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TOPIC: Pulp career retrospective box set?
What would interest you most in a Pulp career box set? [35 vote(s)]

Remastered albums
5.7%
Unreleased demos
74.3%
Live concert footage / audio
17.1%
A book telling the band's story
0.0%
Unseen footage of the band
2.9%
Signed material
0.0%


Common Person

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Hi Pulp fans. New member here, looking for feedback on an idea if I may?
 
There are a few bands i have a soft spot for from that period of my life and Pulp are one of them, I'd love to be involved in creating a box set for them, IF there is interest a) from the fans, b) from the band, and c) from the relevant record labels.
 
 
I recently designed a 25 disc box set for Mansun (another of my favourites bands from the late 90s) and am wondering if there would be enough interest in one of these for Pulp, what do you all think? Maybe for the 40 year anniversary of the release of 'It' in 2023 - I did spend two years on the Mansun project, so it would have to be a year or two in the making?
Pulp have a much longer story than Mansun, and I think it would be an interesting one to tell, and give the band the box set they deserve (in my opinion).
 
The Mansun box was a career restrospective with pretty much all of their released material plus 10 unreleased live concerts, a previously unreleased live DVD from Brixton Academy when the band were at the top of their game, BBC sessions, rare tracks, demos, 160 page hardback book written by renowned music journalist Peter Doggett, 112 page fanzine replica book, 48 page studio notes book, art prints, postcards and a signed sheet of handwritten lyrics. This was a limited edition, never to be repressed.
Due to the size of the box and scale of the project this box sold for £160, which isn't band per item, but is a chunk of cash obviously.
 
 
So my question first to you all is - would you buy one of these if there was one for Pulp?
I'm surprised there hasn't been one yet (maybe there's a reason for that?), if everyone is into the idea then maybe we can make it happen?
 
Thanks for your time
Scott


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The Only Way is Down

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Well done on the Mansun box. I'm not a fan but it is incredibly comprehensive.

Unfortunately, Pulp were on different record labels throughout their career so a full retrospective of all eras in one box is unlikely. Also, I presume the rights to Mansun's music reverted to the group, allowing them to create something special and generous in terms of content. As far as I know, Universal hold the rights to Pulp's output from 1992 onwards and I assume that lasts for many more years if not in perpetuity so any homespun, charming reissue chock-full of rare material is unlikely, unfortunately.

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Common Person

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Hi Eamonn, thanks for your reply.

I understand there are numerous record labels involved, but if they have no plans for the catalogue then they may be interested in licensing the albums for a box release like this. I have been involved in several box sets like this at Snapper Music (The Pretty Things, Small Faces, Steve Hillage, John Mayall, Wishbone Ash), they all have different agreements but if labels are willing it can happen.

Snapper bought the rights for Mansun's catalogue from the sell off at Warner Music to reissue on the Kscope label alongside their support of Paul Draper's solo output.



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The Only Way is Down

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Well you have a lot more clout than the average reader on here, me included! I don't know if you are aware of the Pulpwiki website but some years ago, around the time of Pulp's reunion (a bloody decade already...Jesus..), there was a petition for a We Love Life deluxe edition. Nothing really led to it, but I think it got over a thousand people signing it albeit over a long period of time.

We've discussed the wishlist of new Pulp reissues many times on here. Given Pulp's fame/name/reputation, I'm sure there is a market for one of these super-deluxe music boxsets that have carved out a niche in the back-catalogue market. I think once people in early middle age (ie 40 and over) stop buying physical products of acts from their youth; glossy and expensive reissues may well disappear. The peak of it can't be too far off (the rest of this decade, maybe?).

 

I don't know if you have any idea on how many boxes Mansun had to sell to make it commercially viable but presumably it has managed that (Supergrass similarly issued a career-spanning box last year which I think is out of print).


