Sing Along With the Common People: Pulp

Preface: I spent the better part of my late teenage years doing my absolute best to emulate Jarvis Cocker. An anglophile since my early double-digits, the release of Different Class in my sophomore year of high school escalated my obsession with all things bland, pasty, and arrogant to the point of consumption. I liked British bands before them, but none had so pinpointed direct relationship I had with the notion of Britain quite like Pulp did. Pulp put a name, a face, and a soundtrack to my mania. When I cut my hair--gone grey for a full year after one and a half weeks of blueness--for the first time since in utero, it was because of Jarvis Cocker. Pulp changed my life. Pulp changed everything.

First there was Arabicus Pulp: a band that began in Sheffield (sex city) in 1978 when Jarvis was 16 years old. in 1981, Pulp pass on a demo to John Peel, who invited the band on for a Peel Session. No labels called. Every member of the band quit for university. Everyone except Jarvis. Over the next two years, Jarvis reformed the band and recorded It, the band's debut full-length, in 1984. Then everybody quit. Everyone except Jarvis. Within the year, Pulp was salvaged once again (this time with one member, Time Allcard, on just to read poetry) in time to sign a contract with Fire Records in 1985. That same year, Jarvis took a 30 foot fall out of a window whilst trying to impress a girl, breaking his pelvis. He played shows in a wheelchair for two months. Then they released Freaks. Then everyone quit. Everyone except Jarvis (and another guy named Russell Senior, who had since become a full-fledged collaborator).

Two more years went by, and Jarvis decided to begin attended St. Martin's College in pursuit of a career in filmmaking. A year later, Pulp recorded the Acid House-infused (and totally awesome) Separations, a record that sat shelved for three years before its eventual release. Jarvis readied for a film career when suddenly the record's first single, "My Legendary Girlfriend," became a surprise hit. Within two years (and 16 years after the band started), the new Pulp signed to Island--and then shit got heavy.

His 'n' Hers became a huge British hit, Jarvis--perfecting his swinging London frontman persona for 16 years--became an omnipresent pop/sex/rock star (ed. note: J.C. famously rushed the stage during one of Michael Jackson's award show appearances to protest Jacko's early 90's pedophilia)... and then came "Common People."

"Common People,"--a simple sex story about a privileged art student slumming with the commoners-turned stirring rally cry for a nation perpetually haunted by class division--not only skyrocketed Pulp into crazed fame in there homeland and abroad, but was the greatest single released in 1995... and arguably the decade. And then they dropped Different Class. And then they became the Greatest Band in the World.

As the stuffy gutter sophistication of Brit-pop began to over-take my alt-rock obsessions, I spent most of my quasi-remedial sophomore English class escaping into the low class, desperate romanticism of Different Class. It was a perfect sort of escapism--a culture born of boredom, frustration, and tedium of lower middle class living--a world simultaneously of and apart from everything that I perceived my own to be. And goddamn if they can't write an anthem for the anguished.

When Pulp followed DIfferent Class with This Is Hardcore, I was already sold... and yet, it seemed at first just to solidify the Pulp image--sex, desperation, monologue, repeat. in the years since, it has revealed itself as Pulp's definitive work: Jarvis' fame fixation realized in full, yet to no further satisfaction. Now age obsessed (now a handsome 36), no longer one of the "common people," terrified of following up one of the most beloved records of the decade, and deep, deep into coke, Jarvis and Co. create one of the most paranoid, claustrophobic records of their career--bookending a lifetime of star-gazing as an unsatisfied celebrity. How could it get any better than that?!?!

Pulp finished their career with We Love Life, a Scott Walker-produced LP and an intense shift away from everything that had preceded--it was their first major flub. It flopped. they got dropped.

The band is currently on hiatus, which seems to mean that they are no longer. Jarvis briefly worked under the pseudonym Darren Spooner for a weird project with Richard Hawley called Relaxed Muscle. Trust me: don't ask. It's reported that dude's gonna be in the new Harry Potter movie. Which I will not be seeing.

I pray that someday I will still get to see Pulp live. I pray that Pulp will someday release another record. I say this with no touch of our perpetual GBoAT exaggerations: Pulp may honestly be the Greatest Band of All Time. Period.