Also, curious what production choices (without getting too technical!) you'd make on Dirty World. Already pretty bombastic and fully-formed unless you mean you'd prefer it dialled down a little.

Haha! Re. It's A Dirty World, it's just got quite an Italo Disco feel with the main riff and the timbales. I would have made it sound bigger- big sound/ Trevor Horn style but maybe that would be too HnH. 

@Pye Seductive Barry is a strange one- like a more mellow, lounge version of Feeling Called Love, I would definitely have liked it to be more rhythmic, more like Weeds II which has a similar feel come to think of it. 

It's funny how even all these years later, we're trying to 'fix' This Is Hardcore. It's sort of like the good old 'The White Album would've been an amazing single LP, here's a tracklisting' sort of thing. At the end of the day, it's undoubtely got its flaws but that's part of what makes it what it is. There's no way you can just swap out a couple of tracks and turn it into Different Class II.

I went in quite hard on TiH in my book all those years ago and I probably stand by most of that. But there are also things I like about it, or at least admire. I think you've got to admire the ambition of it - the fact they were really striving to go places they hadn't been before, musically and lyrically. I guess that was the case with every Pulp album in different ways, but they could've perhaps got away with resting on their laurels at this point and there's a clear determination not to do that, even if they don't always seem totally sure of how to go about it. Maybe they knew this was their one chance (or their last chance) to make a megabucks rock album, glossy production, orchestras, Neneh Cherry, high-budget videos and all.

I also like the honesty of it. It's Jarvis worried about getting old, screwed up by fame, watching a bit too much porn, knackered by too much partying. And yes, it sometimes gets a bit moany as a result, but there's a strength in setting out your frailties like that.

It's probably their most complex album in a way. Still plenty to get your head around, even now.

Ian wrote:

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Also, something that has just occurred to me. Is the "Permanent Darkness Remix" of the title track an official remix or just a bootleg? There are some comments on it here: jamiesrunoutgroove.blogspot.com/2006/05/mp3-pulp-this-is-hardcore-permanent.html

I'm asking this because the original only samples the trumpet loop from the Peter Thomas track but this one contains more of it. I don't have a clue how it works but I presume that the band only sought permission to use the trumpet loop.

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 Thank you for this. I don't remember hearing anything about this version. The link, to download it, doesn't work anymore. If someone could share this mix, it will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. 

Oh my, whata mess from 30 seconds... 

 

WTF this is shit, sorry to say. Is it even mixed ? 

It's an album that really wallows. I think that's the best description.

Nor is that particularly a bad thing. The title track is so theatrical, and I think it is as special is it's made out to be. Some find Dishes trite but I think it's pretty charming, and Sylvia, though probably the closest Pulp ever came to straight-up Britpop, is a good idea well-executed. I also like A Little Soul, which tends to be pretty polarising.

Then you have Help the Aged, which I've always felt a bit too on-the-nose for its own good - it has some subtlety (the bridge is the best part: "You can dye your hair, but it's the one thing you can't change"), but when Jarvis sings "No big deal / So give us all a feel", I find it a bit too Sid James, if that makes sense. It's perverse and unlovely by design. 

Party Hard takes an amazing Mackey bass riff and clogs it with too much fuzzy guitar. I can't hear what Jarvis is singing, and his vocal is a bit duff - it's so easy to imagine him yelling the lyrics over the top of the music instead. And that - ostensibly the most club-friendly of the singles - came out after the album had already fallen away (yes it's funny...)

I read some reviews of it back then, and they often singled out the final three tracks, but the album is so downbeat that I don't think it particularly convinces with The Day After the Revolution. It feels a bit like the band are pulling a happy ending out of their arse, when the whole album is so bleak. The "X is over" motif is good, but Jarvis's realisation that it was "you all along" doesn't quite work for me. Tune is good, though.

It's just that thematically, I think the other Island albums end much better; This is Hardcore nails the sentiment, the feel, but then doesn't really round it off... really, I think We Love Life feels like the thematic resolution to This is Hardcore.

I really do think Like a Friend could've been seismic, by the way. Probably the biggest Pulp hit post-Disco 2000 if they'd set it up to be one. It's missing from the album, and I think you could probably do away with something from that second side to fit it in. Cocaine Socialism is good but underdeveloped - Radiohead had already covered that angle (although the track they made, Electioneering, they've since disowned, presumably because it has a cowbell in it which means it's not miserable enough for Thom Yorke) - and I think Glory Days is an improvement.

This, to me, is Pulp's bronze medal album. The band (especially Jarvis) held it back in some ways, but if that hadn't happened, the album wouldn't be the same, because that's the artistic approach that informed them. It just still is a bit of a shame that Russell left, and that 96-97 was such a damaging period for the rest on a personal level. But that's the downside of fame. 

-- Edited by lipglossed on Thursday 6th of April 2023 01:51:47 AM

I thought a common criticism of the album from the get-go was that the final songs gave a false happy-ending cop-out to the record. I've rarely seen Glory Days and Revolution been praised by hacks.

I think my favourite writing on the album is by Owen Hatherley in his Uncommon book. I don't agree with everything he says but he makes really good points (many made in this thread too) in an eloquent way.

-- Edited by Eamonn on Wednesday 5th of April 2023 05:00:14 PM

I still think "Dishes", "Ladies Man" and "My Erection" are groovy and the best recordings from the era. Not trying to be contrarian - I have always been more into Pulp's songs the where synths take centre stage.

Eamonn wrote:

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I think it does work well live in a big open air setting. I'm expecting a Hardcore-heavy set at Finsbury. Jarvis likes his "On this day" commemorations and it will be almost 25 years to the day since the Finsbury'98 performance.

I actually went for a run in Finsbury Park this morning and asked a security guard whereabouts the gigs take place. I only know it for playing tennis and going on runs/walks. Never been to a gig there.

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Hmm, this prompted me to reconsider the album a bit. I mean, I'm still hoping to get hold of a couple of tickets for Finsbury some point between now and the gig, but a Hardcore-heavy set sounds distinctly less appealing. Perhaps this is because I've never seen Pulp live before, but I'd rather have a hits-heavy setlist - Disco 2000, Lipgloss, Razzmatazz, DYRTFT? - than one that mainly draws on TIH material, your typical mix of Different Class and H&H with a couple other tracks thrown in.

I mean, I'd insist upon Hardcore's title track and Like a Friend, but besides those two, I think some of the Hardcore songs can struggle in a live setting or are simply too much of a downer. Sylvia would be nice, and of course they'll do Help the Aged, but I wouldn't want TIH to dominate; I think it's a suite of songs from a particularly horrid time for the group, and while it contains some real musical achievements, it is more than the sum of its parts - the unified themes and feel, the slightly duff production and tracklist, it's sort of its own beast and I think you sort of have to detach it and put it on one side.

Not much of a booty for me to wiggle!

But yes, Party Hard is a great song live - just not one I'd necessarily pick if I could choose others. Which is a problem the album suffers from more broadly, being - in my opinion - greater than the sum of its parts, and all that. You can't remove the tracks from their context so much and listen to them in isolation - they don't work as well.

It's not hated, Andy, a lot of us love it and those who struggle with it, still admire many aspects of it.

I think the general consensus over the years has been lukewarm reviews (very strong first half, tails-off on side two) and it's only these retrospectives that started to creep in, over the last five years or so, that really go hard with praise for it. That is interesting in its self, as if it's now cooler just to say good things about Pulp which was certainly not the case between 1998 and 2002.

-- Edited by Eamonn on Friday 7th of April 2023 11:05:08 AM