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Overnight success in twelve years: Are Pulp one of the most resilient bands in pop?
PULP had it hard in the years before their breakthrough performance at the 1995 Glastonbury Festival, where headliners The Stone Roses dropped out, giving the Sheffield outfit their chance.
From their lowly beginnings in 1978, Pulp have possibly had more personnel changes than any other group in recent times - numerous bass players, drummers, and even a guy reading poetry have all passed through the doors since the late seventies. The Pulp we know and love today didn't come together until around 1994/95, with the fairly solid line up of gangly sex god Jarvis Cocker, keyboardist Candida Doyle, drummer Nick Banks, bass player Steve Mackey, guitarists Mark Webber and Russell Senior. Even this line up is no longer current, with Senior departing the band around 1996 to pursue a solo career with his own group, Venini. Since that time, another guitarist, Richard Hawley, who collaborated with Cocker on his Pulp side-project Relaxed Muscle, has been filling in during the meantime.
Pulp's first official release came in the distant past of 1981, when a surprisingly competent track, 'What Do You Say?' (possibly about puberty!) was released on an extremely rare LP of local bands. The first break for the band, after an appearance on John Peel's radio programme, came in 1983, when the youthful band issued their debut LP, 'It'. The meaning behind this title came from Cocker wishing to 'preach' his lyrics and music to the public, using a play on the band's name - 'Pulp-it', as if the album was indeed his pulpit to communicate his message. Of course, nothing really came of the album, apart from the sublime melodies of 'My Lighthouse' (an early single) and 'Blue Girls' a touching ode to the girls of Cocker's (presumably) school days.
Unperturbed by the lack of attention and failure to break into mega-stardom, Pulp continued nonetheless, with work, money and the ever present personnel problems plaguing the group. Without an album to work on, the band issued two EPs on the Fire record label: 'Little Girl With Blue Eyes' and 'Dogs Are Everywhere' (although not included on any albums, the EPs were released in 1994 as the 'Masters Of The Universe' compilation). Again, with no critical acclaim or sign of the millions rolling from the record sales, they relocated to an old warehouse to record their second album, 'Freaks', in 1987. The album was an audible step up from the debut effort, and was almost frightening in its subject matter - fairground freaks, vicious attacks from prejudiced meatheads, anorexic girls, and a twisted take on relationships.
Before the next album, 1992's 'Separations', there would be much change for Pulp. With drummer Nick Banks and bass player Steve Mackey now on board, writing began for the LP. An NME award for 'single of the week' for the track 'My Legendary Girlfriend' soon came along, and it seemed that things were looking up, although this optimism was swiftly brought crashing down when Pulp's record label delayed the release of the album from its original 1990 release date. With nigh on five years since Pulp's last album, it seemed to the music world as though the band were dead and buried. When the album did finally arrive, it was a dramatic change from the quiet acoustics and anguish-filled songs of the 1980s. This was Glam-Pulp, fusing the wry social comments of Cocker with electronics and the ushering in of new keyboards and MIDI sequencing, as well as a new drum machine for Nick Banks to contend with. It was the era of rave, and this new sound of the streets certainly rubbed off on a now London-based Cocker, and the material he and the band were writing. The album still holds up as one of Pulp's finest, with gems like the more electronic-oriented 'Death 2', 'Countdown (about waiting for fame to arrive)' and the eerie, surreal eight minute opus 'This House Is Condemned' (only the second song so far not to feature Cocker on lead vocals, the other being 'Fairground' on the 'Freaks' album).
Late 1992/early 1993 brought a new record label, the Gift outfit, which saw a number of standalone singles released before a new album proper. The singles, 'Babies', 'OU' and 'Razzmatazz' were again another step forward to the band sounding like the Pulp of nowadays, and were rewarded with the first signs of the music industry taking notice. 'Babies' remains a live favourite to the present day, and was kept in the tours the band performed to promote their breakthrough album, 'Different Class'. The quality of the songs Pulp were now recording was noticeable - even the B-sides of the time reeked of class; the sleazy epic 'Sheffield Sex City', the ambient, breathy 'Space' and the character based three-part story of 'Inside Susan'.
