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Posts tagged as “Pulp”

Pulp’s “Mis-Shapes”

Much has been written on The Black Laser about Pulp. I am a fan. A big fan. But, until recently, Pulp had not uploaded this video to the Youtubes. So, here it is: the video from the first track off 1995’s Different Class, “Mis-Shapes”. I don’t have a lot to say about it. It’s pretty great and the song too. Enjoy.

Also, I can’t possibly express how super mega fucking excited I am to go see Pulp perform at Radio City Music Hall in April. LIKE WHOA. I have an extra ticket too. Anyone want to go?

Pulp’s “A Little Soul”

The song from This Is Hardcore I really wanted to post was “Glory Days” but it doesn’t have a video, so I went with this one instead. “A Little Soul” is Jarvis Cocker’s conversation between himself and his own absent father, his father telling him not to turn into him and that he was a bastard when Cocker was a kid. He sings, “You look like me/But please don’t turn into me/You look like me/But you’re not like me I hope”. Christ, what a sad, fearful song for him to write, but a sentiment we can all relate to. That fear that you are going to grow up and repeat the same mistakes your parents made is the whole point of the song.

And that is sort of what makes This Is Hardcore so wonderful. Every song is sad and every song is dark, yet every song is catchy and driving and slick. It’s like all this lyrical sadness layered on top of fucking awesome rock music. God, I love it so much. So so much. I have no idea how many hundreds of times I’ve listened to it since 1998.

Pulp, and why have I never, until yesterday, seen a music video by them?

I’ve been listening to Pulp for, oh, about a million years. The This Is Hardcore/Different Class duo were some of my most listened-to records between ’98 and ’00. It was a period where heavy metal music was stagnating under the ridiculous weight of Nü-metal and I started to explore lighter music. I got way into the pop and other rock coming out of the British Isles, bands like Blur, Supergrass, Pulp, Gomez, Radiohead. These guys and girls were carrying the torch of classic British pop rock music in the vein of The Kinks or The Zombies or any number of other bands. They were writing catchy as hell tunes with a light-hearted sensibility that nevertheless held a tiny shade of darkness below all the major chords and joyful harmonies.

No band exemplified that light/dark condition like Pulp did on 1996’s Different Class. The record features a bunch of upbeat poppy tracks propelled by Cocker’s sharp, biting lyrics. The songs are filled longing and remorse and shame expressed with witty jabs, all bouncing along to a brisk, danceable beat.

Then they released This Is Hardcore in 1998 which is Different Class’s sleazier, darker, less poppy older brother. Lacking the supreme dancey-ness of its predecessor, it’s also a whole lot darker. No, that’s not exactly right. The darkness is a lot more apparent.

Neither record is better than the other. They’ve been in heavy rotation in my listening habits for a long time and I’m still not sick of them. What I think I really love is that the songs are like Jarvis Cocker having a conversation with the listener, like he’s telling us a story. He allows his thoughts to linger and spread and chooses the right word even if he doesn’t rhyme.

I could write a whole bunch of other stuff here, but I won’t. Just listen to the music.

Ok. So, I’m a fan. Doy. You would think that I would have seen all their music videos, right? Me too. But until yesterday I hadn’t seen a single one. What the hell is that about? At the very least, I guess it’s because when I became a fan of Pulp there was no place like YouTube to see all their videos. It was an age when MTV no longer played videos and there was no good way for me to see the videos a medium-sized British band were making.

Well, now I’ve got YouTube, so I can watch whatever I want! I present to you, dear reader, every decent Pulp video I can find.

Enjoy!