Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Monday June 14

Ah Different Class, the album that started it all for me. Maybe it’s because I still regularly listen to this, but I don’t think it sounds badly dated, despite being 15 years old, probably because they are already so sixties-sounding with their instrumentation. I don’t recall getting heavily into this album until college, though it might have been late high school. In college I did have this poster in my room, which is one of my favorite posters ever in the history of the universe.

They used to play Underwear on Live 105 back in 1995 or so, before I was a big fan, and I remember thinking it was a totally bizarre song (which it is – “How the hell did you get here? Semi-naked in somebody else’s room”). I’m kind of surprised they even got played on the radio, since Pulp was never very big at all in this country (they never toured here). But I think that was during the Britpop era, when if you ran in the British music circles you could get played.

This album is Pulp at the height of their disco-singalongs. Common People, Disco 2000, Sorted for E’s and Wizz. I also love that they are so very British. Jarvis Cocker doesn’t try to hide his accent one bit. You know you are listening to a British person; it can’t be denied.

I think Jarvis was already preparing for This is Hardcore with Common People – almost every song is about sex. I have concluded that Jarvis is one of the few straight men in rock who can sing straightforwardly about sex and make it sound like a really good idea. Even ill-advised, possibly life-sabotaging sex.