1993 also saw the first material from the band's new album, 'His N' Hers', with a single, 'Lipgloss'. Although missing out on a Top 40 position in the charts, that would soon be rectified by the chart placing of 'Do You Remember The First Time?' - an end of the evening anthem at student discos up and down the country, an uplifting ode to losing virginity and the jealousy of one man towards an ex-girlfriend's current squeeze. TV exposure greeted the release of 'His N' Hers', with appearances to promote the '...First Time' single, as well as other tracks from the record. It was perhaps this album which paved the way for 'Different Class' and Pulp's propulsion into superstardom. Many people around the time mistakenly believed that 'His N' Hers' was a debut release, such was their unfamiliarity with the band!
And then, to the success which had evaded the band since the early eighties. With the advent of Britpop, bands such as Blur, Oasis, Elastica and Sleeper were ushered into the music elite, and Pulp bustled in with them. With a richer, seemingly more intelligent subject matter to their songs than most of the crop, Pulp soon rose to the top of the Britpop scene, a shift noticed by Glastonbury helmer Michael Eavis, who was quick to snatch the band as last minute replacements for The Stone Roses at the 1995 festival. For those attending the festival, it was an almost spiritual experience hearing the band's killer anthem 'Common People' exploding out over the amassed thousands of music fans, an experience which would be captured forever when the live version was released as a B-side to the 'Mis Shapes' single later that year. From then on, nothing would be the same for Pulp ever again. With new found fame and popularity, the band unleashed the Britpop-era album 'Different Class' on the UK public. It was a perfect musical picture of Britain, from seedy back door affairs ('Pencil Skirt'), a call to arms for the misfits of the nation ('Mis Shapes'), early nineties rave culture ('Sorted For E's And Wizz'), and the after effects of late nights on the town (the superbly upbeat 'Monday Morning' and 'Bar Italia' - the soundtrack to a thousand hangovers).
Now that Pulp had hit their peak, it would prove hard for the band to live up to the pressures of expectation. Touring heavily to promote the 'Different Class' LP, a glut of reissues and compilations of the band's earlier tracks were released in numerous guises, one of the most comprehensive being 'Countdown 1992 - 1983' a double CD of early tracks and B-sides. The band's next project was to be 1997's 'comeback' single 'Help The Aged', a song that only Jarvis Cocker could have written about the perils of old age. It was the trailer for 1998's 'This Is Hardcore' album, a step back to the darker edge the band last showed on the 'Freaks' album - the track-listing, dominated by tales of pornography, self-doubt, fear and nostalgia didn't make easy listening, yet it was a side of Pulp we had not heard for many years. It was also enough for the band to make a return to the main stage of Glastonbury, and although not repeating the religious experience of three years' previously, was certainly a welcome return to UK soil.
From there on in, Pulp have remained fairly quiet, with only a smattering of singles from 'Hardcore' and 2001's 'We Love Life' album being released. 'We Love Life', while continuing with the themes Cocker was familiar with writing about from previous efforts - drugs, Sheffield and girls being murdered (!) seemed to lack something that previous albums had, the killer edge that made Cocker such a cutting edge lyricist and writer. It contained some classics, such as 'Bad Cover Version' (with an accompanying Band Aid style video with celebrity look-alikes), 'The Trees', a worthy contender to the title of 'concert closer' with 'Sunrise' and the meandering, wistful 'Wickerman'.
And so, at present, Pulp are on an extended break. After telling us on the sleeve of their greatest hits album that they will be back when they get to wherever it is they are going, we're left in limbo, wondering if there's still more to come from Sheffield's finest, or whether this is it - after a nigh on twenty five year journey, has Cocker finally said what he wants to say? Will 'Common People' remain the lasting legacy of the band that beat Britpop? Its hard to say what could lie in store, and a little unfair to say that the band are in decline, after all, bands have continued after hitting their peak - Pink Floyd managed it after climaxing with 'Dark Side of the Moon' just as Pulp have with 'Different Class' - it seems unlikely we'll see a return to that kind of spontaneous form when everything the group touched turned to gold, but fans will no doubt wait patiently for the next message the God of council estate chic (and wearing suit jackets over a bare chest - sorry Jarvis, couldn't resist that one!) has to tell us.
