Me neither, heard some on spotify but it didn't make a big impression.

The reunion was quite DC heavy, but they made up for it by playing some obscurities. I never thought I'd ever hear My Lighthouse live!

Sturdy wrote:

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I kind of think most of what's in the original post is probably right. I also don't care, because I thought the reunion was massively enjoyable on its own terms.

In a way Pulp can't win can they? In 1996 when they were in their imperial massive pop phase, some of us were going "meh, it's all a bit safe and mainstream innit, you'd think they might chuck in one or two mid-80s B-sides". Then circa Hardcore/WLL, we were going "meh, if only they were a bit more pop like they used to be, and why can't they just play Common People properly?". And now they've stopped resisting and re-embraced the big hits and the funny little dance, we're going "meh, if only they were a bit awkward and unpredictable again like before when they were desperately trying not to be pop stars".

You're right, the reunion wasn't the same. I'm not sure how it could be really; 2011/2012 is a long way down the track from 1996/1998/2001. I'm more minded to see the reunion as a lap of honour - a celebration of Pulp, not really a continuation.

Can't really see what the point would have been in new material - if you went to see Ray Davis, would you want Sunny Afternoon, Waterloo Sunset and Lola, or new stuff? What if Brian Wilson headlined a festival and didn't do anything off Pet Sounds? If the collective impetus to come up with new songs wasn't there (which apparently it wasn't, according to Russell), to force something new out would have been a contrivance - and for what? New stuff was not the reason any of us (band or audience) at those gigs.

Apparently the recent Suede album is pretty good, but who cares at this stage in the game? Great, they've done something that's nearly as good as Coming Up. I'll just go to the gigs and stick with Coming Up thanks!

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 Dead right. I do remember being deflated by This is Hardcore as an album when it came out. It seemed so MOR, AOR, a series of pastiches from Bowie to Portishead and it generally still seems that way to me. I near completely discounted We Love Life as a fan from '94 onwards. I've always disliked it- Jarvis' singing is cracked and tired but it still has spirit though it's unbalanced and lacks the vital electronic spark that had always made Pulp so compelling in the past. However, the 'renuion' got it as close to 'right' for me as they could. The neon was back, Russell was back, they played BIG venues with people going crazy, they played OU, Razzmatazz, Lipgloss- amazing. I really dislike the recent film, from the content to the horrible hipster flippancy of the tag line (death...supermarkets- how clever, well done- fuck the flying fuck off) but I was very happy at Brixton in 2011 and it was great to be amongst so many enthusiastic and equally discerning fans who I enjoyed the odd beer with afterwards. I'd love to see another and hopefully will. Cheers!

I consider A Heavy Night and Further Complications the second and third best Pulp-related record after This Is Harcore. The others are great as well, but those three record are legendary for me.

Never cared much for the reunion, as I consider Pulp to be a band in the past (just like Oasis, Blur etc.) and since they did not bother to visit The Netherlands.

superchob wrote:

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I enjoyed the reunion too, for what it was. I was lucky to be at Magna and that remains in my mind Pulp's last ever gig. Pulp ended then. This may have been a testimonial match but at least they took it seriously, avoiding too much self-parody and giving us a fair few kicks along the way. In it for the money, perhaps, but without cynicism. I think it was clear that they still value their fans. Best think of it in terms of the band thanking them? At least there were a decent number of gigs, and tickets didn't cost upwards of £80. 

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When Magna happened I didn't really believe it was the end, but as years went by it looked like it was and it was probably quite a fitting end.  It would be a shame if Pulp's last gig was on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic in front of what I suspect was a less than committed audience.

I think the reunion was a lot better than a testimonial, it was a step up from the We Love Life dates and there was a true excitement about it that hadn't been there since 1995.  I can't really comment on the tour accompanying Hardcore as I was off on honeymoon at the time.

Getting four gigs in London this time was pretty good. I missed the second night at Brixton so only got three, and there were a fair number of songs I'd never heard live before.  The tickets were towards the top end of what I have ever paid so weren't that cheap, but certainly not over three figures which I see some bands charging.

I also think it was good to do the reunion before the band got too old.  At least they still look like Pulp.

If only all reunions could be half as good.

Sturdy wrote:

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Can't really see what the point would have been in new material - if you went to see Ray Davies, would you want Sunny Afternoon, Waterloo Sunset and Lola, or new stuff?

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I went to see his Americana show last year hoping he would play some songs from the late seventies when The Kinks  were far more successful in the States and were writing about things in the US. Instead I got a load of home movies from travelling around the US and the usual London sixties songs along with some half baked new material.  By the time he played Lola, Waterloo Sunset and You Really Got Me, I had given up.  All seemed a bit pointless. Seems a shame when someone has such an extensive back catalogue that they just play the same thing again and again.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/ray-davies/2014/union-chapel-london-england-1bc28d04.html

Oh god, this thread.

