By Daniel N. Alvarez
Part of a continuing series: Britpop Faves.
When Pulp, the perpetual Britpop outsiders, went into the studio to follow up their first taste of commercial success, the Gold-certified His 'n' Hers (Island, 1994), few would have guessed the unassuming quintet would craft a groundbreaking album that would transcend the Britpop scene, while also creating a recording that was quintessentially British.
While Different Class (PolyGram/Island, 1995) contains the same new wave/glam hybrid of His 'n' Hers, it surpasses their previous effort due to frontperson Jarvis Cocker's development into the most compelling, perceptive figure in rock music at the time. The full-length sees Cocker, a cross between Robert Smith and Morrissey with a keen understanding of sociology, come into his own as a songwriter, weaving tales of sex, drugs, and the rigid, enduring class system that has afflicted England for centuries. Though many UK bands played with the class system (the Verve, the Happy Mondays), none of them investigated it - and rallied against it - like Cocker.
For the love of...: Pulp's "Common People."
The record's first single, "Common People," is a fascinating story about a wealthy, young Greek woman that Cocker met at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She confesses that she yearns to understand the plight of the "common people" that she saw in London. At first, a young Cocker attempts to facilitate her slumming, but his indignant response slowly turns to rage, as he shows her she will never live like common people because she cannot "understand what it means to live your life with no meaning or control, and with nowhere left to go." With one simple story, Cocker details the hardscrabble existence of the bulging British lower class without a touch of pretension.
Down on the dancefloor: Pulp perform "Disco 2000."
Cocker's storytelling made Different Class a sensation, and Pulp's players made it musically legendary. The album is full of catchy melodies, built around Candida Doyle's wanton keyboards and Russell Senior's jangling guitar work. Doyle's sublime piano drives the ethereal "Bar Italia," and Senior's punchy guitar turned "Mis-Shapes" (another biting commentary on Britain’s antiquated class system) into a live staple and successful single. The two Sheffielders team up for the uplifting, silky “Disco 2000," which sees Cocker lamenting lost love with the kind of wistful, dramatic approach that would make the Moz blush.
Ready, steady: Pulp play "Sorted for E’s and Whizz."
The album’s best track is the synth-kissed, acoustic guitar-based, “Sorted for E’s and Whizz.” The ode to MDMA and amphetamines, unsurprisingly, ignited a storm of controversy, while, in reality, the song is merely a light-hearted chronicle of the burgeoning drug culture that was sweeping the country. Though the song unquestionably highlights hard drugs, Cocker reminds us, “In the middle of the night/ It feels all right/ But tomorrow morning/ You come down.”
Pulp has often been seen as the most British of the Britpop bands, because, of all their peers, they were the most interested in documenting, lyrically and musically, what was happening in the late '80s and early '90s. Nobody explained the life of the typical Brit as fully as Cocker did, and nobody melded the synthpop of the Smiths with the guitar rock of the Stone Roses as well as Pulp. Different Class will forever be their crowning achievement, and just may be the best British record of the decade.
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