Jarvis Cocker even manages to make farmers' markets sexy on Pulp's new album More

Yahoo

22-05-2025

As Liam and Noel Gallagher prepare to rake in millions from this summer's much-fêted Oasis reunion shows, Manchester's favourite warring brothers risk being overshadowed by one of the Nineties' most beloved other bands. Back with their first album in almost 24 years, Pulp prove – once again – that their title of Britpop's wittiest and most intelligent chroniclers of everyday life (and sex) is in no danger of being snatched away.
Appropriately titled More, the album was written in the aftermath of Pulp's own triumphant run of reunion shows beginning in 2023 (it's also their first since the death of bassist Steve Mackey, that same year). There's always a worry when a band as influential – and brilliant – as Pulp decides to release new music: will it be any good? Will the new songs have everyone heading off to the bar en masse? One only has to remember the Stone Roses' tedious 2016 effort, Beautiful Thing, to be filled with dread.
But More is a supremely confident record, filled with lust, laughter and passion that hark back to Pulp's glory days. Spike Island – itself inspired by the Roses' famous 1990 gig in Widnes – is a sunny slice of pure pop that manages to sound like quintessential Jarvis Cocker and co. without veering into nostalgic karaoke.
That's not to say that loyal Pulp fans shouldn't be prepared to feel challenged by some of the tracks – the youthful exuberance of 1994's His 'n' Hers, and the anthemic power of Different Class, which followed a year later, has been replaced with tales of 61-year-old Cocker's upper middle-class reality. Luckily, despite many of the songs focusing on farmers markets or conversations with friends about commute times, his irrepressible horniness (think of sex-fuelled classics like Acrylic Afternoons or Babies) is still present.
'And so you move from Camden / Out to Hackney / And you stress about wrinkles / Instead of acne,' he sings on Grown Ups, a thudding, synth-heavy reflection on ageing, while Farmers Market is Cocker at his most Cocker: a bit pretentious, a bit strange, but nonetheless intoxicating. Elegiac strings give way to his earnest vocals as he regales us with the tale of an intense love affair. You can readily picture massive crowds singing back the soaring bridge – 'We thought that we were just joking / Trying dreams on for size / We never realised / We'd be stuck with them, for the rest of our natural lives' – just as loudly as they would that famous refrain in Sorted for E's and Wizz.
It's the slower tracks that take slightly longer to get on board with, from the ode to Steel City on Hymn of the North to melodic closer A Sunset (co-written with Richard Hawley), the latter of which wouldn't sound out of place on a church choir's Sunday setlist. In comparison, the stompers will have the biggest impact – Spike Island, already making waves on radio, and the superbly funky Got to Have Love.
Perhaps it's because they were never 'really' Britpop, having started out too early, but Pulp is still the best thing to have come out of the era. Not as boisterous as Oasis, never as smug as Blur or Suede, their music remains an open window to everyday British life. Because what's more British than self-deprecation and a penchant for farmers' markets?
More is released on June 6
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