Deep Album Cuts Vol. 196: Pulp
Beyond The Pale, the debut album by Jarvis Cocker's new band Jarv Is, is coming out on Friday, so I wanted to look back at Cocker's work with Pulp, the horniest white band of their generation.
Pulp deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.
Pulp deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.
2. Pink Glove
3. I'm A Man
4. The Night That Minnie Timperley Died
5. Pencil Skirt
6. Boats And Trains
7. Acrylic Afternoons
8. There's No Emotion
9. I Spy
10. Dishes
11. Joyriders
12. I Love Life
13. Death II
14. Underwear
15. Weeds
16. Seductive Barry
17. The Fear
Track 6 from It (1983)
Track 8 from Freaks (1987)
Track 13 from Separations (1992)
Tracks 2, 7 and 11 from His 'n' Hers (1994)
Tracks 1, 5, 9 and 14 from Different Class (1995)
Tracks 3, 10, 16 and 17 from This Is Hardcore (1998)
Tracks 4, 12 and 15 from We Love Life (2001)
Pulp were famously, well, not famous at all for the first decade of their career, really for longer than they were ever successful as an active group. The first Pulp album was released in 1983, the same year as debut albums by R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Violent Femmes, and Tears For Fears, but it seems like a whole generation or two of alternative music passed before they became heroes of the mid-'90s Britpop moment. But it kind of feels like they arrived right on time, figuring out their sound and image right in time to be peers of similarly named one word bands like Blur and Suede.
The three albums and various singles that Pulp released before His 'n' Hers are largely disregarded both by the band and fans, rarely championed or performed live outside. That era is best known as collected in the Countdown 1992-1983 compilation, so I picked some of the better earlier tracks that didn't appear on there to sprinkle into this playlist. It's fun to hear Pulp's aesthetic and Jarvis Cocker's persona slowly sharpen and come into focus, but the band's last 4 albums are really the meat of their catalog.
I read about Pulp more than I heard them when Different Class was out, since their U.K. success was kind of a rumor that reached across the Atlantic while Oasis and Blur kind of became America's representatives for the entire Britpop scene. So I saw the videos for "This Is Hardcore" and "Like A Friend" on 120 Minutes and got on board with This Is Hardcore, fully aware that my point of entry for the band was their dark post-stardom follow-up album rather than the one that made them a big deal, but I loved the album and got Different Class soon after. Incidentally, I just learned like 5 minutes ago that Neneh Cherry does the female vocals on "Seductive Barry," and I've loved that song for 20 years.
The only time I saw Pulp live was at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in D.C. in 1998 -- they played very early in the day on the second day, after lightning had ended the first day early and some of the acts had to cram their sets into the second day. So they only played 3 songs, an awkward little abbreviated set of "The Fear," "Sorted For E's & Wizz," and "This Is Hardcore," but it was great.
I think Jarvis Cocker's solo work has largely been up to Pulp's high standard, especially Further Complications, and over the years I've really come to regard him as one of my favorite songwriters. So it bums me out a bit that Pulp ever ended, and that their brief early 2010s reunion included too few dates on the east coast of the U.S. for me to get a decent chance at seeing them play a real show. But We Love Life was a nice way to end it, sort of a sweet farewell after the darkness of This Is Hardcore. It was hard to choose songs for this playlist, I couldn't bring myself to cut the long epics like "Seductive Barry" and "F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E." and "I Spy" but that left less room for other songs, and almost every song on Different Class is good enough to be included.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, July 15, 2020 at 9:18 AM.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Post a Comment