Also Mis-Shapes. I missed Common People. Wasnt aware of that. I was watching TOTP and on came Pulp. Actually heres the link to the very performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZUF7iCiFOk

 

I was fascinated with Russell as I thought he was wearing make-up and being a child that was the first time I'd seen - gasp! - a man with make-up ;) Older sibling bought Different Class on tape in 1995 and the rest is history. I remember those days well. Pulp appeared on some UK childrens TV shows back then but I guess they shrugged off some of that fanbase with This is Hardcore. However, Jarvis was on Live & Kicking to promote Help the Aged. Everyone at school knew I was a fan but everyone else liked Oasis and then next morning walking into school after the Brits in 1996 I can still in my mind see the people saying to me what a hero Jarvis was because they thought he had *punched* Jacko...

The whole Britpop thing was huge but Pulp were always separate from that and yet lumped in with it too. Nostalgic for those days and often wish I had been older so I could have partaken in everything. It was very lonely as a Pulp fan back then without t'internet.

 

seeing the video (old video) for Babies in 1992 on Mtv 120 minutes. first it irritated me (being completely focussed on american alternative music at the time, waiting for smashing pumpkins videos to be shown) but after having seen it a few times I became more intrigued by it. it still is my favorite Pulp song and one of the best pop songs I know.

But Glastobury's in somerset! That seems cruel. I take it you couldn't hear them by squinting your ears (or whatever you do with your ears to make them hear better)

Additional related questions: how old were you when you got into Pulp and are they your favourite band?

I was 7 when common people came out, I didn't think much to it. That obviously sounds daft because a 7 year old isn't really much of a music critic but yeah. I still got the album with my 2 weeks pocket money and mis shapes kicked it off in incredible fashion for me. I grew to love every track and it was probably my 2nd favourite album (...parklife...) but I never got the others until I was about 11. I still find it weird that I had modern life is rubbish before parklife came out... I mean, I was like 5, and my parents didn't like them or even know much about them seen as they hadnt really got big yet. I don't know how I got it, or why I got parklife on release day, but its strange. Very strange.

It was His N Hers, it was 95 and I had just got into music in a big way. A fellow Smiths fan had borrowed the album from the library and I loved it. A few months later Common People came out and they were huge, so I went round thinking I was great because I was a fan before then, yeah right - only by a matter of weeks!

Well, i remember seeing the no stilettos thing on tv, but it was on a repeat programme in 95. Around that time my dad had seen the video for disco 2000 on tv and he bought different class. I listened to it and that was it. I was just fascinated with pulps image and i just became obsessed. It was a good time to get into pulp as i was 13 and i suppose their music helped shape me in some way. I used to go to the shops every day after school for an elderly lady (mrs hesson) who i had previously kind of saved from a house fire (another story- i got a pick and mix from woolworths as a reward) I used to get paid £3.50 a week and i used all of the money to buy anything pulp related.

It was my dream to see them live and i eventually did at leeds festival 2011, i never had any friends that was into them and i didn't fancy going to a concert alone so i was gutted when they called it a day.

They are the best band in the world and will always have a special place in my heart.

Now im 28, still living in Preston and thats my story.

My dad got me Different Class on tape around the time it came out. I liked it but never really got obsessed until the summer of 2005 after I picked up DC on CD in a sale. Only saw them once - Wireless 2011.

Who's your favourite?

And that photo's terrifying.

I was fifteen when Common People was released, it practically seeped into my veins. As the music press and then TV news debated the 'Blur versus Oasis' debacle, for me Pulp easily emerged as the winners.

I owe it to the radio. I heard Disco 2000 on the radio sometime before Different Class was released - this was back when BBC Radio 1 would just as soon play album tracks than singles, and I guess there was excitement about DC coming out after Common People. It might have been Chris Evans' breakfast show; it was definitely a DJ who was a Pulp fan, they played Disco 2000 a couple of times a week, just from the album promo. Then I stumbled across a repeat (also on Radio 1) of Glastonbury 95, which I caught on tape and practically wore out. I loved all their songs from that set so it was a natural step to buy up their back catalogue (also on tape!) and it all snowballed from there - when it became clear that they'd never recorded a song I didn't like!

