I've been thinking of doing a poll for my website to find out what peoples' least favourite Pulp songs are (when I finally get round to it!). I remember the old official website did it but I was wondering what Pulp songs people like the least and why.
For me, it's got to be "Everybody's Problem". After a promising debut with the "It" album and "My Lighthouse" single, it sounds like they went back a few years, it sounds very schoolboy-ish and as for it supposedly sounding like Wham, I can't think of a single Wham song that sounds anything like it.
Another one I don't like is "Repressive Forkout". Even though I'm assuming that the live version from the Leadmill is an unfinished song, I could never imagine a proper recorded version sounding much better; it's just a load of shouting really.
I've been thinking of doing a poll for my website to find out what peoples' least favourite Pulp songs are (when I finally get round to it!). I remember the old official website did it but I was wondering what Pulp songs people like the least and why.
I remember Someone Like The Moon been particularly unpopular. However, in recent years I have grown to quite like it.
For me, Disco 2000 is my least favorite. I can't decide whether it is the fact it nicks it's guitar riff from Gloria, or the puerile lyrics, but I fully groan (sic) when I hear it. I harbour similar feelings for Mis-shapes, but I think that has a certain charm that Disco 2000 lacks.
I'm sure far worse songs lurk on It and Freaks, along with some ropey B-sides and demos, but I don't have to listen to them as much as Disco 2000 which has a habit of popping up on XFM from time to time.
-- Edited by ArrGee on Tuesday 5th of April 2011 09:34:51 AM
I've been thinking of doing a poll for my website to find out what peoples' least favourite Pulp songs are (when I finally get round to it!). I remember the old official website did it but I was wondering what Pulp songs people like the least and why.
I remember Someone Like The Moon been particularly unpopular. However, in recent years I have grown to quite like it.
I remember now. I don't know why though, for me it's one of the better songs on "His 'n' Hers" and is better than some of the slow songs from the later albums ("TV Movie", "Roadkill"...).
Everybody's Problem is too inoffensive to have any strong feelings about either way. Agreed with Mike on The Never Ending Story. But Silence wins hands down for me although the lyrics are hilarious. A few of the mid-80s b-sides are very hard work to listen to (Aborigine, Simultaneous, Goodnight) and I rarely bother. Tuneless, dank, poorly recorded, macabre or depressing lyrics...suffering for your art I suppose...
Post-1990 the ones I like least usually have production/arrangement I have issues with rather than the song itself being crap. Pulp are my favourite group for a reason though, their shit-rate is fairly low. The most average songs of the Island years for me were Someone Like The Moon, I'm A Man and Minnie Timperley.
There's a huge amount of songs I can take or leave from the early albums; I don't like Dogs Are Everywhere or Fairground much, or Never Ending Story... But from the "new" albums
Party Hard. I find it terribly terribly... plain. I can't find anything to like in it at all. It always bewilders me when people talk about it being the most obvious choice of single from TIH (Then again, I'd be hard pushed to think of alternatives, but I still don't like it)
TV Movie. I get it, it's all tender and fragile and vulnerable, but Roadkill is these, and still manages to make a good song, I reckon.
Pencil Skirt & Underwear... Again, I find these just... boring.
Worst of them, I think - Joyriders - Jesus Christ, I dislike that song. And just when you think it's going to end, it doesn't end. Again, and again, and again.
I guess these should all be viewed through a sensible lense - I wouldn't complain if they were on the radio, say. But amongst the other interesting, exciting or heartfelt things on the albums, these few stand out as comparative dross - at least to me anyway.
...
To add to the above, hearing Someone Like The Moon as I fell asleep made me realise how brilliant it is! The same worked wonders for Seductive Barry, too. It's just so damned atmospheric and cosy to hear these as you fall asleep!
-- Edited by Ste on Friday 1st of April 2011 12:41:23 AM
-- Edited by Ste on Friday 1st of April 2011 12:41:59 AM
Pulp are my favourite group for a reason though, their shit-rate is fairly low.
I pretty much agree with this regarding anything recorded 1990 onwards. Post 1990, Disco 2000 is the worst but in the big scheme of things still a decent enough song. Even songs I don't really love have plenty of interest in them.
I have to confess to not liking much pre-Separations. Some of it is OK, but having heard It, Freaks and the MOTU compilation once or twice, they aren't records I go back to very often. Probably a number of far worse songs lurking in the pre-1990 vaults. IMHO the deluxe edition bonus discs are more coherent albums.
