The third single from This is Hardcore.

Pulp: This is Hardcore

By the time of this song’s release, the third single from the This Is Hardcore LP, Pulp’s star was beginning to wane. It has all their signature marks, though.

Pulp: A Little Soul

I was shocked to read of the death of Pulp’s bass player Steve Mackey last week. It somehow seems very wrong for a 1990s rock musician to have died.

All the more so for me as Pulp was my elder son’s* favourite band at that time.

(*He was into good music at a very early age.)

Mackey was an important contributor not only to Pulp’s sound but also to their look and their videos.

This song is from 1992 but wasn’t a hit until it was included on The Sisters EP two years later, though it has achieved a BPI silver disc award, presumably from downloads/streaming.

Pulp: Babies

Stephen Patrick (Steve) Mackey: 10/11/1966 – 2/3/2023. So it goes.

The second single from the 1998 album of the same title. Not an obvious choice for a single but Pulp were still riding the Common People wave at the time though trying to get away from it.

This is a live performance from that year.

Pulp: This is Hardcore

The first single taken from This is Hardcore, Pulp’s follow-up album to their big breakthrough LP Different Class.

Pulp: Help the Aged

A two-for-one offer today as these songs were released as a double A-side to become Pulp’s second number two hit in a row (after Common People.)

This first song caused a rumpus, with press comment claiming it was pro-drugs, which lead singer Jarvis Cocker said was a misinterpretation. I must say I agree with him. Even on first hearing the song the claim seemed to me to be ludicrous.

Pulp: Sorted for E’s and Wizz

Mis-Shapes wasn’t so controversial. There’s a James Bond film chord sequence in the refrain though.

Pulp: Mis-Shapes

Another of Pulp’s mid-decade classics from the Different Class album.

Let’s all meet up in the year 2000? It’s 2019 now. How did that happen?

This must be the single version though as the track on the album had a descending guitar line in the chorus that isn’t audible here.

Pulp: Disco 2000

If ever a song struck a chord with people this was it. If Pulp had never recorded anything else of significance this would still have been a magnificent contribution to popular culture.

I had been familiar with Pulp before the release of the album from which this was taken, Different Class, as my eldest son (despite being then still of a relatively tender age) had discovered them a few years earlier. I had not paid very much attention – well, children don’t want their parents muscling in on their music tastes do they? Common People really woke me up to the band. Odd to think it’s over twenty years since this burst onto the world.

This is the longer album version.

Pulp: Common People

This is the song with which I would have started off this category in the best of circumstances.

It’s the lyric on this that I really like. It has that sense of contingency, of paths that might not have been taken, and in that context reminds me of Abba’s The Day Before You Came which you may remember I waxed lyrical (ahem) about some moons ago now.

It was the last single taken from Pulp’s big breakthrough album Different Class but not the least.

Pulp: Something Changed