Catcliffe Shakedown is brilliant in that it's fucking ridiculous (I think, given Nick Banks' comments, intentionally borderline self-parody) - "stock up on string" and "duty-free parkin" are two things that always amuse.
Finally I can't reply to a thread like that started with a mention of Seconds without praising it to high heaven. Still one of my favourite songs, but I guess at my age that list is set in stone now.
-- Edited by Ste on Thursday 24th of May 2012 03:06:12 AM
I'm curious, what are people's favourite songs from the deluxe editions released in 2006? Personally, I'm quite fond of Seconds, We Can Dance Again & Like A Friend.
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Didn't you say things go better with a little bit of razzmatazz?
Of the rest I probably listen to Catcliffe Shakedown, My Erection and Frightened the most. Live On is fantastic but that was already out there previously.
It's quite great how Pulp are one of those rare bands with b-sides/unreleased stuff as good as or better than their a-sides. Another great track for me is Your Sister's Clothes, especially the chorus.
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Didn't you say things go better with a little bit of razzmatazz?
There's too many great tracks to choose just one. If I had to pick four, they would be "The Boss", "Frightened", "You Are The One" and "We Are The Boyz". Oh, and "Watching Nicky". Oh, and "Can I Have My Balls Back Please?". There's just so much great stuff!
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It would have been had it been released late'94/early '95.
The Disc 2's of the reissues are a veritable treasure trove. Not all the songs are great (though most are), but there's so much variety that they should be obligatory to download with their parent album.
Basically everything - THE BOSS! Seconds, We Can Dance Again, Mile End (does that count? I haven't watched Trainspotting so it was a first hearing it). Why do people dislike Paula so much?
I'm not sure whether to think of 'all bonus tracks' here, or 'the new ones'. Rawrsomesauce names 'Seconds' which is, obviously, one of the best things written by anyone ever...but I wouldn't class it as one of the 'deluxe editions' tracks 'cos I've been playing it incessantly since I was about 17.
My five favourites that I'd not heard in any version before are:
Modern Marriage - brilliant lyrics. "And I promise not to sleep with your friends. Well, not your best friends" is 'I Spy' quality, I think. Very good timing! Catcliffe Shakedown - like a gloriously naff Wickerman Can I Have My Balls Back, Please? - just great fun Street Operator (and everybody in the house say 'woah!' - imagine that live!) Watching Nicky - just a lovely song
the complete bonusdisc of H&H is one of the best bonusdiscs ever!! only the soundcheck version of Space kills it and should have been replaced by Le roi des fourmis, the only studio era H&H track that's not on the reissue. what a glorious reissue Intro would be, with demos and radio sessions...
Mine is off the His'n'Hers collection - Your Sisters Clothes - that guitar although similar to Babies, the guitar playing is incredible. Sounds like an old lost Flying Nun track... The Professional, Ladies Man, His'n'Hers, Its a Dirty World, Ansaphone (cheezy as f**k, but hey...)
It's A Dirty World, Ladies' Man, hm... Seconds, Your Sister's Clothes, Live On, Whiskey in the Jar (great cover, in my opinion)... How can I forget You're Not Blind? I wish that was on H'n'H.
Ooh, lots. "New" stuff (things that I didn't have before) that have made it into my hallowed Pulp playlist for heavy rotation: The Boss, You're Not Blind, Frightened, Don't Lose It, It's A Dirty World.
I also really like Catcliffe Shakedown and Can I Have My Balls Back Please, plenty of great ideas being casually tossed away, but they're both too silly and sketchy for anyone except hardcore fans. (Ask me how I know that.) Which is the beauty of the deluxe editions, I guess, allowing scribbles like those to be widely heard.
I can't remember if anyone else likes Tomorrow Never Lies better than Dies, or prefers the B-side Cocaine Socialism, but Dirty World aside I think most of the TIH extras - including Balls - were excised quite correctly, no matter how good or otherwise they might be. That second disc makes me grateful, several years after the fact, that Pulp "left a load of upbeat pop songs off TIH" (as was the rumour at the time).