Controversially, all of We Love Life apart from Weeds/ Origin, Love Love is fearful, and I never play This Is Hardcore- it just depresses me- those outtakes from His 'N' Hers were so disappointing too. Apart from this, I like everything. Hurray!
those outtakes from His 'N' Hers were so disappointing too.
each to their own obviously :) i respectfully disagree though, I thought that disc had the best of the lot, This Is Hardcore had a whole bunch i thought were better than the actual ALBUM haha.
Different Class had the worst outtakes by a mile in my opinion :( great B-sides off that album but the outtakes were the worst of the lot. its not like they were disappointing or just BAD....i just didn't find most of them interesting at all which was a shame
Different Class had the worst outtakes by a mile in my opinion :( great B-sides off that album but the outtakes were the worst of the lot. its not like they were disappointing or just BAD....i just didn't find most of them interesting at all which was a shame
I agree with you there.
I listen to the "This is Hardcore" deluxe disc more than the others, whilst I don't think it's anywhere near as good as the album, I think it's definitely the best of the three.
With demos and songs like Grandfather's Nursery, I think you have to think of them as a bonus if you do like them as they were probably never meant to be released.
I have always been amazed at how much good stuff never got released, though it is understandable that Pulp will probably have to demo about 30 songs to come up with a dozen good ones.
Being very honest there aren't any offcuts that should have been on any of the albums. Cocaine Socialist should have been a single but that aside I can't really think of any that would have improved any album.
That's it. The Different Class ones were terrible- Paula? And I thought Catcliffe Shakedown had a strange sense of hostility to a working class area and its residents which was very much at odds with the image Jarvis generally projected. It's lyrics are just pure snobbery.
In fairness Jarvis accepts that in the liner notes, apart from the music being silly the lyrics are very ''snidey''. I think Russell mentioned in the Common People docu that when they used to rehearse in the pottery warehouse in Catcliffe kids would be throwing stones off the corrugated walls outside shouting ''You're shit'' etc. so it was probably a harmless bit of revenge.
I love it though, the song bounces all over the place. A perfect example of the left-over snippets of a Pulp recording session grafted together to make something interesting.
Paula is throwaway in nature, but again fun to listen to. Don't Lose It and We Can Dance Again are far more accomplished, I don't know how you could call them terrible.
Of all the demos on the reissues, It's A Dirty World sticks out like a sore thumb. It would have been one of the best three songs on This Is Hardcore.
.Just my two pence. I think with hindsight (which is unfair on my part really) they just sound like pastiches of Pulp songs, y'know? I still haven't heard the Hardcore tracks but they sound promising.
Ive never liked Help the aged. Cant put my finger on why either, its my most likely 'skip' song.
IMHO the problem with Help The Aged was the subject matter and that it seemed to be somewhere between Different Class and Hardcore in a no man's land.
Given it was released about six months ahead of Hardcore to a less than enthusiatic response I was surprised it appeared on the album. It sounds like it was recorded long before the other tracks (though so was Common People/Underwear), and does jar a bit on the album.
A bit like Mis-shapes for me, maybe not the greatest Pulp moment, but it has many redeeming features. Still can't believe it was a single.
The Island executives must have hated Hardcore as an album, as there were no proper singles on it. It's odd that from Babies to Something's Changed, Pulp released very commercial singles, even if they weren't all successful at the time, and then didn't have one after that. You are more likely to hear Lip Gloss and DYRTFT? on the radio than Help The Aged, and they didn't even dent the top thirty in the UK.
-- Edited by ArrGee on Tuesday 5th of April 2011 09:28:05 AM
Ive never liked Help the aged. Cant put my finger on why either, its my most likely 'skip' song.
IMHO the problem with Help The Aged was the subject matter and that it seemed to be somewhere between Different Class and Hardcore in a no man's land.
Given it was released about six months ahead of Hardcore to a less than enthusiatic response I was surprised it appeared on the album. It sounds like it was recorded long before the other tracks (though so was Common People/Underwear), and does jar a bit on the album.
A bit like Mis-shapes for me, maybe not the greatest Pulp moment, but it has many redeeming features. Still can't believe it was a single.
The Island executives must have hated Hardcore as an album, as there were no proper singles on it. It's odd that from Babies to Something's Changed, Pulp released very commercial singles, even if they weren't all successful at the time, and then didn't have one after that. You are more likely to hear Lip Gloss and DYRTFT? on the radio than Help The Aged, and they didn't even dent the top thirty in the UK.