PULP had it hard in the years before their breakthrough performance at the 1995 Glastonbury Festival, where headliners The Stone Roses dropped out, giving the Sheffield outfit their chance.
From their lowly beginnings in 1978, Pulp have possibly had more personnel changes than any other group in recent times - numerous bass players, drummers, and even a guy reading poetry have all passed through the doors since the late seventies. The Pulp we know and love today didn't come together until around 1994/95, with the fairly solid line up of gangly sex god Jarvis Cocker, keyboardist Candida Doyle, drummer Nick Banks, bass player Steve Mackey, guitarists Mark Webber and Russell Senior. Even this line up is no longer current, with Senior departing the band around 1996 to pursue a solo career with his own group, Venini. Since that time, another guitarist, Richard Hawley, who collaborated with Cocker on his Pulp side-project Relaxed Muscle, has been filling in during the meantime.
Pulp's first official release came in the distant past of 1981, when a surprisingly competent track, 'What Do You Say?' (possibly about puberty!) was released on an extremely rare LP of local bands. The first break for the band, after an appearance on John Peel's radio programme, came in 1983, when the youthful band issued their debut LP, 'It'. The meaning behind this title came from Cocker wishing to 'preach' his lyrics and music to the public, using a play on the band's name - 'Pulp-it', as if the album was indeed his pulpit to communicate his message. Of course, nothing really came of the album, apart from the sublime melodies of 'My Lighthouse' (an early single) and 'Blue Girls' a touching ode to the girls of Cocker's (presumably) school days.
Unperturbed by the lack of attention and failure to break into mega-stardom, Pulp continued nonetheless, with work, money and the ever present personnel problems plaguing the group. Without an album to work on, the band issued two EPs on the Fire record label: 'Little Girl With Blue Eyes' and 'Dogs Are Everywhere' (although not included on any albums, the EPs were released in 1994 as the 'Masters Of The Universe' compilation). Again, with no critical acclaim or sign of the millions rolling from the record sales, they relocated to an old warehouse to record their second album, 'Freaks', in 1987. The album was an audible step up from the debut effort, and was almost frightening in its subject matter - fairground freaks, vicious attacks from prejudiced meatheads, anorexic girls, and a twisted take on relationships.
Before the next album, 1992's 'Separations', there would be much change for Pulp. With drummer Nick Banks and bass player Steve Mackey now on board, writing began for the LP. An NME award for 'single of the week' for the track 'My Legendary Girlfriend' soon came along, and it seemed that things were looking up, although this optimism was swiftly brought crashing down when Pulp's record label delayed the release of the album from its original 1990 release date. With nigh on five years since Pulp's last album, it seemed to the music world as though the band were dead and buried. When the album did finally arrive, it was a dramatic change from the quiet acoustics and anguish-filled songs of the 1980s. This was Glam-Pulp, fusing the wry social comments of Cocker with electronics and the ushering in of new keyboards and MIDI sequencing, as well as a new drum machine for Nick Banks to contend with. It was the era of rave, and this new sound of the streets certainly rubbed off on a now London-based Cocker, and the material he and the band were writing. The album still holds up as one of Pulp's finest, with gems like the more electronic-oriented 'Death 2', 'Countdown (about waiting for fame to arrive)' and the eerie, surreal eight minute opus 'This House Is Condemned' (only the second song so far not to feature Cocker on lead vocals, the other being 'Fairground' on the 'Freaks' album).
Late 1992/early 1993 brought a new record label, the Gift outfit, which saw a number of standalone singles released before a new album proper. The singles, 'Babies', 'OU' and 'Razzmatazz' were again another step forward to the band sounding like the Pulp of nowadays, and were rewarded with the first signs of the music industry taking notice. 'Babies' remains a live favourite to the present day, and was kept in the tours the band performed to promote their breakthrough album, 'Different Class'. The quality of the songs Pulp were now recording was noticeable - even the B-sides of the time reeked of class; the sleazy epic 'Sheffield Sex City', the ambient, breathy 'Space' and the character based three-part story of 'Inside Susan'.