Yes indeed blueowl, I now have a stack of press clippings, flyers, adverts and reviews that I have found out since my recent Pulp binge. They range in date from '92 - '96. I don't have a scanner so if anyone wants to see any of 'em would a piccie be ok?

Mebbe we could work somethin' out blueowl. Whereabouts are ya?

He hasn't met me yet mwa ha ha

I'm in Crookes too and I've been smoking your cigarettes, drinking you Brandy and messing up the bed you chose together etc, etc

Can't believe how young you all are! I'm the same generation as Pulp. I was obsessed with Portishead in the early 1990s. I can't remember when I first heard anything by Pulp. A friend invited me to the launch party for Do You Remember the First Time at the ICA but I couldn't make it (something I really regret now!). Pulp really registered with me when I watched Glastonbury '95 on tv and I thought they were fantastic. I subsequently bought H&H and DC but didn't explore earlier stuff. And, of course, because my name is Deborah when Disco 2000 came out people used to sing it to me. Wasn't that keen on TIH when it was released and didn't like WLL at all. I think I gradually stopped playing Pulp but started getting into them again when I had a lot of time off work 4 years ago after being diagnosed with cancer. I spent a huge amount of time in front of my computer on iTunes and posting on iLike, often in the middle of the night in steroid/chemo induced insomnia. I played TiH one day and it absolutely blew me away. I was at a particularly low point and maybe that's why I identified so much with it. From then I explored the stuff I had. I bemoaned the fact I'd never seen them live and probably never would (thankfully the cancer hadn't spread and my health gradually returned). A year ago I had a huge reconstructive operation and another 6 months off work and did some more very intensive listening to Pulp, this time really exploring pre DC stuff and Jarvis' side projects. I was so delighted when the reunion was announced and decided it was now or never I HAD to see them live and have been to Wireless and Brixton this summer.

Hey, I'm not that young. I first saw em in '93. I agree though it can be a little unsettling.

I'm an American. I was a college student in the mid-'90s. I had heard "Common People" and "Disco 2000" once or twice but they didn't really grab me at first. I did really like "Mile End" from the Trainspotting s/t. Then, around 1998, a friend lent me his copy of Different Class. Now I was getting hooked, but the release of Hardcore a few months later really turned me into an Pulp fanatic. That album really captured the feelings of fear and desperation I felt as someone who was going to have to find a job soon and make it in the world, even if that isn't really the theme of the album, as Jarvis conceived it. A year or so later I had acquired the Countdown comp and His 'n' Hers. By the early 2000s, I was spending a lot of money on Ebay getting The Sisters EP and other singles. And that is directly because of the Bar Italia site. Steve's reviews of songs like "Seconds" and "Street Lites" convinced me I had to hear these songs. And he was right.

I was listening to Do You Remember The First Time during my first time!

I'm also American, became very obsessed with British music in high school, wouldn't even consider listening to anything American (the last American record I can remember buying in high school was Nevermind). Don't know if any of the other Americans here are in Southern California, but there was a cable access show called "Request Video" that I watched religiously (parents were too cheap to get cable); I was introduced to a lot of great music from that show. Blur was probably the first contemporary British band I got really interested in (was already obsessed with The Smiths and a lot of the new wave bands). Anyway, I remember reading about Pulp's documentary in Select or NME/MM, then soon after found myself in a record store where they played the single, "Do You Remember the First Time?"...and my life was changed forever, bla bla. Thankfully my parents "let" me drive to Hollywood a year before I had my driver's license--during the whole Britpop explosion--so I don't think I missed any British band that came through L.A. Even living in America I have seen Pulp 7 times: once with Blur in 1994, twice on their own tour in 1996, Finsbury Park in 1998, T in the Park this year, and the 2 shows at Brixton.

To me, Pulp is the best band in the world. My obsession sank a bit after Russell left--still stings a little to think about how I felt when I'd heard he left the band. So this reunion has been extremely satisfying.

btw: very excited to see what owl and saw come up with!

