anet wrote:

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In answer to point 4 - can you really be having a mid-life crisis at 33 though?

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I turn 33 next year. I'll let you know.

Mike wrote:

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anet wrote:

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In answer to point 4 - can you really be having a mid-life crisis at 33 though?

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I turn 33 next year. I'll let you know.

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Oh so old!  It gets worse, believe me.  Listen to Jarvis on Further Complications - he knows what he's talking about!

 

I don't begrudge it not sounding much like Pulp, I don't mind him trying something different (as someone else pointed out above, no Pulp album really sounds much the same as its predecessor), and I certainly don't think it's "too loud"; I just think it's piss-poor.

Well, not quite. I'll elaborate a bit. I don't hate "I Never Said I Was Deep", although I don't think it's played or sung particularly well. I find I actually quite like the title track, because it's the most successful attempt at the throwaway indie-rock sound Jarv seems to be going for on a good 75% of the album. I don't mind "Pilchard", much as everyone seems to hate it, because it's not got aspirations to be anything more than a fun, let-your-greying-hair-down-ever-so-slightly instrumental breather.

But these are individual songs taken on their merits, rather than in the context of the album. I've listened to it twenty or thirty times, and hand on heart, if you put a gun to my head I'd still struggle to sing any of "Fuckingsong" or "Slush" back to you. I think the shit archaeology puns in "Leftovers" wear thin very fast - my very least favourite moments of the Jarvis era, "From Auschwitz To Ipswich" and "One Man Show", writ large all over this fucking record, clunky "I am old and thus unattractive" schtick, not-enough-to-raise-a-half-smile jokey asides, rhyming-dictionary slop... just because you have quick wits and a reputation as a brilliant wordsmith, it doesn't mean you have to record everything you write; you can still throw stuff away if it's rubbish.

(I nearly stopped listening to Jarvis after that "they would stare in wonder at your frigidaire" bit on "From Auschwitz To Ipswich", because it was breaking my heart. I'm glad I didn't, obviously, because nearly all the best bits are after that, but fucking hell, I don't want to be listening to Jarvis Cocker records and actually physically cringing. I realise I've barely ever talked about that album, but I like it.)

So, anyway. As I mentioned, I didn't listen to any of this album before it came out, no live tracks, no leaks, not even the free mp3 of "Angela" the mailing list sent out, so that I could properly enjoy it. I wonder if my reaction would be different if I'd listened to it beforehand, had some idea of what to expect.

"Further Complications", the song, is quite good fun. "Angela" has Not Very Good written all over it; in a way it just strikes me as a less good version of "Further Complications", but it's worse than that, because it's so plodding, so completely without ambition, and even after all those listens I still can't work out whether he's trying to say anything at all about this woman, positive or negative, or just describing some stuff. Plus, it sounds like someone trying to make a Seventies FM rock record having never actually heard one and working from only the vaguest of descriptions, when all their points of reference are shitty Nüllerjahre indie bands. "Pilchard" I've discussed above; it's not big or clever, but it's not trying to be, so slagging it for not being a fantastic song is comparing apples and oranges. It's fine by me. "Leftovers", though, fucking hell, Jarvis, no. Is this really what we've come to? Is this really any better in any sense than "Can I Have My Balls Back Please?" It's at this point that someone else behind the mixing desk might have stepped in and gently suggested that maybe that one be left in the can, kept back for a b-side or something. But no. (Steve Albini's similar fingerprints are all over the new Manics album as well, another record which could really, REALLY use an editor - it suggests he's getting all this work because he's famous, cheap and highly indulgent). It's so naff, it even hurts the next song, "I Never Said I Was Deep", which I still judge one of the best of a bad bunch; the sequencing makes the two slowies run together. I still think it's badly-sung and badly-played, but, well, okay, it's quite nice.

And breathe.

"Homewrecker" is garbage, it starts off sounding like a rejected soundtrack submission for a Batman movie (or highly similar to Pulp's "Peter Gunn" as per the Peel sessions disc), before turning into a shitty and unnecessary retread of "Fat Children". Then "Hold Still", which is pretty enough, if kind of inconsequential; I approve of the T.Rex allusions, and it has a nice tune in the chorus, but I couldn't begin to tell you what it's meant to be about.

Still, there's time enough to turn this around. But no, instead we have a kind of anti-This Is Hardcore; there, the four closing songs (even "Sylvia", at the time) completed, rounded-off, essentially made that album. Here, we get four of the very worst songs in Jarvis' entire repertoire. "Fuckingsong": more pointless American Nineties rock shite. "Caucasian Blues" - hey, look, it's "Fat Children" again! Good to see you, even if you do seem to get progressively shittier each time you appear. Wow, that big rock chord at the end totally blew my mind! And now the aforementioned "Slush", which starts out as a dead, tuneless retread of the lovely "Quantum Theory" from the first album, before someone turns up the drums and invites in a shitty sort-of-chorus, and it goes on and on and on and OH MY FUCKING GOD, JARVIS BRANSON FUCKING COCKER, YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS.

