Classic Albums No. 25 Pulp - Different Class

[smokeyb]

I have chosen the 1995 No. 1 album from Pulp, which also won the 1996 Mercury Music Prize.

Track Listing:

1. Mis-Shapes – 3:46
2  Pencil Skirt  – 3:11
3. Common People  – 5:50
4. I Spy  – 5:55
5. Disco 2000  – 4:33
6. Live Bed Show  – 3:29
7. Something Changed  – 3:18
8. Sorted for E's & Wizz  – 3:47
9. F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E  – 6:01
10. Underwear  – 4:06
11. Monday Morning  – 4:16
12. Bar Italia – 3:42

[Shireblogger]

Great choice. This may well have been my next nomination, so I'll really enjoying reviewing this one.

[Earl Purple]

Oh, what an incredible album... (I don't recall F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E being so long. I thought I Spy was the longest song on the album..)

[Deleted]

Great album

[wonderwall]

Most overrated album going never understood the appeal of pulp or why this album tops so many best of lists.will revisit not heard it for a long long time.

[TheThorne]

Jan 2, 2016 0:09:02 GMT 1 wonderwall said:

Most overrated album going never understood the appeal of pulp or why this album tops so many best of lists.will revisit not heard it for a long long time.

It was the cool band to like , indie kids and hipsters if you had them in 90s were to cool to get involved with the Blur/Oasis rivalry so they all say 'I prefer Pulp actually. ' 'ooh ain't I dangerous and left field '

But yeh it is a great album

[o]

I shall try and give this a listen, Common people is well overplayed, so will skip that.

[Earl Purple]

I was 30 or even 29 when I got into Pulp because of the His & Hers album. Really "cool" people got into Pulp in 1978 or whenever it was they formed, of course, or at least at the time of "Intro" when "Babies" made its first appearance.

"Do You Remember The First Time" entered the top 40 around the same time as "Supersonic" and so they appeared around the same time as Oasis but both 3 years behind Blur's first hit.

It had nothing to do with being cool, "Babies" flew to #1 in my chart and stayed on top for 7 weeks. I actually went to Virgin to buy "Hold On To Your Friends" but when I saw it only had a cover of Moon River as a B-side I didn't bother and then decided to buy the Sisters EP instead as it was the same price and gave me 4 songs. I guess it was on the cards that it would keep Morrissey off #1 in my chart and indeed Hold On To Your Friends was 4 weeks at #2 behind it.

Morrissey did beat Pulp to the album of the year but Pulp significantly were above Blur's "Parklife" in my albums of 1994, at #3 (with the Wedding Present's "Watusi" at #2) and Blur at #4 and Oasis further behind.

"Different Class" came out in 1995, ranked for me as the best year ever for albums. I will have to review it later.

[TheThorne]

I bought 'Babies' the first time as well anyway that may not be the reason for you but I worked at an student Indie club so appearing cooler edgier and more alternative was a big thing and most of them would never admitted to liking Oasis. Pulp were cooler fact, you may not be shallow enough to think like that but hipster students are and hipster journalists who make these polls are even worse.

[thehitparade]

In 1995 though the hipster journalists loved Oasis as well, it's only later that they cooled on them.

With hindsight, I think the Oasis/Pulp faultline might be more important than the Oasis/Blur one.

[LT]

A classic no doubt !

[o]

We'll leave this as Feb's album as well to get the reviews in, then move onto a new one in March, if everyone is agreeable?

[Earl Purple]

Ok, I will give a bit of a comment on this album. Primarily what really stands out in this album are the lyrics, rather than the music. The music is great, but you just really want to know what he's singing about in the songs.

The term "different class" suggests that it represents a difference between upper, middle and working class people living together in a society, and how they get on with each other.

Jarvis Cocker never quite suggests that he fits in to one or the other, but we somehow get a feeling that he is from a lower (working) class background, but has got himself a good education and that he cites that as a reason he does not properly "fit in" with certain other people in the town.

The opening song "mis-shapes" suggests just that. That the town centre is full of gangs or people that hate you for being different, and that he and his educated friends will use their brains to overcome them. I often feel he comes over as someone with Aspergers and that he is "standing out" for that reason.

In a later song "Sorted For E's And Wizz" he instead plays the part of someone who does take drugs to get high. Jarvis Cocker presumably never took them so he's just singing it from the point of view of someone who does, and the feeling when the "high" the drugs produce have gone, and the mess he finds himself in (alone, cold, and feels he's left his brain in a field in Hampshire).

Disco 2000 is a tale about a girl he knew and grew up with in school that obviously he was attracted to but it was not reciprocated, and he'd just like to meet up with her again.

"I Spy" has a lyric where he tells someone he's been sleeping with his wife for several months and wants him to come home to catch them. Sounds a bit of a fantasy of breaking into a life he can't be a part of.

The most famous song, of course, "Common People" is about him meeting a girl who wants to "fit in" with common society even though her upbringing is through a rich parent. Perhaps the opposite message of "I Spy".