I like telling this story - its sort of in 2 parts. The first time and then the proper time.....

The first time I knew about Pulp I remember sitting on the edge of my parents coffee table watching Rage (video show) and Disco 2000 must of just been released so this is around 1996 (in Australia) and being about 11 or 12 not knowing much about music, but this video was just so colourful and fun. I didn't really like music apart from East 17 and whatever my parents listened too.

Then in 1998, I heard Party Hard on the radio and saw the video and just thought it was the greatest bit of pop music ever - guitars and that synth stab.... I taped it off the radio and just used to play it over and over and over again. I can honestly say it all kind of changed from there - Pulp are my baseline - I listened to them from Year 9 (1998 for me) nonstop till probably my first or second year at uni and then I got totally involved with anything Factory Records related. Around this time, His'n'Hers, DC and This is Hardcore were re-released in those Deluxe Editions. I went and got This is Hardcore and remember driving around Newcastle with it blaring thinking how on earth I had forgotten - well forgotten's a strong word, I think when I was going through Uni - like I said, I was just totally obsessed with New Order and the Happy Mondays and anything douf - but driving around with this album - it all sort of flooded back. Then Jarvis released his first solo record and I had left Uni and had a real job which mean't cash flow. I also vowed that I would start collecting stuff, as I could now afford it AND if they ever toured again, I would go......

I can also pinpoint and remember from every single shop where I got my Pulp records. This is Hardcore(v1) from the Grace Bros Pitt Street store in Jan 1999, Different Class for my 15th birthday, His'n'Hers and one of those Countdown Fire issues from Sanity at Settlement City, another Fire re-issue from Target in Tamworth.....I could go on but I won't.

I had been thinking about asking this question myself, as a new member of the board. I have been reading the board for quite a while, but am generally very reluctant to get involved in internet discussions as so many people seem to get so abusive so easily, but everyone here seems really nice and thoughtful. Its fascinating to hear all your different stories.

I got into music in big way in the late 70s/early 80s as teenager. I was a bit of a nerdy girl with no life doing physics homework listening to John Peel. As an exiled Sheffielder, the popularity of Heaven 17/Human League/ABC at that time made me rather homesick, stuck as I was by then in the rural south of England (or alien planet as it seemed to me at the time). I lost touch with music in late 80s/90s largely due to an inability to tolerate radio 1 DJs or commercial radio adverts, nothing to do with the music, I became a radio 4 listener what a relief to have radio 6 now. But my husband used to feed me occasional new CDs for the car and one of them was Different Class. Now I am not terribly musically literate, I relate mainly to the words and melody and the overall musical feel. My husband is very musical and is forever hoping I will appreciate some bassline or drum ryhthm, but its all a bit lost on me. I am very drawn to music which creates powerful images and stories, whether its fragmetary images like Ian Durys Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick or The Jams Thats Entertainment or a mini-novel like the Rolling Stones Play With Fire, Mothers Little Helper or 19th Nervous Breakdown. So for me, Pulp, in the first place Different Class, fell right into that with the strong imagery in the lyrics, powerful melodies and all delivered with that gorgeous, Sheffield voice. Mis-shapes the most meaningful track for me off the album (not necessarily my favourite), it is very cathartic for me as I remember all those feelings of being different and odd as a teenager and hating the super-trendies as I labelled them in my school and I remember having all those sentiments of revenge when they were still stuck in their dull lives and I would be the nerdy, clever one that went off somewhere a lot more fulfilling. Interesting how many of you have mentioned Mis-shapes given the bands apparent dislike of it (until recently, thankfully). And I always particularly liked Bar Italia, which seems to get a rather bad press for reasons I have never understood.

