Britpop legends Pulp have dropped their first album in 25 years. I have some thoughts
A new Pulp album after 24 years wasn't Jarvis Cocker's idea.
'There's been a groundswell of feeling … a desire for us to play again,' he told me three years ago when plugging his memoir, Good Pop, Bad Pop. 'You know, if people clap for long enough it's a bit churlish if you don't go and give them another bit of music.'
Hence, More. Not a lunge for relevance from a legacy act but a thoughtful response to friends in need. The distinction is everything because this long after the pilled-up promise of Disco 2000 we don't need a new high. We need something more real, for less certain times.
Pulp were always the smarter, more ironic, less cavalier band of the Britpop pack. Common People was a '90s anthem. True stories of sex and shame, class resentment and crushed romanticism bopped to kitchen-sink disco and velvet melodrama.
Even in the literal throes of ecstasy, Cocker was the guy who wasn't quite buying in. 'Is this the way they say the future's meant to feel?/Or just 20,000 people standing in a field?' he wondered in Sorted for E's and Wizz.
True to those dry-eyed instincts, More is no grab for lost youth or even nostalgia. It's an embrace of where we've landed, a mirror held to ageing, love and the weight of shared memory.
Spike Island lurches in like a boozy contiki bus, a flashback to a mythic Stone Roses show in 1990: a generational touchstone for Brits for which there's no real Australian equivalent, unless you count Nirvana (we were all American back then) at the first Big Day Out.
Cocker conjures a vision of near-transcendence coexisting with an immediate comedown, the cosmos moving on in the midst of his tiny epiphany. 'I exist to do this,' he wails, hips a-wiggle, 'shouting and pointing.' A rock star's battle cry in past tense: sad, but strangely noble, too.
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Britpop legends Pulp have dropped their first album in 25 years. I have some thoughts
A new Pulp album after 24 years wasn't Jarvis Cocker's idea. 'There's been a groundswell of feeling … a desire for us to play again,' he told me three years ago when plugging his memoir, Good Pop, Bad Pop. 'You know, if people clap for long enough it's a bit churlish if you don't go and give them another bit of music.' Hence, More. Not a lunge for relevance from a legacy act but a thoughtful response to friends in need. The distinction is everything because this long after the pilled-up promise of Disco 2000 we don't need a new high. We need something more real, for less certain times. Pulp were always the smarter, more ironic, less cavalier band of the Britpop pack. Common People was a '90s anthem. True stories of sex and shame, class resentment and crushed romanticism bopped to kitchen-sink disco and velvet melodrama. Even in the literal throes of ecstasy, Cocker was the guy who wasn't quite buying in. 'Is this the way they say the future's meant to feel?/Or just 20,000 people standing in a field?' he wondered in Sorted for E's and Wizz. True to those dry-eyed instincts, More is no grab for lost youth or even nostalgia. It's an embrace of where we've landed, a mirror held to ageing, love and the weight of shared memory. Spike Island lurches in like a boozy contiki bus, a flashback to a mythic Stone Roses show in 1990: a generational touchstone for Brits for which there's no real Australian equivalent, unless you count Nirvana (we were all American back then) at the first Big Day Out. Cocker conjures a vision of near-transcendence coexisting with an immediate comedown, the cosmos moving on in the midst of his tiny epiphany. 'I exist to do this,' he wails, hips a-wiggle, 'shouting and pointing.' A rock star's battle cry in past tense: sad, but strangely noble, too.
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A new Pulp album after 24 years wasn't Jarvis Cocker's idea. 'There's been a groundswell of feeling … a desire for us to play again,' he told me three years ago when plugging his memoir, Good Pop, Bad Pop. 'You know, if people clap for long enough it's a bit churlish if you don't go and give them another bit of music.' Hence, More. Not a lunge for relevance from a legacy act but a thoughtful response to friends in need. The distinction is everything because this long after the pilled-up promise of Disco 2000 we don't need a new high. We need something more real, for less certain times. Pulp were always the smarter, more ironic, less cavalier band of the Britpop pack. Common People was a '90s anthem. True stories of sex and shame, class resentment and crushed romanticism bopped to kitchen-sink disco and velvet melodrama. Even in the literal throes of ecstasy, Cocker was the guy who wasn't quite buying in. 'Is this the way they say the future's meant to feel?/Or just 20,000 people standing in a field?' he wondered in Sorted for E's and Wizz. True to those dry-eyed instincts, More is no grab for lost youth or even nostalgia. It's an embrace of where we've landed, a mirror held to ageing, love and the weight of shared memory. Spike Island lurches in like a boozy contiki bus, a flashback to a mythic Stone Roses show in 1990: a generational touchstone for Brits for which there's no real Australian equivalent, unless you count Nirvana (we were all American back then) at the first Big Day Out. Cocker conjures a vision of near-transcendence coexisting with an immediate comedown, the cosmos moving on in the midst of his tiny epiphany. 'I exist to do this,' he wails, hips a-wiggle, 'shouting and pointing.' A rock star's battle cry in past tense: sad, but strangely noble, too.