-- Edited by ArrGee on Tuesday 5th of April 2011 09:28:05 AM
Yes ill agree with that!! the first time i heard the song was at V96 and he's played it live at every single gig/festival ive attened sinse then, whats the chances lol?
This is Hardcore (the single) was more like that for me. It was the true lead single and it was very unexpected. It has a real bollox to this lark feel about it.
Many bands who get sick of the commercial nature of the single at least make some rudimentary effort to have a single that can be played on the radio to promote the album, whereas Pulp made a single that was near unplayable (overlong, no obvious hook, dodgy subject).
That said, it is a great track on the album. This is Hardcore as an album is greater than the sum of its parts. The only tracks that seem to work as individual tracks are Dishes and Glory Days.
That said, it is a great track on the album. This is Hardcore as an album is greater than the sum of its parts. The only tracks that seem to work as individual tracks are Dishes and Glory Days.
I agree about "Glory Days", I think that it should have been a single but I think that the slower songs ("Dishes" inparticular) sound better within the context of the album.
That said, it is a great track on the album. This is Hardcore as an album is greater than the sum of its parts. The only tracks that seem to work as individual tracks are Dishes and Glory Days.
I agree about "Glory Days", I think that it should have been a single but I think that the slower songs ("Dishes" inparticular) sound better within the context of the album.
I don't think Dishes is a single, but it is a song I can listen to in a playlist without the rest of the album. All the hardcore tracks just need to be together, even the B-sides.
I was at Finsbury Park and in spite of liking I'm a Man don't remember it as sounding particularly bad. I'm guessing tho' that Jarv got a bit strained vocally? My memories of that night are vague tho. I remember they played Laughing Boy at the end and I'm on the video! Full screenshot before TIH, I think. I was sitting on the ground with my head down- I was knackered after getting an overnight coach. I jumped when I got the video home! Help The Aged just had the wrong sentiment for a single. When it came out we all thought 'well, it's ok'. Just very standard, solid and unchallenging, like much of the album. TIH, Seductive Barry, The Professional (should've been an album track)- that's were I think Pulp should have gone. I liked Slylvia- it just keeps coming back though.
Just very standard, solid and unchallenging, like much of the album.
I would never describe This Is Hardcore in those terms. Given it followed up a bonafide smash hit album, it was as big a departure as you could expect. It was the death knell of Pulp for many of those who bought Different Class and liked some of the earlier singles. Only the true believers were there for We Love Life
However you make a good point with Pulp moving more in the direction of The Professional and Seductive Barry. I sometimes think that Pulp should have gone for it even more on Hardcore and made it even darker.
The individual songs isolated from the album are not strong, but together they do seem coherent to me.
shotoki wrote:Did you actually hear "I'm A Man" at Finsbury Park?
No I didn't, was it bad?
I certainly agree with Jarvis when he says he cut it from the video because it wasn't up to scratch. I can't really remember much but I remember thinking that at the time. Same goes for the other performances I have of that song on bootlegs.
In my opinion, This Is Hardcore dont have one bad song.
Sure, Help The Aged sounds a bit weird on it, but isnt it always the case when a song is released 5 months before the record ? I agree that's it's a bad choice for a comeback single, but then in 97, i can say i was crazy about it and played it to death. In the context of the record, it's a good filler, which shows the level of that record: timesless classic.
I tend to dislike David's last summer, i dont know why, it's just a boring song.
It's weird, I haven't listened to David's Last Summer since 1997. I can't bear it, it's so poignant and dramatic. The ending where Jarvis is singing 'I don't want to live in the cold' with the music reaching a crescendo really haunts me.
There is nothing like it. I've never heard a song with such a rich narrative entwined with an epic soundtrack. It's immense but I can't imagine listening to it again just because of how sad it makes me feel!
Agreed. I think Glory Days has some of Jarvis' best lyrics...the dawning realisation that dole-life is as good as it gets as youthful aspirations drift further out of reach. For a song ''about nothing'' it says quite a lot. Cocaine Socialism was prescient in '97 but sounds old now and the bombastic arrangement is a bit of a turn-off for me too.
