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Tunes

Top five tunes: Pulp

Who? Pulp

Years active: 1978 – 2002 & 2011 – 2013

Band members*:
Jarvis Cocker (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards) 1978-2002, 2011-2013
Candida Doyle (keyboards, organ, vocals) 1984-1986, 1987-2002, 2011-2013
Nick Banks (drums, percussion) 1986-2002, 2011-2013
Steve Mackey (bass) 1988-2002, 2011-2013
Mark Webber (guitar, keyboards) 1995-2002, 2011-2013
Russell Senior (guitar, violin, vocals) 1983-1997, 2011

*The above constitutes the core members during the height of the band’s career. There were a number of other members that came and went during the early days, of which Jarvis Cocker was the only constant.

Discography:
It (1983)
Freaks (1987)
Separations (1992)
His ‘n’ hers (1994)
Different class (1995)
This is hardcore (1998)
We love life (2001)

Context:
In September 1994, I went to see Blur perform live at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto. In the lineup into the show, I met up with my friend Tim, who had travelled in from Waterloo with a bunch of his friends with whom he was attending university there. We were all excited to see the headlining act, Blur, who had just released “Parklife” and were riding high on the waves of that excellent album. What we didn’t know as we stood waiting outside the Phoenix was that we were about to blown away by the opening act.

In fact, Jarvis Cocker led his band Pulp onto the stage that night as if they were the headliners, not Blur. The only song by them that I had heard was “Do you remember the first time” and only just earlier that afternoon on the radio, but their energy and their dynamic performance had me (and the rest of the crowd) rapt from the outset. It was glam, it was dark, and it was sexy. The tall and thin front man had a charisma shinier than his reflective blazer and was reminiscent of a David Bowie or Lou Reed. It was a set that few of us in attendance would ever forget and that forced many of us to go out the next day to purchase “His ‘n’ hers”. Shortly after that, Pulp released the single “Common people” and they exploded, even here in North America.

Pulp originally formed in Sheffield in 1978 and despite getting a John Peel session in 1981, struggled to gain a foothold throughout the 1980s. They finally broke in 1990s with the aforementioned “His ‘n’ hers” and then, even more so with 1995’s “Different class”, their fourth and fifth albums, respectively. Their name became synonymous with Britpop. Their headline set in place of The Stone Roses at Glastonbury in 1995 is the stuff of legends. Frontman Jarvis Cocker found even further notoriety when he jumped onstage to moon Michael Jackson at the Brit Awards in 1996. They released the brilliant “This is hardcore” in 1998 but by this time, Britpop was on the wane and the album didn’t really get its due. There was one last album, “We love life”, in 2001 before the band’s dissolution the following year.

Jarvis Cocker reunited the roster that released the band’s two best albums for a run of shows that was extended for a period that ran between 2011 and 2013. Unfortunately, none of the shows came close enough for me to see them again so that one original show is the only time I’ve seen them live. Still, I remember that one show fondly and much of their output in the 1990s ranks among my favourite ever songs. The difficulty in choosing just five songs was that they have great songs beyond “His ‘n’ hers” and “Different class” but how do you voyage very far from near perfection?

Nonetheless, the below constitute some of my favourites that Jarvis and the gang have released. I’d love to hear from the other Pulp fans out there (I know you’re out there) as to your own favourite tunes.

The top five:

#5: The night that Minnie Timperley died (from “We love life”, 2001)

I almost felt like I had to include a song that was recorded and released outside of Pulp’s two year heyday in the mid 1990s to prove they were more than a one trick pony. They just had so many great songs in that period that are now classics and I’ve constrained myself to just the five but this is an example of how great they were right up to the end. It was never released as a single off their final album but really should have been. The drum machine rhythms, rocking guitar riffs, and handclaps bely the dark subject matter of the song, a touchstone of Pulp’s oeuvre. Jarvis Cocker’s wry and often salacious lyrics and his knowing delivery are often what make their songs the masterpieces that they are. “The night that Minnie Timperley died” is an account of a teen’s murder, a snapshot into the minds of both the victim (“How can a girl have sex with these pathetic teenage wrecks?”) and the murderer (“He thought he was still dangerous – paunchy, but dangerous”). Brilliant.


#4: Disco 2000 (from “Different class”, 1995)

If that opening guitar riff that you leads into that disco danceable beat sounds familiar, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. It’s based heavily, if not a complete ripoff of the melody of “Gloria”, originally an Italian song by Umberto Tozzi but later translated to English in a cover by Laura Branigan. It’s meant to invite the memories and harken back to a younger time, back when disco was at its peak. It’s a case of the music reflecting the lyrical themes. The story here, apparently semi-autobiographical, is about a man wondering about his childhood crush, Deborah, (“The boys all loved you but I was a mess”), wondering what she was doing now, and fantasizing about meeting her again. “Oh what are you doing Sunday baby. Would you like to come and meet me maybe, you can even bring your baby.” Hilarious and touching at the same time. And of course, it’s disco so you want to dance to it, no?


