JARVIS COCKER/PULP

Imagine my surprise (and horror) this past week when I realized that I'd never produced a proper post on PULP, one of my favorite bands of the past dozen years.

In a review I (over)-wrote some years ago on the great 1995 LP DIFFERENT CLASS, I had these things to say, amongst others:

"For better than two decades, whippet-thin singer/lyricist JARVIS COCKER has served as the band’s jigging-jester bedrock. A dandy deviate with a lurid libido, he is the Benny Hill of pop performers -- the sort whose outlandish, unzipped-knickers shenanigans ultimately prove charmingly harmless. On DIFFERENT CLASS, Cocker dips into his patented bag of thematic tricks -- voyeurism, fetishism, illicit trysts -- and, sporting a vocal delivery alternately deadpan and camp theatrical, essays a range of naughty narrators -- whether they’re shouting from the mountains the importance of non-conformity ("Mis-Shapes") or just sitting listlessly in the dark, emitting sordid smoke rings (the unsettlingly sinister "I Spy" and "F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E."). The gorgeous, irony-free "Something Changed" features a soaring synthesizer line; "Disco 2000" appropriates its riff from the LAURA BRANIGAN "classic" "Gloria"; and the record’s sterling centerpiece -- the relentlessly catchy "Common People" -- makes delicious mincemeat of a shallow-souled West End girl slumming her way through an East End summer."

Well, Mr. Cocker no longer looks to be "whippet-thin," and, as far as I know, Pulp has been laid to a permanent, gentle rest. But that's no reason not to take a look back at the "glory days" of one of Britpop's brightest lights of the '90s.

The first two songs below are from Cocker's solo release of 2006. The rest -- except where noted -- are drawn from the Pulp canon. Dig in. Evaluate. Luxuriate.

JARVIS COCKER on MySPACE.

From the LP JARVIS, 2006 >>>
[MP3] "Tonite"
[MP3] "Fat Children"

From the LP WE LOVE LIFE, 2001 >>>
[MP3] "The Birds in Your Garden"
[MP3] [VID] "The Trees"

From the LP THIS IS HARDCORE, 1998 >>>
[MP3] "The Fear"
[MP3] [VID] "This is Hardcore"

From the LP DIFFERENT CLASS, 1995 >>>
[MP3] [VID] "Common People"
[MP3] [VID] "Disco 2000"

From the LP HIS 'N' HERS, 1994 >>>
[MP3] [VID] "Razzmatazz"
[MP3] "Pink Glove"

BONUS TRACKS >>>

[MP3] PULP/"We Are the Boys"

[MP3] PULP/"Ansaphone"

[MP3] JARVIS COCKER/"I Can't Forget" [LEONARD COHEN cover]

[MP3] JARVIS COCKER with LUSH/"Ciao!"