(Not hanging round here so much these days, I can't remember whether we played the game of "Reassemble TIH from the 2 discs and other period stuff", but I'd have It's A Dirty World on in place of Sylvia, possibly moved to before Seductive Barry so as to react to I'm A Man. I'm also still keen to put The Professional on there somewhere (I toy with dropping I'm A Man, which hasn't aged well, but then you'd have a very slow-going second side.) But I digress. I suppose the deluxe editions and modern technology mean that defining what is and isn't "on the album" is a pointless exercise.)
I must be one of the few here that doesn't get a lot out of It's A Dirty World. I got copies of the disc 2s off someone but I'm wondering now whether I should buy them properly. Are the remastered actual albums on the deluxe editions much better?
Rattlesnake is Separations-era. It's omission the only main disappointment of the Fire reissues to me.
I know, should have been on Separations along with the other mix of Don't You Want Me Anymore. But His n Hers has Intro era stuff on disc 2 so there's still hope!
I must be one of the few here that doesn't get a lot out of It's A Dirty World. I got copies of the disc 2s off someone but I'm wondering now whether I should buy them properly. Are the remastered actual albums on the deluxe editions much better?
I don't want to do Pulp out of a sale (and I must speak up for Jarvis' liner notes), but honestly, talking about the remastering... if you put a gun to my head, I couldn't tell the difference.
The originals were only 8-12 years old, and I don't remember anyone expressing dissatisfaction with the mastering in the first place*, it's not like some Fifties recording that can be digitally cleaned up and "rescued" from tape or some rubbish mid-80s AAD transfer job. But I readily admit I'm no audiophile.
(* This is usually where twenty people arrive saying they hated the original mastering and it was the only thing ruining Different Class for them, or something.)
Yeah, DC and TIH have the Chris Thomas sheen which hasn't really dated so much. HnH's production is more noticeable, lots of reverb for example which I guess would require a re-production to remove but a lot of people people prefer that style. As mentioned on here recently Buller lifted OU to another level from the original demo. I would have liked to hear Phil Vinall, the bloke who remixed Buller's Razzmatazz and worked with The Auteurs at this time, do His'n'Hers. Personal preference I guess - and being discussed on the 'producers' thread.
The deluxe editions can probably be got quite cheap now and so would probably be worth it for the booklets anyroad.
Not hugely! I saw a mention of HnH's reverb, but wasn't sure if that was relating to the original record or to the remastered version. I personally would like that album with far less reverb than it used to have!
I think its been bought up before but it sounds right at the very start of The Fear on the remastered albums that there is the faintest note/whiff of the very end of Bar Italia - like the last note. Not sure how the remastering process works but I always assumed that the master tapes were all seperate? if theyre still tapes, probably all digital or do they still use DATs? Overall least we didnt get what New Order happened to them with their remasters.....cracks and pops and squiddddgy bits everywhere - I'm all for vinyl but their needs to be some effort - afterall buying the same album twice. having said that I own 5 versions of This is Hardcore.
Not hugely! I saw a mention of HnH's reverb, but wasn't sure if that was relating to the original record or to the remastered version. I personally would like that album with far less reverb than it used to have!
To me the original CD of HnH always sounded like it was wrapped in cellophane, kinda squeaky like rubbing a balloon. I personally feel that a lot of that is absent from the remaster but it may just be a case of me kidding myself. I never thought DC or TIH needed remastering but they sound just as good as they ever did. In my opinion the remastering on the Pulp deluxes is much better than on some other albums. It is interesting that when Jason Spaceman reissued the deluxe Ladies & Gentlemen he decided not to remaster the album, a brave decision in these days of remastering frenzy. When Kevin Shields was interviewd recently about what he did to remaster the My Bloody Valentine album Loveless he said he simply boosted the volume of the original '91 DAT digital master! Guess that's why it took him 5 years. It all depends whether you go back to the original tapes to remaster or the assembled album master. In the case of Pulp I don't know but HnH definitely sounds better. It's rather a good thing too as my CD copy of HnH from '94 has developed some rather nasty kind of oxidation type thingy on the disc and it looks all manky now.