[Shireblogger]

Pulp – Different Class

Context
“Different Class” is my favourite 90s album. It grabbed my attention the first time I heard it, and I haven’t tired of it since. But I haven’t listened to it critically for a long time, so this review will force me to re-evaluate my enthusiasm.
10/10

General Overview
BritPop means different things to different people. For some, it is the new laddish swagger and posturing of Oasis, and their imitators. For others it is the art school observations and cynicism of Blur, Pulp, Suede and their ilk. For me, it was just a period when rock music held the ascendancy, with a succession of great songs, and a handful of consistent top quality albums, emerging from Britain’s cities. And Pulp set a new benchmark with the “Different Class” album, with its down to earth, but witty, lyrics, and the complete absence of filler.
10/10

Intro & Outro
“Mis-Shapes” is a representative preview of “Different Class”. Russell Senior’s Fender provides an exciting sound on top of the pulsing rhythm, whilst Jarvis Cocker calls for action:- “We’re making a move, we’re making it now”. Track 12, “Bar Italia” is a languid comedown finale. It’s almost as if the band is exhausted, but still want to play one last track before the curtain comes down.
8/10

Music
“Common People” is the perfect pop song. Throbbing intro, synth lines to the fore until guitars start to claim leadership one minute in. And it builds, and builds, and builds. Layer upon layer. Urgent. Everyone playing their part. After three minutes we’re euphoric, and need a breather, before the ensemble goes for an even greater high. All six members of Pulp play a critical role on every song. Tune out Jarvis and you’ll hear the violins (“Something Changed”), or the complex drum patterns (“Underwear”).
9/10

Lyrics
Endlessly brilliant. Sometimes Jarvis observes life just as I see it. “Disco 2000” could be about a girl next door that I knew. And sometimes he’s on a totally different level of perception and honesty:- “Every night she plays a sad game. Called pretending nothing’s going wrong”. His wordplay is worldclass:- “And your minds are just the same as mine, except that you are clever swine.” And he brings pathos and humour along too:- “I seem to have left an important part of my brain somewhere in a field in Hampshire.”
10/10

Production & Sound
It works in a professional-but-still-slightly-indie way.
6/10

High Points
“Common People”, of course, but also “Sorted For E’s & Wizz”, which would have been an acclaimed BritPop classic had Pulp decided to make it a solo A-side, rather than putting it out with “Mis-Shapes”.
10/10

Low Points
“FEELING CALLED LOVE” is a little rudderless, and probably signals the career-wrecking “This Is Harcore” album that was to come next. It works in parts, but it is the weakest track on offer. Otherwise, the quality stays high throughout.
7/10

Packaging
Another hit. We get art school photographs with black-and-white cardboard cut-outs of the band voyeuristically watching the mundanities of life. We’re told exactly which instruments were used. We get the words, with Jarvis exhorting “Please do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recordings.” In short we get a package which says, “we’ve taken a lot of trouble with every aspect of this release, because we care that our fans get a decent package.”
9/10

On balance
Well, I’ve re-appraised, and I’m still a huge fan. It remains the best album of the 90s, bar none.
9/10

TOTAL SCORE
Nice one, geezer.
88/100.

For Haven:
9/10

[LT]

There's a great moloko remix of feeling called love , well worth checking out

[Earl Purple]

I hate the suond of "great remix". I remember Radio 1 playing an awful remix of Disco 2000 in the chart rundown. I was so angry at Pulp for even allowing it that I didn't make that song #1 when it was otherwise guaranteed to be..

[Shireblogger]

Feb 29, 2016 13:58:56 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

I hate the suond of "great remix". I remember Radio 1 playing an awful remix of Disco 2000 in the chart rundown. I was so angry at Pulp for even allowing it that I didn't make that song #1 when it was otherwise guaranteed to be..

They must have been devastated by that.

[raliverpool]

Feb 29, 2016 13:58:56 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

I hate the suond of "great remix". I remember Radio 1 playing an awful remix of Disco 2000 in the chart rundown. I was so angry at Pulp for even allowing it that I didn't make that song #1 when it was otherwise guaranteed to be..

They drafted in Alan Tarney to give the Chris Thomas original a remix to "make it sound more like an a-ha record".

They liked it so much ... they insisted their record company Island records included the album version on their Hits compilation!

Due to my PC dying I'm too busy going through Haven and recapturing my Personal Charts into a database to write a review for this album.

But it was my #1 album of 1995, and under my points system would score 9 out of 10.

[SheriffFatman]

My favourite 90s album too, simply a work of genius. It's so rare to have an album which feels so consistently brilliant, there's no low points anywhere. On this album Jarvis somehow seems to explain the way I think better than I could myself, a compliment I usually reserve for Morrissey.

I got in to Pulp around the His n Hers stage too, I have a numbered limited edition 7" copy of the Sisters EP which I bought at the time and is now one of proudest possessions. Do You Remember The First Time was amazing too, maybe the best indie disco record ever and as good as anything on A Different Class.

10/10

[thehitparade]

Actually, everything on the Pulp Hits compilation is album versions (except the songs that aren't on albums, obviously) which is why I didn't buy it until it hit the bargain bins.