It's weird, but I haven't listened to This Is Hardcore since 1998. It would make me a bit depressed if I heard it again. I still like The Professional, the title track and the End of the Line Mix but that's it. I still rate Glory Days and the Day After... but the album feels like it belongs in the past whereas His 'N' Hers is always welcome. Yes sir.
I can't stand "Something Changed" -- too mainstreamish. Very dull song.
Also, "Pink Glove" and "Party Hard"; just horrible melodies. I've never cared for "Lipgloss" either. Quite frankly, Jarvis' 2nd album is even worse, especially the unforgivably simple "Angela".
God, I'm so glad Pulp is back together and hope desperately for another album!
__________________
"I just want to sit here and die."
Gaius Baltar, "Exodus II", Battlestar Galactica, October, 2006.
Glory Days is just dreadful- the lyrics are so clumsy and vague, but maybe I'm just comparing it to the absolutely razor sharp Cocaine Socialism, which is utterly incredible.
I hate it when this topic comes up because some of my favourites always get chosen. Aborigine, Minnie Timperley, David's Last Summer, Party Hard, Weeds.... The obvious answer to this question is "Silence" of course, but it's at once too obscure and too obvious to pick. If you'd asked me this question years ago I might've agreed on Something Changed being too mainstream, but about five years ago I was watching the video and it just clicked for me. Odd choice for a single, a track that takes ten years to get to you. If I have to pick a track to skip, well, yes, agreed on Paula, but the one which I have never understood the love for is Seductive Barry. Eight and a half minutes and it never gets interesting at all.
To be honest, I like the entire concept surrounding 'Silence'. It's very McEwan. If it were executed better, then maybe it would be slightly more tolerable...
I don't mean to be frank, but I don't see the point of 'Cocaine Socialism.' It doesn't strike me in any way, but I may just need to give it another listen.
'Love Love' just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. It's just horrendous.
I hate it when this topic comes up because some of my favourites always get chosen. Aborigine, Minnie Timperley, David's Last Summer, Party Hard, Weeds.... The obvious answer to this question is "Silence" of course, but it's at once too obscure and too obvious to pick. If you'd asked me this question years ago I might've agreed on Something Changed being too mainstream, but about five years ago I was watching the video and it just clicked for me. Odd choice for a single, a track that takes ten years to get to you. If I have to pick a track to skip, well, yes, agreed on Paula, but the one which I have never understood the love for is Seductive Barry. Eight and a half minutes and it never gets interesting at all.
Wait, what? Who is choosing David's Last Summer? Are the nation's ear-syringers out on strike today too?
Silence, every time. I like the concept (see also: Tunnel, Coy Mistress, &c), but the execution is laugh-out-loud awful. I dig it out every couple of years having convinced myself it's not that bad, only to always end up turning it off before the end.
All the rest of the songs everyone's mentioned on this page are fine by me. "Cocaine Socialism" had a purpose back in the time immediately after the '97 Election when other celebs were queueing up to endorse the New Labour project, even if I prefer the B-side version to the supposed "proper version" and prefer Glory Days to both. "Death Goes To The Disco" is just a pumping bit of extra Separations, cheap glammy turn-of-the-decade disco, and I've always been quite fond of it. Seductive Barry is a synthesis of what the marketing of the This Is Hardcore LP suggested the record might sound like; it's also a late-album counterpoint to This Is Hardcore, TIH's equivalent of F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. balancing I Spy on Different Class. (Also also: I will light your cigarette / With a star that has fallen from the sky / Breathe in, breathe out / I love the way you move / Don't let anyone tell you any different tonight... come on, people.) I could really do without the out-of-tune whatevertheyares on Bob Lind, but I understand why they're there, and I've always liked the song.
That said, it is a great track on the album. This is Hardcore as an album is greater than the sum of its parts. The only tracks that seem to work as individual tracks are Dishes and Glory Days.
I agree about "Glory Days", I think that it should have been a single but I think that the slower songs ("Dishes" inparticular) sound better within the context of the album.
I don't think Dishes is a single, but it is a song I can listen to in a playlist without the rest of the album. All the hardcore tracks just need to be together, even the B-sides.
I thought that (about Dishes, I mean) until I heard the Flux bootleg, where they use it as a set-closer - it's much more "anthemic" than I'd given it credit for on the LP, it's kind of like Pencil Skirt in that it goes almost imperceptibly from gentle musing to brash noisy chanting.