But no! Here comes the closer, and it's somehow even worse, even more offensive, than everything that went before - what he's done here is, right, and you'll laugh at this, honest, it's brilliant, what he's done is make a record which sort of sounds like some Seventies disco records, because it's called "Discosong", and that's totally, like, off the wall, because the rest of the album is all MANLY ROCK and now here he's made a funny pastiche pop record, how awesome is that? Except that it isn't. Except that this man was responsible for some of the best indie-disco pop music ever made, and so there's no excuse for it sounding as though his only experience of the genre is some £2.99 compilation rescued in a Woolworths closing-down bargain bin. Except that it sounds like a cynical, half-hearted piss-take. Except that the sexy spoken-word bits cannot help but remind of the similar sexy spoken-word bits in "Street Lites" or "Seductive Barry" or especially "My Legendary Girlfriend" and you die a little bit inside. Except that it's fucking terrible.

I keep listening to this album hoping to find hidden depths, assuming there must be more to it than I'm hearing, that it can't possibly be this thin. But there aren't, there isn't, it is. Fuck.

If I was being cynical, I'd suggest Jarvis has recorded a series of half-finished jams with some of his mates, and is now charging people money to listen to them. If I was being pessimistic, I'd say the man has Lost It and may never make a great record again. If I was being charitable, I'd suggest that Jarvis has clearly had a lot of other shit on his mind over the last few years and this is simply a duff batch of songs - the sort everyone gets once in their career - which he had to get out of his system, and which will be forgotten when the third album comes along.

Tenth out of ten, bottom of the pile.

-- Edited by Steve Devereux on Monday 1st of June 2009 03:12:08 PM

I read that in the interviews, and I can see how the first verse relates to it, but what's all that got to do with the stuff about "the Master" and cosmic dust and whatnot? I'm probably just being thick, but I don't get it.

Would the real Mr Devereux please replace the imposter that has taken his place?
I think I'm going to stop reading your favourite albums review thing as you've clearly lost most of your music-judging faculties. (winky thing)

Steve Devereux wrote:

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I read that in the interviews, and I can see how the first verse relates to it, but what's all that got to do with the stuff about "the Master" and cosmic dust and whatnot? I'm probably just being thick, but I don't get it.

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I'm probably wrong but to me, as the song progresses, he actually has lost Albert (or he could equally be talking about Camille) and so he's reduced to wandering around alone. It could be another parallel universe trip a la Quantum Theory where he's imagining this is happening. The ''master'' being the higher being that has apparently decided his/his family's fate. Not sure how any of that explains the cats and kittens though.

It's probably the one song that people who love and hate the album can come to an agreement on its quality.

 

My only gripe with the album is that it lacks a bit of energy and drive - maybe Jarvis is getting old after all. I know the subject mattter of the songs is slightly bleak, but even when Pulp did 'break-up' songs, they never sounded worn-down (particularly thinking of OU here). Further Complications has more of wallowing-in-it sound.

I'm hoping that when Jarvis plays some the new stuff on tour, it'll bring a bit more oompf into it.  I often end up liking an album much better after hearing the material live.



-- Edited by anet on Monday 1st of June 2009 11:58:22 PM

After this album, a Pulp reunion is more needed than ever.

ArrGee wrote:

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Also who'd play guitar?  Russell, Mark or Richard?

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This has always been the big question mark in my mind. It sounds like Mark is fully into his film curating career and nobody from Pulp hears from him anymore. That Guardian interview confirms Russell's continued disinterest. Richard was never a member of Pulp per se, and I doubt he'd put his solo career on ice anyway.

My theory/suggestion is that they'd first make a new album as a quartet, with Jarvis playing guitar and maybe Richard providing the occasional guest solo. Then they'd break in a new guitarist on the tour.

But a reunion with Mark and Russell, performing Different Class for one of those All Tomorrow's Parties shows -- that'd be sweet.

Of course, this is all furtive daydreaming on my part.

I can't see Jarvis doing that - I'd much rather have new material to listen to, even if it doesn't match up to the standards of Pulp, than any money-making nostalgia tour. If that ever happens then for me, it's over. (I'd probably still go along to see it though! Just to disapprove, of course)

I fully endorse finally getting to hear some Pulp songs in any possible way.