1993 also saw the first material from the band's new album, 'His N' Hers', with a single, 'Lipgloss'. Although missing out on a Top 40 position in the charts, that would soon be rectified by the chart placing of 'Do You Remember The First Time?' - an end of the evening anthem at student discos up and down the country, an uplifting ode to losing virginity and the jealousy of one man towards an ex-girlfriend's current squeeze. TV exposure greeted the release of 'His N' Hers', with appearances to promote the '...First Time' single, as well as other tracks from the record. It was perhaps this album which paved the way for 'Different Class' and Pulp's propulsion into superstardom. Many people around the time mistakenly believed that 'His N' Hers' was a debut release, such was their unfamiliarity with the band!
And then, to the success which had evaded the band since the early eighties. With the advent of Britpop, bands such as Blur, Oasis, Elastica and Sleeper were ushered into the music elite, and Pulp bustled in with them. With a richer, seemingly more intelligent subject matter to their songs than most of the crop, Pulp soon rose to the top of the Britpop scene, a shift noticed by Glastonbury helmer Michael Eavis, who was quick to snatch the band as last minute replacements for The Stone Roses at the 1995 festival. For those attending the festival, it was an almost spiritual experience hearing the band's killer anthem 'Common People' exploding out over the amassed thousands of music fans, an experience which would be captured forever when the live version was released as a B-side to the 'Mis Shapes' single later that year. From then on, nothing would be the same for Pulp ever again. With new found fame and popularity, the band unleashed the Britpop-era album 'Different Class' on the UK public. It was a perfect musical picture of Britain, from seedy back door affairs ('Pencil Skirt'), a call to arms for the misfits of the nation ('Mis Shapes'), early nineties rave culture ('Sorted For E's And Wizz'), and the after effects of late nights on the town (the superbly upbeat 'Monday Morning' and 'Bar Italia' - the soundtrack to a thousand hangovers).
Now that Pulp had hit their peak, it would prove hard for the band to live up to the pressures of expectation. Touring heavily to promote the 'Different Class' LP, a glut of reissues and compilations of the band's earlier tracks were released in numerous guises, one of the most comprehensive being 'Countdown 1992 - 1983' a double CD of early tracks and B-sides. The band's next project was to be 1997's 'comeback' single 'Help The Aged', a song that only Jarvis Cocker could have written about the perils of old age. It was the trailer for 1998's 'This Is Hardcore' album, a step back to the darker edge the band last showed on the 'Freaks' album - the track-listing, dominated by tales of pornography, self-doubt, fear and nostalgia didn't make easy listening, yet it was a side of Pulp we had not heard for many years. It was also enough for the band to make a return to the main stage of Glastonbury, and although not repeating the religious experience of three years' previously, was certainly a welcome return to UK soil.
From there on in, Pulp have remained fairly quiet, with only a smattering of singles from 'Hardcore' and 2001's 'We Love Life' album being released. 'We Love Life', while continuing with the themes Cocker was familiar with writing about from previous efforts - drugs, Sheffield and girls being murdered (!) seemed to lack something that previous albums had, the killer edge that made Cocker such a cutting edge lyricist and writer. It contained some classics, such as 'Bad Cover Version' (with an accompanying Band Aid style video with celebrity look-alikes), 'The Trees', a worthy contender to the title of 'concert closer' with 'Sunrise' and the meandering, wistful 'Wickerman'.
And so, at present, Pulp are on an extended break. After telling us on the sleeve of their greatest hits album that they will be back when they get to wherever it is they are going, we're left in limbo, wondering if there's still more to come from Sheffield's finest, or whether this is it - after a nigh on twenty five year journey, has Cocker finally said what he wants to say? Will 'Common People' remain the lasting legacy of the band that beat Britpop? Its hard to say what could lie in store, and a little unfair to say that the band are in decline, after all, bands have continued after hitting their peak - Pink Floyd managed it after climaxing with 'Dark Side of the Moon' just as Pulp have with 'Different Class' - it seems unlikely we'll see a return to that kind of spontaneous form when everything the group touched turned to gold, but fans will no doubt wait patiently for the next message the God of council estate chic (and wearing suit jackets over a bare chest - sorry Jarvis, couldn't resist that one!) has to tell us.
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