The albums came out in 2006 I think. I was in the middle of a fallow period for Pulp around then, I suppose. I hadn't gone to the Magna gig or any of the forest ones, and my interest didn't really start to perk up until around 2008/9 or so. I had downloaded the 'new' tracks, but I had kept them in reserve - as I had with the Bad Cover Version B-Sides - so that I'd always have something 'new' to listen to. Because I really wasn't bothered about Pulp during that time, it was easy to stick to this and I dilligently didn't play them 'til last year when I put them on a tape for a holiday we took in Wales so that it wouldn't just be Driving in the Rain listening to Radio 4. I've still been good re: the Bad Cover Version B Sides though! Maybe one day when I'm compiling Pulp Portfolio #723497234923.
I tend to keep things back until I think the time for listening to 'em is right. A few of the Portfolio gigs weren't listened to by myself until they were ready to go out to you lot. There's some stuff I've still not listened to that's due to be circulated in the forthcoming months too. This helps keep it fresh for me and make it a joint listening experience :)
Re: Kevin Shields. It might have been nice if he'd made the Loveless drums sound less dated and gated, but heigh ho!
Part of the reason I didn't buy them is I'm now on my fifth copy of Different Class. Buying it for the sixth time just seemed a bit much at the time. This remastered His n Hers sounds interesting though. If remasters are done right they're worth buying again. Thought the remaster of Screamadelica was great, for instance
Very hard to call. I will probably have to go with The Boss as my ultimate favourite from the deluxe eds. I distinctly remember when I popped that on for the first time cos the keyboard riff just reminded me what I loved so much about Pulp and that particular era of Pulp's work. It sounded like it'd fit in well on Intro and I love that period in their work. The keyboard getting a prominent role. This means I also love Live On. I will have to give special compliments to It's A Dirty World and also I think My Erection is a great song, I would love to hear it with Jarvis' vocals proper, you know, without the vocoder.
I would, yes. I would also steal a policeman's helmet, kill the policeman, soil the helmet and return it to his grieving widow. And then steal it again.
I once paid £17 for a cassette copy of Different Class. So I'm allowed to steal nowadays.
Of course I'd buy it! I bought It and Freaks on the day of release I think and, like the post above, I have more money than in 2006. As well as more Pulp love!
Now that I can put a memory stick in my car stereo with hundreds of songs on...
Dirty World You're Not Blind Street Operator Cocaine Socialism (Proper Version)
(Though I had a dream a few months back that "Can I Have My Balls Back, Please?" was covered and went to number 1 in the charts but I refused to play it in the club in place of the original, so that gets a listen from time to time for a laugh)
So now I'm intrigued as to what your ideal tracklisting would be for each album, you're allowed to add one song at most (e.g. adding Live On to His N Hers without removing anything) and to swap as many songs as you like. Also allowed to change the order of songs around. Here's mine:
His N Hers
1. Do You Remember The First Time?
2. Joyriders
3. Live On
4. Acrylic Afternoons
5. Seconds
6. Babies
7. She's A Lady
8. The Boss
9. Happy Endings
10. Pink Glove
11. Your Sister's Clothes
12. David's Last Summer
Different Class
1. Mis-Shapes
2. We Can Dance Again
3. Common People
4. Disco 2000
5. I Spy
6. Live Bed Show
7. Sorted For E's and Wizz
8. Something Changed
9. F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E
10. Underwear
11. PTA
12. Bar Italia
This Is Hardcore
1. The Fear
2. Dishes
3. Help The Aged
4. This Is Hardcore
5. Party Hard
6. It's A Dirty World
7. Like A Friend
8. I'm A Man
9. The Professional
10. Cocaine Socialism
11. Glory Days
12. The Day After The Revolution
The reason both Cocaine and Glory are in there is because I think they'd both work well in the overall feel of the album
-- Edited by rawrsomesauce on Thursday 7th of June 2012 01:07:12 AM
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Didn't you say things go better with a little bit of razzmatazz?
So now I'm intrigued as to what your ideal tracklisting would be for each album, you're allowed to add one song at most (e.g. adding Live On to His N Hers without removing anything) and to swap as many songs as you like. Also allowed to change the order of songs around. Here's mine:
A couple of years ago I would have probably come up with totally different tracklistings for all the albums (in fact, I think I did!). Nowadays, I tend to take them at face value so wouldn't change that much. I would drop "Dishes" in favour of "Like a Friend" and probably put some of the b-sides onto "His 'n' Hers" (perhaps sacrificing "Happy Endings").