It is strange though. Bands like Mansun and Suede, while not having the popularity of Pulp (compare the Spotify/YouTube hits of each band's biggest songs) which is no doubt heightened by Jarvis' "celebrity"; they (Mansun/Suede) seem to be far bigger cult bands than Pulp.

Didnt they used to have Mansun conventions, years after the band split?! And I know Suede have a huge online community who even create regular fanzines (yeah, fanzines in 2021!). Maybe tapping into the purchasing power of 2,000(?) of those fans is all it takes to commission expensive reissues as those uber-supporters will buy almost anything the band put out.

I hope but am less sure that Pulp have that rabid, captive market.

 

Do you know if Snapper have a good relationship with Universal?



-- Edited by Eamonn on Tuesday 9th of March 2021 08:42:30 PM

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The Only Way is Down

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Well, this could be interesting. If you manage to get the nod from the band and need an archive/trainspotting consultant, hit me up. I know where (some of) the bodies are buried....

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scottrobinson wrote:
 
 
So my question first to you all is - would you buy one of these if there was one for Pulp?
I'm surprised there hasn't been one yet (maybe there's a reason for that?), if everyone is into the idea then maybe we can make it happen?
 

Almost inevitably I would buy one if released as I have bought everything else, some umpteen times, but I do quite admire Pulp for not making a cheap buck with box set reissues.  The current Bowie Live Adventures set is something I wish I never started on. Getting stressful having to check dig website every day in case I miss the 6th and final release.  Resorted to US website to get one of them, with a £15 p&p cost. 

I would like to get Intro on vinyl, but that aside I have most of all I could ever want by Pulp.  So whilst I would buy it, I am not going to make it happen.



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Well, yeah...if the level of interest in the recent ebay auction is anything to go by...evileye



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Which ebay auction ?

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The Only Way is Down

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Sorry, not ebay. Omega? Omeega, potato, potata...the one you sorted out!

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Hahaha!!! I knew what you meant, just thought I'd torment you lol

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I'd love to see a Pulp at the BBC box with all the radio sessions on CD, and DVD or Blu-ray of their TV appearances.

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Some more thoughts...

For me personally, 25 discs in one go is maybe a bit much, and considering the length of Pulp's career I can see it going over and above that (depending on what you can get hold of, of course). How about doing it in 2 volumes - say, '81-'91 and '92-2002? That probably splits quite neatly into two halves, and perhaps also gets round the issue of most of the '80s stuff being owned by Fire, and all the '90s/2000s stuff being owned by Universal.

In terms of content, I don't know how much you've already delved into the possibilities here, but there is quite a lot of unreleased studio material from the '80s, some of which has been bootlegged, some of which hasn't. There's also a reasonable amount of live stuff, and (from what I can gather) quite a bit more locked away in the band's own archives. Very little video material though, most of which is already in circulation - although I certainly wouldn't say no to the Fire-era videos finally appearing on DVD. There are also semi-professionally filmed concerts from 1985 and 1988 (neither of which has been seen in full, and you'll deserve a medal if you manage to unearth them), and apparently some camcorder stuff in the band's archive.

For the Island era, as you probably know the vaults were raided for the 2006 deluxe editions of His'n'Hers / Different Class / This Is Hardcore, so there aren't really any unreleased songs for that period - until you get to We Love Life, for which there's about 2 albums' worth of stuff that no one's heard! Other than that though, it's more a case of demos and alternative versions of known tracks. And there's obviously no end of radio sessions, live broadcasts, TV stuff etc etc - not all of which has made it into circulation (eg Hit the North 1991, which exists in awful AM broadcast quality, but the band apparently have a pre-broadcast DAT).

Do the studio albums need to be on there? Surely everyone's got those, several times over in some cases. This isn't something you're going to buy if you just wanna hear Disco 2000, right?

On the whole I think there could be scope for something really worthwhile here, and something that all us nerds would undoubtedly lap up. All depending on whether you can persuade the band and the labels, of course...