As Ive got to know more of the rest, I find more points of connection with my northern childhood, a classic yet trivial case in point subject of figurines! I remember my parents and their friends having endless conversations about which sets they were collecting, which they liked best and which colour supplements you could order them from. And yes, they do take over the house. I particularly like the ramblings of songs like Wickerman and Deep Fried In Kelvin. I love the proper northern bluntness that calls a spade a spade and sees straight through all the nonsense those at the top and the haves can spin themselves to justify the status quo Im thinking the Weeds songs, Cocaine Socialism, ommon People and most of all, Running the World, but not just those bigger things, but all those tales of ordinary life seen as it really is. I know Jarvis said something along the lines of being fed up with the perfect, unreal world you hear described in normal pop music and wanted to describe all the messy, fumbling bits, something like that, a kind of observation you only normally get from a good stand-up comedian who dares say those things the rest of us only think. Theres also the dark places, The Fear. When I first read about This Is Hardcore (the album) before  I listened to it, I was genuinely scared that it would be unbearable, but I just appreciate the insights into different experiences and take reassurance if I start feeling too low or generally loopy that these experiences are just a fairly normal part of the human condition and I am not uniquely losing the plot.

That must be more than enough for now.

-- Edited by Fran on Tuesday 4th of October 2011 12:25:54 AM

Fran,

Great post about how you got into the band! Even though my route to Pulp was very different, I think you really captured what makes the band so special for a lot of us.

Nicely put, Jean.

;) thanks folks. The way I look at it Pulp gave me the sex education a Catholic school will never give! "that goes in there... and then it's over" ;) Nah but seriously Pulp spoke about things concerning ordinary people that I didn't hear anyone else doing (and I'm not talking about Common People but like Fran about the figurines that take over the house and my granny had a James Dean poster at the time too) and you know Jarvis is probably the only person of recent times in his solo work who is still the only one saying anything that matters to my life and many of your lives I would imagine in a song like 'Running the World' so that's why I love Pulp. The whole group. That's my life right there in that back catalogue. I can tell you what was going on in my life when I bought Separations and so on. Such a joy to see them again this year. And that's enough from me before I get too emotional ;)

So beautifully put, Jean. The quality of writing on this forum is amazing. And I love the passion for Brutalism!

*Hello, my name is Amy and I have a Pulp problem*

1995 - my last year of primary school, the first year I ever wore a bra and the summer in which the languid summer days seemed to press against my skin in a way I was previously unaware of before. It was this summer that I bought for the very first time the magazine Smash Hits, yearning for a poster of the Gallagher brothers I had seen on a friend's bedroom wall, wishing to covert their defiant pouts on my own woodchip in a way that I still had very little understanding of.

(Un)Luckily for me I was a fortnight out and instead, a different pout of a much more passive-aggressive nature caught me pre-pubescent gaze. I believe the image was captured around the infamous Glastonbury performance, the details of which would later become part of the folklore of my new religion - a religion that has resonated since in many aspects of my life. On hearing Common People, a fire was kindled in my chest that was unknown to me - an awkward little girl who had no idea about the world outside of the small Northern town of Middlesbrough - and somehow the words reminded me of the small knowledge I had of the world around me, of aunties, older cousins and the neighbours' teenagers working in the local hairdressers, collecting bins and smoking a LOT of fags on the corner of our street. 'This awkward man is singing about me!' I realised in delight. Plus Pulp didn't LOOK like the other bands at the time - Jarvis was all arms and legs with a face that reminded me of a baby bird, along with the angular Russell and the ex-orchestral girl look of Candida. Something made sense to me about it - like they were real people, something that never came across in the same way with Blur or Oasis.

Mis-Shapes was probably the song from Different Class (which I of course bought later - marching up to the till in HMV fervently clutching my Christmas money, purchased on tape and along with The Great Escape and What's the Story....no contest on which got the most airtime that evening) that made me the convert that I am today. Being awkward, long-sighted and introvert sent me into a world of academic achievement that is only really obtained at a Comprehensive School from social rejection from your peers at the age of eleven and so the lyrics to Mis-Shapes provided me with a sort of justification, a ticket out, because no matter what happened I had my mind. Growning up in an area which saw the devistation of deindustrialisation through the 70's and 80's also connected - I saw the joyriders every night on my way home from school, I watched the Cocaine Socialists of my friends parents and I watched my younger brother (who was nowhere near as nerdy as me) grow up to become the Weed - 'but you'd come round to visit us when you fancy booz and drugs'.