Seriously, it's time to move on from this oppressive, conservative indie band narrative. Bands are never, ever perfect little stories just made for biographies and easily placed into the canon of white western rock music. No band *has* to end at a certain time, and no band will ruin its legacy by reforming- the only one who is constructing this idea of the perfect legacy is you (you being everyone, including me- not specifically the person who made this thread). It's like saying you have to die at a certain point because it's all downhill from here. "Oh it's such a shame you didn't die from X disease aged 42, because then the narrative shape of your life would have been much more satisfying than it eventually turned out to be, what with those final 30 years where you sat around on your arse watching Countdown and eating biscuits." Fuck that.

The fact that Big Star reformed in the 90s and released a really shit fourth album doesn't mean I like them less- they're still one of my favourite bands. So the fact that Pulp reformed for a couple of years of gigs didn't make me like them less at all- how could it? Even if the gigs had been soulless and shit, it wouldn't have affected how much I like Pulp. It would've just meant that I was disappointed with a few gigs. As it turned out, the tour was brilliant. So what's to complain about? It wasn't cynical, certainly no more cynical than the act of being a professional indie band to begin with! There was no 'right' time to end Pulp, because a band is not a constructed narrative- it writes itself. I honestly can't think of anything more shallow than being disappointed in a band reforming because it makes their story less 'neat' or because you perceive, entirely arbitrarily, they're not really Pulp anymore.

Pulp could reform again in 10 years and it could still be brilliant, as long as what they actually do during the reunion is good. Bands have multiple roles; they don't just exist to release albums, so having no interest in releasing more material makes absolutely no difference to the legitimacy or authenticity of the reunion. I wish they had released some new music, because Pulp are an interesting group of people who obviously function really well together and I'd love to see what they'd come up with (providing they weren't weighed down by their own 'legacy' and place in the canon). And if they'd written new music and it was crap, so what? All the other albums still exist.

The age of traditional major label indie bands is pretty much over, so we're going to see bands which are much more flexible and which completely reject this archaic Beatles/Smiths band narrative of full time touring and album production until they suddenly burn out leaving the perfect discography for sad sack music journalists to wank over. Bands aren't really full time jobs any more, so having a 10 year gap between albums or gigs or whatever isn't really going to seem that strange in years to come (and isn't really that strange in less commercial musical environments- look at a lot of US indie). There is also the fact that most band splits are down to egotism, the intensity of the work or both. As both the old full-time-band career dies out, and with it the vacuum required for the 'rock star' ego trip to develop, bands won't feel the pressure to melodramatically announce their break up- they'll just put the band on the back burner until they want to resume it again. Like, I can't think of many solo artists who have said that they will never, ever write or perform ever again in their lives, which is basically what bands are saying when they announce a break up.

Obviously Pulp never broke up like this at all, which is kinda the point; despite the fact they just kinda stopped with very little fanfare, the pre-existing rock band narratives we're obsessed with superimposing over every band EVER meant that, in the eyes of the public and the press, Pulp still 'split up' and then 'reformed' in 2011, even though it probably felt much more fluid than that to the members of the band.

Basically, these 'rules' about what is 'right' for bands to do are utterly meaningless. The only thing that matters is whether or not the members of the band are being true to themselves, and true to their perception of the band. I'd hazard a guess that simply wanting your kids to see you perform probably legitimised the reunion for the members of Pulp, never mind the countless other great reasons for doing it. And issues like Pulp's last gig being on that cruise- that is only sad or disappointing if Pulp themselves felt it was sad or disappointing. Maybe Pulp do really care about the small details of the band narrative, or maybe they just think that no aspect of life is perfectly rounded and feel that aiming for some very formal farewell is kinda trite. Or maybe they don't care either way- they thought that the Sheffield gig would be a nice way to draw a line under the reunion, but got offered the cruise and really wanted to play it, so they did. But that's Pulp's business, not ours.

Rant over!

ArrGee wrote:

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Sleeve wrote:

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I do remember being deflated by This is Hardcore as an album when it came out. It seemed so MOR, AOR, a series of pastiches from Bowie to Portishead and it generally still seems that way to me.

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 MOR is not how I'd describe it! Can't imagine it on smooth FM.  I would agree that it is adult orientated as Jarvis was in his thirties and there are songs like Glory Days (Springsteenesque even down to the title) and Party Hard (Bowiesque) that are pastiches but I found it a refreshing departure from the pop of Different Class.  I think it is Pulp's masterpiece.   

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Exactly- This Is Hardcore plays on MOR/AOR tropes to basically draw a conceptual triangle between fame, sex and middle age. The concept doesn't quite stretch across the entire album unfortunately, but when it works it's genuinely incredible and underlines the fact that Pulp are probably the best conceptual rock band of all time. Although I definitely don't think it's their masterpiece- Pulp don't have a masterpiece, which is essentially the reason that people like us are sat on internet forums talking about them, in my opinion. Pulp's flaws make the band what they are, and their inability to translate the magic of Pulp into a single, definitive recorded work is what makes them so exciting. Though I wish wish wish they'd put It's A Dirty World and Like A Friend on TIH :(

ArrGee wrote:

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calumlynn wrote:

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 And issues like Pulp's last gig being on that cruise- that is only sad or disappointing if Pulp themselves felt it was sad or disappointing. 

