Reading over this review, I had the strange feeling its author was cribbing notes from our messageboard. The last few sentences in particular strike a chord. I think I wrote them.

From Pitchfork: 

For four or five generations of British pop fans, the John Peel Show was less a nightly radio program and more an esoteric form of higher education: The Ravenscroft School for Wayward Boys and Girls, every bit as exotic as any Hogwarts, Rushmore, or Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Four nights a week, a couple of hours a night, the most isolated, provincial pop-daft pup could be initiated into the strange ways of Beefheart and the Fall, Leadbelly and Lee Perry, Huggy Bear and the Bhundu Boys. There were the famous alumni (Syd, Marc, Rod, sundry caterwauling punks), the eternally zen art teacher (Ivor Cutler), a cantankerous old caretaker (Mark E. Smith), and an endless fresh intake of shambling chancers and future superstars, all benignly presided over by the tireless Peel himself. And if there were a headboy, well, Jarvis Cocker may have been it.

Because, more than most, Cocker came to embody the spirit of the show. As he writes in his affectionate sleevenotes to this new compendium of sessions, the Peel Show changed his life, saved his life, and very nearly wrecked his life. Indeed, the most intriguing track on these two discs might be the brief silence between "Refuse to Be Blind"-- the last Martin Hannett-y spasm of adolescent anguish from their first session-- and "Pink Glove" from their second, the first sign of their triumphant transformation into authentic, poised pop artists. Those two seconds elide 12 lost years of misfires, mishaps, and misadventures, during which Cocker admits "there were times when I did secretly curse John Peel for encouraging me to turn my back on the straight and narrow." I imagine those anticlimactic years provided the inspiration for one of Cocker's finest songs: "1st Man in Space" (performed by Phil Oakey for the All Seeing I in 1999), which tells the story of Sheffield's first astronaut, returning to Earth expecting life-changing acclaim, but finding only lonely indifference: "Why does no one want to know what I saw?"

The inclusion of that first session, recorded in 1981 when Cocker was still at school, makes this a more dramatically satisfying take on the long and winding Pulp story than 2002's perfunctory, underperforming Hits collection. The four songs reveal a school band enthusiastically casting around for any style that might work-- from jangle-pop on "Turkey Mambo Mamma" to Joy Division on "Refuse to Be Blind". But even here you can hear, in the unmistakable grain of Cocker's voice, the germ of the performer he was to become. In the Cure-like lullaby "Wishful Thinking" he chastely sings "she turned me on," and you hear the first steps toward the epic balladeer of erotic desperation. And on the toytown "Please Don't Worry", he's already a deadpan comedian of Northern hedonism and hypocrisy.

Jump-cut a decade to February 1993 and Pulp have finally, majestically hit their stride. Maybe Cocker had to chance upon the magically correct combination of musicians, maybe he needed to get out of Sheffield, perhaps he had to get his heart and legs broken, or maybe he simply had to wait for Morrissey to get out his way. But the release of "Babies" finally won an audience for his group's perversely stylish, stylophonic dramas of council-estate lust and high-rise horror, and with "Pink Glove", "You're a Nightmare", and "Acrylic Afternoons" Pulp were on a roll, waking refreshed from the bad dream of history, relishing in seedy seductions, and casting a fine eye over the kitsch and stink of the long 1970s of British soul.

Still, you could hardly imagine, even newly signed to Island, that they might be genuine contenders. Even as Blur and Suede kicked off the first rumblings of Britpop, Pulp seemed too exquisitely perverse, too much the eternal outsiders to really chime with the times. Yet for their next session, recorded September 1994, the group are previewing songs that would end up on the chart-busting Different Class, Cocker's field notes from the ripped backsides of the capitol: "Underwear", "Pencil Skirt", and, still finding its feet, unsure of whether it's a throwaway novelty or scathing era-defining anthem, "Common People".

Appropriately enough, there's another interlude right here, a seven-year gap while Pulp left the shadowlands of Peel, went pop, went tabloid, and went round the bend. When they finally return in August 2001, it's as a kind of rehab, with selections from We Love Life (including the terrific, ambitious "Weeds"), and a previously unreleased song, "Duck Diving". It's one of Cocker's meandering, spoken-word reveries, telling of a childhood swimming expedition. You could also read it as another one of his curious allegories of the vagaries of pop: He dives to the dangerous depths of the pond in pursuit of some prize, and for a second thinks he might not make it back up. But he resurfaces bedraggled, discovering that the sunken booty he's unearthed is simply an empty, bashed-up old biscuit tin-- which he nevertheless keeps fondly on the mantle.

This is the real ending of the record. There's an additional disc of live material, including a show from October 2001 in celebration of Peel's 40 years in broadcasting, where the band embarks on a wonky cover of his beloved "Peter Gunn" and plays an affectionately snarky dedication of "Help the Aged". But it's the funny, tender, humdrum storytelling of "Duck Diving" that stays with you-- the laconic, lugubrious style with which Cocker unwinds his yarn. You realize that, in a way, he inherited it from Peel's rambling radio digressions. I remember thinking after Peel died, when people still thought the BBC might get a proper replacement, that Jarvis would be the ideal candidate: the nation's funny, avuncular ambassador for obnoxious noise. He was at a loose end post-Pulp, after all, and you could even imagine him relishing taking on Home Truths. Maybe if the solo career doesn't pan out, it might still happen.

-Stephen Troussé, January 26, 2007