur demoed Albarn's new songs in groups of twos and threes. Due to their precarious financial position at the time, Blur quickly went back into the studio with producer Stephen Street to record their third album. Blur met at the Maison Rouge recording studio in August 1993 to record their next album. The recording was a relatively fast process, apart from the song "This Is a Low".

Philip W. "Phil" Daniels (born 25 October 1958, Islington) is an English actor, most noted for film and television roles as cockneys such as Jimmy in Quadrophenia, Richards in Scum, Stewart in The Class of Miss MacMichael, Mark in Meantime, Kevin Wicks in EastEnders, DCS Frank Patterson in New Tricks and Grandad Trotter in the Only Fools and Horses prequel Rock & Chips.

He attended Anna Scher Theatre School in Islington.

Daniels has made appearances in many films and television series. He made his film debut in 1976, aged 17, as a waiter in Bugsy Malone, That same year he had significant roles in three television series: The Molly Wopsies, Four Idle Hands, and The Flockton Flyer; however, he had enjoyed an incidental appearance (with fellow drama students) the previous year (1975) in Thames Television's You Must Be Joking! Over the following four years he appeared in Quadrophenia, Breaking Glass, and Scum. He also appeared in the 1970s TV drama serial Raven.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Daniels was a member of new wave band The Cross, along with fellow actor Peter Hugo Daly, the band releasing a single, "Kill Another Night" on RCA Records in 1979. His musical inclinations were revealed when he starred in a 1985 British snooker musical Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire. He narrated tracks on the Parklife and Think Tank albums for Blur.