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I agree with most of what you wrote except that when I wrote it would be a shame they didn't have a final gig in front of a committed audience that was from my perspective.  I wouldn't consider it sad nor disappointing as far as Pulp were concerned.  I was delighted to see them three times on the reunion which is three times more than I ever expected four years ago.

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 Oh yeah I understand that, I wasn't having a go. I just meant that we should try to suppress our desire for arbitrary endings. Pulp did plenty non-festival gigs for dedicated fans during the reunion, there's no logical reason why their final concert should be in front of such a crowd. If they'd only done festivals in 2012 or something then I might feel different, but fans were well served.

I agree with what Eamonn said about your posts, Calum. I haven't had such an interesting read on this forum for ages. It's like old times Sigh!

Just one quick point from me about the reunion: for those, like me, who never saw Pulp live in their heyday, having a chance to see them live AT ALL was stupendous. I couldn't have cared less where, what or how they did it - as far as I was concerned, it was one big bonus in my life that I never expected.

One overriding memory I have of the 2012 Sheffield gig was hearing a bit of the sound check as we walked past the stadium to go and eat before the concert. Jarvis was singing Countdown, I think, and his voice sounded so young and full-bodied to my ears (and I am his age), that I thought for a minute they were playing the record, not playing live. It gave me chills it was so exciting.

Panther wrote:

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I haven't had such an interesting read on this forum for ages. It's like old times Sigh!

... for those, like me, who never saw Pulp live in their heyday, having a chance to see them live AT ALL was stupendous. I couldn't have cared less where, what or how they did it - as far as I was concerned, it was one big bonus in my life that I never expected.

... and I am his age

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 I agree, first thread I have written on for a long time.

As you like me are 30, being the new 50, how did you not get to see them?     

Panther wrote:

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you can't be everywhere and do everything...

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I had a good go at it in the 1990s!  Lived in Paris, London and Amsterdam and spent large chunks of time staying with people in New York and San Francisco.  If anything I have far less time to do anything nowadays with kids to consider.   Have to schedule nights out weeks in advance.

When I mooted seeing Pulp at Hyde Park my wife wasn't that happy that I would go off on a Sunday to see a concert rather than head off to yet another soft play party with my daughter.   Having more or less stopped going to gigs when I hit 40 (the new 60?), I suppose it was a mite surprising that I would suddenly have the interest again, especially to go and stand in a field, but then again your favorite band doesn't reform every year.

Of course, she ended up coming to The Albert Hall the following year and left exclaiming it was the best concert she'd ever been to and wondering why we hadn't seen Pulp in the 1990s.  She had totally forgotten those numerous Pulp gigs we went to at Brixton and Kentish Town...

 

 

Hello, popping up here as this is a fascinating thread and the sort of thing we should be discussing a great deal more.

The issue at the heart of this is what sort of artists we imagine Pulp (and in particular Jarvis) to be. The fact that we think of Pulp as a '90s band' at all is a demonstration of the fact that they were always ready to rip everything up and start again when things start getting stale. The way Jarvis did this was to switch collaborators - he's always taken the role of a catalyst in the group, allowing the sound to change completely from year to year. The last we saw of this instinct was the Relaxed Muscle album. Solo, he lacks that spark.

I can sense a certain annoyance with Oh Wayne for blaming Pulp for joining the nostalgia circuit. Isn't that just what bands do? And doesn't everyone want to get a chance to see Pulp playing their hits? Well, yes, but this impulse is ultimately an anti-creative one. It fixes Pulp at one moment - the mid-90s - it rewards them for playing the same old songs over and over again. Christ knows how bored they must be with 'Common People' by now. It also adds an unfair weight of expectation to any new material - it has to (a) be as good as the old stuff and (b) not sound too similar or too different. Why would semi-retired people in their 50s want to take that sort of a risk?

I didn't buy the new Suede album, don't know if I could even bear to listen to it. Truth be told, I'm bored with almost all guitar music these days, it has to do something *really* special to arouse any interest. Doesn't everyone feel like that? There's so much more out there now, and the conscious decision to rely on 50-year-old sounds and tropes just turns you into a genre band. The time has passed, we can enjoy it how it was, but new music has to do something new, or else why even bother making it?

This is a challenge failed by the vast majority of musicians, from Ray Davies to Johnny Rotten to Morrissey to Noel Gallagher, and that's sort of ok, if I want to hear Sunny Afternoon or How Soon Is Now, I've got the CD. A small minority of artists manage to keep reinventing themselves, challenging themselves to keep creating - Robert Wyatt for example, or (particularly of interest here) Scott Walker. Our problem is that we imagined Jarvis to be a member of this smaller second group. The case for this impression is everything he did from 1980 to 1995 (possibly we could extend this to even 2004) - constant revolution, a thirst for new ideas, new collaborators, etc. The case against this is moreorless everything he's done in the last decade. Both solo albums had their moments, but both were a step back, extra material for the fans rather than any sort of attempt to make something new.

This isn't necessarily the end though - I think we just need a new collaborator. It's worked a number of times before, and there's no reason it shouldn't again. Unfortunately it should be clear at this point that this collaborator isn't called Candida, Mark, Nick, Russell or even Steve. But who knows? In the meantime we still have our old CDs.