Anyhoo, threeish years later (having discovered clearasil, a good hairdresser and the power of a short skirt/higher heel combo) This is Hardcore came out at a moment which I wanted to push the stirrings nodded at by Underwear further. TIHC seemed to coincide with my sexual awakening, and may have even been the song playing during on of my very first sexual experiences. It took a while ('You're gonna like it, but not a lot') for me to fall in love with the rest of the album in the same way, but I turn to Hardcore now whenever I feel like MY edges have been taken off.

It was after Hardcore that I really began to explore Pulp's back catalogue, finding His'n'Hers reaching into places I was starting to become more practiced with - love, shame, loss, heartbreak and of course the bedroom. I spent my later teenage years discovering other music but to this day they will remain my favourite band, and on lots of levels I believe if it weren't for Jarvis I would be a very different person today!

amy: Apart from the title which left me a bit confused, reading that had me thinking "is she a professional writer?".

Deborah wrote:

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Amy, that is absolutely brilliantly well put! Thank you so much for sharing. Although I left school in 1981 and I'm a southerner I can really identify with a lot of what you've said.

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 Yes, an amazing story. I definitely identify with whole comprehensive school experience, it is the line "we'll use the one thing we've got more of, that's our minds" that resonates with me most of all. I've heard Lauren Laverne speak a couple of times about once interviewing Jarvis and he said something along the lines of he can only life looking backwards, like seeing the view disappearing behind you from a train window. I used to find memories of those teenage years very painful, but I think the perspective of this song has helped me come to terms with that time and even appreciate what it gave me, as Amy says, a level of academic achievement I would never have reached if I had been popular and out partying all the time.

littlegirlwithblueeyes wrote:

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Aww, thanks! I get very lyrical when talking about my love of Pulp haha. I have loved reading this thread so much! All my friends keep mocking me as I only recently discovered this forum but I am so happy I did!

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Would love to read more from you. Please post in the Desert Island discs thread! 

Ha ha ha! You sound as bad as me. Is it true they did more than three songs together but they didn't want to confuse HP fans by putting them all on the soundtrack? Also how did they end up working together on this project?

Amy, fran and deb, absolutly love your posts!!!
Amy particularly because it sounds like your the exact same age as me....smash hits posters eh haha i have this pic of my room (one part of my room at the time, i can asure you the whole room was the same) and i can spot atleast 3 posters i got from smash hits magazine back then.

It was in 1995. In a videotape with a gig with all the songs from His n'hers. I can't remember where was that gig... I remember Jarvis wearing a black and tight suit. I was 15 years old and of course I was smashed with all that.

It was Different Class that got me into Pulp - the year it came out. If I remember rightly my interest was first aroused when I saw Jarvis on Shooting Stars (!). I didn't really know who he was at the time, but my mind was boggling at the concept of this highly individualistic person being a 'popstar'. He certainly didn't look like one, sound like one, or act like one, so I had to do a bit digging around to satisfy my curiosity. I went out and bought Different Class shortly after. Oddly I was in the queue in a record shop, to pay for Oasis's What's the Story Morning Glory (ssh - I know!), and at the same time the shop was playing Different Class. Someone in front was faffing around and holding up the queue, and that gave me enough time to make the snap decision to put the Oasis cd back, and pick up Different Class instead. Just those few minutes of hearing album was enough to make me realise I had to have it. When I got home and heard it in it's entirety, I was blown away. It was the best thing I'd heard in about 10 years, and everything about it was so perfect.

Not long after came the Brits/Jacko incident, and if I even needed anymore convincing that Pulp were special, that sealed the deal for me. Such a silly, childish act, but saying so much behind it.

I've got a good Pulp/queue story! Warp records in Sheffield opened at Midnight on the day DC was released and I dutifully slepped down there for there witching hour opening. There was a quite marvellous sense of community spirit there, I was on my own but loads of people talked to each other. My eagerness was rewarded with a signed DC promo lp sized flyer. I actually have the article about it from The Star here. In retrospect I wish I'd bought the vinyl with the interchangable covers rather than the cd version but oh well.