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scottrobinson wrote:
I'm surprised there hasn't been one yet (maybe there's a reason for that?), if everyone is into the idea then maybe we can make it happen?

Just on this - I think there are a couple of reasons.

For the early stuff, a combination of VERY icy relations with Fire Records, and also Jarvis' ambivalent feelings toward some of that material. I think both those things have softened to some degree more recently (eg, Jarvis apparently helped with the reissue of the Fire albums a few years ago, and also gave the nod to the 1981 Peel Session being put out) so you may have more luck.

For the later stuff, I think it's mostly down to Universal not being arsed! There was talk of a career retrospective around the time of the band reforming in 2011. Firstly a 2CD best-of, then a box set focusing specifically on Different Class. Both of these, I think, were seriously looked at for a time, but I think plans foundered because there just wasn't the drive from either side to make it happen. Again, maybe a third party like yourself, if you can convince everyone, is just what something like this needs...



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The Only Way is Down

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No pressure Scott (Scott II?)! Beam us up!

Mark, didn't you say the band were interested in a WLL deluxe around reunion time ? And there was talk of a DC:25 box last year which may or not have been ko'd by Covid.

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Hardcore

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Well, if you could get your hands on the Marples '82 tape then that would be ace..

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The Only Way is Down

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I'll have to look back through my old emails, but I'm sure Mark W told me that they would have been in favour of a deluxe WLL - the fact it didn't happen was to do with the original album selling poorly i think. So Universal just decided to focus on the 'big three'. There was a certain degree of exasperation that they wanted to revisit DC *again* at the time of the reunion, at the expense of the rest of their back catalogue.

I'm not sure the DC25 box set was much more than a rumour on here, was it?

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Nick told me that "he heard rumblings of a dc 25 reissue - so either there factually was, or he had read it on here.....

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I think the former. An online acquaintance has a pal who owns a record shop and he hears stuff from sales reps. Indications were that a DC 25th edition was being planned (possibly vinyl only - but I think a lot of us would have pounced on the chance to own an aperture cover edition) but was suddenly pulled.

And it was almost certainly remastered during summer 2019 when Abbey Road put up that pic on their Facebook page of Steve/Jarvis and one of the DC engineers (they would have done the 2019 vinyl version of HnH at the same time).

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I'd be happy just get a complete BBC radio sessions set with the Hit The North material etc. Those WLL demos and sessions too.

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The BBC material including the pre-song chat with Mark and Lard. Riley's between-song schtick is even more entertaining than Jarvis's.

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The Only Way is Down

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Actually, speaking of Different Class, it's currently being played in full on 6Music! Been inducted into Steve Nice but Lamacq's Album Club.

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Master Of The Universe

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Eamonn wrote:

 it was almost certainly remastered during summer 2019 when Abbey Road put up that pic on their Facebook page of Steve/Jarvis and one of the DC engineers (they would have done the 2019 vinyl version of HnH at the same time).


 I thought it was, but because of COVID wasnt released.  Odd to have His n Hers 25 LP and not have Different Class 25 LP.  Suspect there will be a release of it at some point in the next couple of years, but given all the reissues that have occurred in the last 12 months, surprised it didnt happen.



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To give it my twopence worth...

Yes, yes, yes and yes!

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I recall seeing on an "upcoming releases" list that there was a This Is Hardcore pressing for last year - I presume this also didnt come to light due to Covid. Im in agreement that I think to rehash the albums within this type of release is a bit of a pointless thing considering so many reissues exist. There is so much content under lock and key - its so frustraiting knowing what exists, and yes granted I know that Jarvis doesnt want certain things for "public consumption" - however WE are fans, and are willing to pay as such for something like this to come out.



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hearing properly mastered versions of all those odds and ends from the 80's would be lovely. so much randomness laying about. just the thought of getting a hold of the earlier versions of separations gets me salivating. but 25 discs in one big go seems a bit excessive

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