Weirdly, at the time I loved Help The Aged and was really upset I'm A Man wasn't a single, whereas listening to TIH now (thirteen years later - Jesus Christ), they're easily my two least favourite tracks. I was playing a load of Pulp records for my dad the other day, and having gone through pretty much all of Intro, His 'n' Hers (and its B-sides and bonus disc) and Different Class, Help The Aged then brought everyone up short with its sludgy rockism - I didn't hear that *at all* at the time, but listening to it afresh in the company of someone who'd not heard it before, it became surprisingly hard to stand up for.
I do still really like the TIH album. If you sequence "It's A Dirty World" into it (and "Ladies' Man" and "Laughing Boy" and "Like A Friend" etc etc), it's close to wonderful.
Who is choosing David's Last Summer? Are the nation's ear-syringers out on strike today too?
Don't know. To me it is up there with all the six minute plus epics Pulp made from My Legendary Girlfriend to Wickerman. Only longer song I never really liked was Miner's Strike which seemed to be done begrudingly.
for me it has to be Silence.. Followed closely by Can I Have My Balls Back, Please? (*yawn*) and The Day After the Revolution (though I haven't listened to that one in AGES). Also David's Last Summer is quite forgettable, just in comparison to the quality of songs from that period.
I ldo ike the vast majority of early Pulp.. yes, even 97 Lovers XD
A lot of people dislike MOTU-era material fullstop, which is a shame..
After I heard Different Class, the only Pulp cds I could find at the time were Freshly Squeezed and MOTU so maybe that's why I have a soft spot for those songs :)
I'm not keen on someone like the moon... pretty boring that track. I don't get where the hatred for minnie comes from? It's just a nice little bit of MOR to drag the album along and it's fine by me.
I have no idea, the obvious 'bad' choices like 97 Lovers and Silence have become incredibly likeable just for sheer comedy value. Least favourite song would probably be something that's just straight out BLAND. A song that literally ruins my fun because it's popular enough to be in setlists a lot despite me not liking it that much. (This is why I hate Feeling Good by Muse so much).
'Sorted for Es and Wizz' is probably the (late) song I skip the most. Most likely over-exposure though - perhaps it isn't as robust as Babies et al were when exposed to the 'repeat' button.
Summarising the band in, say, ten songs - now there's a tall order. Well OK, to make it easier you can forget Common People, DYRtFT, Babies, and all the other 'indispensables'. For me, Acrylic Afternoons, I Spy, This is Hardcore, Wickerman and Sunrise would have to be in there... Along with perhaps Down by the River, The Mark of the Devil, Don't you Want Me Any More, Sheffield: Sex City, and... hmm... Underwear. Or Feeling called love. Or Love is Blind...
Ladie's Man irritates me. I hate the beat and the voice (vocoder? hello, Cher).
That boy's evil also is also annoying.
I hear those songs anyway, everytime I'm listening to all the records from Pulp. Perhaps some of these songs will fit my preferences, because this situation happened before, with a lot of tracks, like Master of the Universe, for example
Anyway, We love life is an album that I can't hear too many times... I really don't like it, except one or two tracks...
Only longer song I never really liked was Miner's Strike which seemed to be done begrudingly.
...yeah, same here, though "in '87 socialism gave raise to socialising/so put your hands up in the air once more: the north is rising" is a nice wee lyric.
I wonder if the overt politicising is something that sits a little uneasily with the rest of their work? I know some will disagree, but I found "Cocaine Socialism" a little trying on this part -- and whilst I loved "Running the World" when Jarv released it as a single, a little part of me freaked at the prospect of a whole album of "Cocaine Socialism"s and "Miner's Strike"s. Luckily it didn't work out that way.
For me, "Glory Days" redeemed the latter half of Hardcore.
Only longer song I never really liked was Miner's Strike which seemed to be done begrudingly.
...yeah, same here, though "in '87 socialism gave raise to socialising/so put your hands up in the air once more: the north is rising" is a nice wee lyric.
I wonder if the overt politicising is something that sits a little uneasily with the rest of their work? I know some will disagree, but I found "Cocaine Socialism" a little trying on this part -- and whilst I loved "Running the World" when Jarv released it as a single, a little part of me freaked at the prospect of a whole album of "Cocaine Socialism"s and "Miner's Strike"s. Luckily it didn't work out that way.
For me, "Glory Days" redeemed the latter half of Hardcore.
It certainly seemed quite naive and awkward. Does that Hatherly book take the 'Pulp are working class' fallacy to heart?