Something Changed anet.


Oh and Fred,

Seriously Amy, you gotta explain this to me: *Hello, my name is Amy and I have a Pulp problem* Am I being dumb? It wouldn't be unusual.


Y'know, just a play on the version of Alcoholics Anonymous, employed with lazy shorthand in culture when the character has a drink problem and tries to resolve it. From Corrie a while back: ''I'm Peter Barlow and....*sorrowful look around the room*...I have a drink problem'' followed by supportive applause from the group.

triciathetree wrote:

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I think the people in charge of Harry Potter approached Jarvis and then he put the band together. I had seen an interview with Jarvis where he was talking about it. And Phil Selway from Radiohead said he and Jonny had been approached by Jarvis about it. Not sure why he asked them specifically.

---

I thought Jarvis asked Jonny and when Phil found out from Jonny that he was going to be in a Harry Potter film, he got all excited (who wouldn't) and asked if they still needed a drummer.

As to the potential album that never happened, wasn't that tied up in the legal case brought by the Canadian band with a similar name - Wyrd Sisters or some such thing. I think officially/legally the HP band now has no name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd_Sisters_(band)

saw119 wrote:

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glosslip wrote:

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It was in 1995. In a videotape with a gig with all the songs from His n'hers. I can't remember where was that gig... I remember Jarvis wearing a black and tight suit. I was 15 years old and of course I was smashed with all that.

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 Was it this by any chance? http://www.pulpwiki.net/Pulp/March1994TheBeat

I have it on VHS somewhere.

---

 Yes, it is!! Oh, I remember the impact of that images... Unfortunatly I saw it at a friend's home, no chances to see this again, I think. Anyway, I have to investigate this.

Hi Guys, I'm a newie.

Listening to Absolute 90's Radio for a year introduced me to Pulp, I quickly booked Leeds tickets on the basis that they were rumoured to headline, for it to be true!

Lots of money spent on deluxe edition cds later, I am a Pulp convert. Their gig was the best thing I've ever seen and I will never forget it. It was special to me.

I love them so much that I got out all my Pulp mags - and took a photo. Slowly building a nice collection.

I was very young and wasn't really music conscious during the 90's, which is probably why I'm so obsessed with the music and bands of the 90's now as I hit 21 haha. I was a late one to the Pulp fanbase, but seeing them during the reunion quickly became something I had to do since getting into them properly. I knew who they were all these years through hearing Disco 2000 and Common People back when I was younger, but only began to appreciate the music this past year.

I am glad I got the chance to see Pulp at all live, given the circumstances, and if they do anything else next year, I will be there. I've yet to meet any more people my age who are as into Pulp as I am!

A climate charity possibly green peace - sent a bunch of celebrities and artistic types on a boat to the arctic in the hope they'd address the issue in their work. Jarvis wrote Slush. Probably not what they were hoping for! KT Tunstel was the other singer, perhaps they had a jamming sesh on board.

My parents were always playing Different Class as I was growing up, so they've always been with me in some form or another.
Been following them/Jarvis' work since day dot, from His n Hers, to We Love Life and beyond...

(yet to explore pre ''His'' material shamefully...)

-- Edited by Not_Centaurs on Wednesday 26th of October 2011 08:29:16 PM

-- Edited by Not_Centaurs on Wednesday 26th of October 2011 08:30:13 PM

My Dad is a complete Bowie fanatic - me and my brother used to make fun of him before we listened to it. I have now been told by both parents that I'm becoming like my Dad is with Bowie with Pulp (slippery slope! )

I didn't know you were a dad!

saw119 wrote:

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Well I am a Dad and I'm always making my son listen to cool music like Jarvis and Pulp so I'm hoping to educate him by a process of osmosis.

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Me too.

Not really going according to plan as neither care much for Pulp!

My 12 year old son likes Nirvana & Joy Division, which is a little concerning.

My 7 year old daughter likes the Ting Tings.

At least, they always insist on listening to XFM in the car.  I suppose it could be worse.