#3: Razzmatazz (from “Razzmatazz”, 1993)

You might have noticed a thematic trend in my words on the first two songs. The draw in Pulp’s music is not just the danceable glam swagger but also Jarvis Cocker’s wry, facetious, and life-observing lyrics. Each song is a story, often of the salacious and lecherous underbelly of society that plays just below its surface. And you can’t get much more lecherous than the first two line of “Razzmatazz”: “The trouble with your brother, he’s always sleeping with your mother. And I know that your sister missed her time again this month.” The idea of the title, that of showy and noisy and attention-grabbing behaviour, is played out in the song. Whether lessons are learned is questionable but the consequences are certainly felt. And the music, with the driving strings and slithery soul, is dark and red lit, fester and pain, a shadow just beyond sight in the corner. This non album single is such a revelation and you just try to crack it out of your skull.


#2: Do you remember the first time? (from “His ‘n’ hers”, 1994)

As I mentioned above, this is the one track that I had heard before heading to that Blur show that they opened. It also just happens to be one of their first big hits, definitely the first to crack the top 40 in their home country. I’m not sure I remember what I thought of it as I first heard those driving basslines, intergalactic synths and electric guitars, and Cocker’s Ziggy Stardust-esque vocals, but it has since become one of my favourite ever tracks. The tune is pure sex, just as its title suggests. But it’s not really about the “first time”. It’s actually about a man trying to convince his lover not to go back to her husband. And with lines like “still you bought a toy that can reach the places he never goes” and “I don’t care if you screw him just as long as you save a piece for me”, you wonder how he could possibly fail. Hilarious and desperate and one hell of a groove.


#1: Common people (from “Different class”, 1995)

The fact that “Common people” is number one on this list shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. It is the song for which the best band is best known, their highest charting and best selling single, and is something of an anthem for the Britpop era. This last, in itself, shows how varied that movement was because outside of perhaps Suede, Pulp sounded little like the other big groups of the time. It is a highly danceable number with a hyper addictive synth line, electric violin flourishes, driving and raging guitars, and a drum beat that keeps everything moving at a frantic enough pace. And Cocker is really at the top of his vocal and lyrical game here. He tells a semi-autobiographical tale about an arts student he was after but is ultimately turned off by her interest in slumming and class tourism. This leads to ironic and sarcastic interplay between Cocker and his adversary. I don’t know how many times I’ve shouted along on the dance floor as he tries to explain: “Rent a flat above a shop, cut your hair and get a job. Smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend you never went to school. But still you’ll never get it right ’cause when you’re laid in bed at night, watching ‘roaches climb the wall. If you called your dad he could stop it all.” So much pure awesome.


For other top five lists in this series, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2001: #24 Gorillaz “Clint Eastwood”

<< #25    |    #23 >>

In or about a month ago, I posted some other words on Gorillaz and one of the few other songs of theirs that I liked, “On melancholy hill” (#13 on my Best of 2010 list). In that same post, I made mention of this track, which also happened to be my first taste of what the virtual hip hop fusion band led by Blur frontman Damon Albarn was going to be offering.

“Clint Eastwood” was the first single released off Gorillaz’s self-titled, debut album. The name of the song appears nowhere in its lyrics, nor does it seem at first glance, relevant to its themes. I recently learned, though, that it was so named due to the similarity of the song’s melody to that of the theme song for the film, “The good, the bad, and the ugly”. I never picked up on that myself but now that I know it’s there, it changes things a bit for me, and I can’t seem to un-hear it. I always used to feel that the drum machine rhythm and keyboard line, as well as the synthesized strings, evoked the image of a travelling midway circus, a dark and haunted one, at that. I loved Albarn’s sung, ear worm chorus and its interplay with Del the Funky Homosapien’s rapped verses. The whole thing had an eerie but laidback groove that you didn’t want to try too hard to escape, no matter how unsettling it was.

The song will always remind me of one of the few social evenings my wife and I enjoyed shortly after relocating from Toronto to Ottawa. I had met a couple of people at the new call centre job I had started at the end of August, found myself wandering down for coffee at the same time as them during breaks, and by October, Candace, Jeff, and I were making plans to go out for drinks with our respective boyfriends and girlfriends. The six of us met at the Blue Cactus down in the Byward Market on a Saturday night and we had a blast. Even to this day, my wife Victoria looks back fondly on that evening and marvels at how easily we hit it off. The group of us would go out a few more times together after that but save for a particularly fun New Year’s gathering at our place, we never really replicated the magic of that night.

And at some point during the evening, “Clint Eastwood” was played in the Blue Cactus and even as deeply engaged in hilarious conversation as we were, my subconscious recognized the track and my head started bopping. I think it was Candace who noticed and asked who it was that was playing. I explained and we all sat back and soaked in the song for a few moments before continuing with the laughter. It wasn’t the first time I had heard the song, but perhaps the first time from someone else’s speakers and in a whole other environment and I saw it in a whole other light.

But enough blathering. Enjoy the tune.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Asobi Seksu “Citrus”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Asobi Seksu
Album Title: Citrus
Year released: 2006
Year reissued: 2017
Details: 2 x LP, Black vinyl, 180 gram, gatefold

The skinny: Asobi Seksu was the first of a number of shoegaze/dream pop revival bands that I came across in the early to mid-2000s and was perhaps the best of these. “Citrus” was the group’s sophomore release and was a thing of beauty, calling to mind both Lush and My Bloody Valentine.

Standout track: “Strawberries”