Eamonn wrote:

It was very cool to like Pulp in the mid-90s but from Hardcore onwards, not so much.

But yeah, Pulp toured Hardcore to half-empty arenas in winter 1998 when the album wasn't even in the charts anymore. By the end, late 2002, the Hits compilation could only manage number 71 in the charts, which broke my heart as that was the peak of my teen love for Pulp having been too young to enjoy '94-'96.

 I never worried too much about cool, but I think that it was more about Pulp post-Different Class making less populist songs that lacked the simplistic messages of Common People, Sorted and Disco 2000.  As for 1998, I never saw Pulp as they played Finsbury Park when I was on honeymoon and I didn't go to Wembley but possibly the venues were too big.  Pulp played 3 sold out nights at Brixton in 2001, so were still a draw.

As for Hits, that was probably because so many considered Different Class to be the hits album.  However, Hits did go platinum last year, albeit 20 years after its release.

https://www.bpi.co.uk/brit-certified/

Pulp Hits Island Platinum Album 16.12.2022 18.11.2002

In terms of critical perception at the time, I think they also just took a bit too long to get this out. If theyd been mid-97 it could have been at the vanguard of the Britpop backlash. By 98 they were a victim of it. Superficial point, but having been an older band in the first place could not have helped. 

I did not realise they were playing to semi empty arenas. On that tour I saw them at the Doncaster Dome - I remember the stench of chlorine from the swimming pool. They were great though. 

Re Mark criticising the title track as mentioned elsewhere on the thread. I remember a magazine interview from the time where Candida said she was sick of people banging on about The Fear because she didnt rate it. I find that stuff really interesting - the idea that they spend weeks / months recording this stuff but no one quite agrees what the good bits are. 

Eamonn wrote:

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It was very cool to like Pulp in the mid-90s but from Hardcore onwards, not so much.

By the end, late 2002, the Hits compilation could only manage number 71 in the charts, which broke my heart as that was the peak of my teen love for Pulp having been too young to enjoy '94-'96.

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I think we must be a similar age, Eamonn, as that was much my experience. First heard them in '94, properly discovered them in '95, utterly obsessed with them by '96 but far too young to go see them live (not many primary school boys there I guess).

Even a couple of years later, despite having the album and all the singles, both my parents refused to take me to the Manchester Apollo in November '98, but didn't have a problem taking my elder sister to see the Spice Girls at Don Valley Stadium a couple of months earlier. Unforgiveable.

As for coolness, my karaoke rendition of Disco 2000 went down a storm at our end of year music lesson in the summer of '97, but by '01, nobody at school gave a shit about Pulp except me.

Saw Jarvis twice in '07 and '08 - more than old enough! - and finally broke my Pulp duck in 2011 down at Hyde Park (Wireless). "Jesus it took a long time."

-- Edited by Pip on Friday 7th of April 2023 10:20:20 PM

-- Edited by Pip on Friday 7th of April 2023 10:22:14 PM

With regards to This Is Hardcore- at the time it came out, I had the His n Hers and the Different Class albums- after listening to it, it made me curious on what else Pulp had released, so i started to hunt down their older albums- the point im trying to make is that if it wasnt for This Is Hardcore, I might not have been interested in their earlier stuff. This Is Hardcore is a great album- better than We Love Life (in my opinion) Maybe we need an order of preference of Pulp albums thread for 2023- we must be due one by now

-- Edited by Pye on Friday 7th of April 2023 11:46:26 PM

lipglossed wrote:

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If they released Like a Friend when they'd made it - rather than just using it for the movie - it could've been huge. It's a stomper. A potential karaoke staple.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Its structure just doesn't sound appropriate for single release. They did, in fact, release it as a single in the US. This version contains a shorter instrumental in the middle and some of the lyrics are repeated.

Eamonn wrote:

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Yeah, its a bit like Sunrise in structure but with a great last vocal section. Noot sure if that would have been enough to give it copious radio-play.

Having said that, from nowhere it gained huge interest/streams from featuring on a US adult cartoon 10-15 years ago and I think the band must have noticed this to dust it off for the first reunion, even playing it on US chat-show TV.

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 I don't think there's that much different between its first verse and that of, say, Help the Aged. And that song made it to number 8, with a much less sellable theme.

Fair enough - happy to admit I'm biased, I love the song so much!

Eamonn wrote:

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Me too, it's great!

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Knocked together in such a short time. And apparently the movie people really liked it... I remember in Mark Sturdy's book, Nick talking about how Pulp were saying "well, it's a bit shit actually, yknow..." but they were being fawned over nonetheless. "And then they bugger off and make a shit film." 

Pulp have always been such modest assessors of their own work. I know it's a matter of personal taste, things like Mark not liking This is Hardcore or Sorted, and Jarvis being down on Mis-Shapes, but they really are their own worst critics, aren't they?

 

I personally think TIH was the only Pulp album that was distinctly "of its time".

Whereas DC and HnHs both felt like throwbacks to bygone eras (the 60s, 70s and 80s, to varying degrees), and WLL was just completely out of step with everything - TIH fitted quite nicely into that late 90s surge of Art Rock / Concept Albums which was bookended by OK Computer in 1997 and The Soft Bulletin in 1999. If TIH had a commercial fault, it was that it was little too conventional at a moment when music consumers were actually quite receptive to leftfield pop.

Also just want to take moment to recognise TIH's most underrated tune: the oft forgotten "Day After the Revolution", which is really quite a good song that I think people rarely listen to in this streaming era due to the (admittedly annoying) 14 minute outro. I don't think DATR has ever been performed live, which is a shame because I could imagine it being quite a barn-storming rocker on stage- imagine an encore where DATR transitions into Sunrise- could work brilliantly. I am hoping the band dust it off for this tour, as obviously, it's the perfect career capstone. 

-- Edited by Simply Fuss Free on Saturday 15th of April 2023 04:31:27 AM

Hmm. In a moment of boredom, I've been farting about with the tracklist again, reflecting on whether there should've been any changes. To be honest, it's actually hard to identify them - pretty much all the material is there on the album anyway, we can listen to the stuff that isn't, and the tone and sentiment will be pretty much the same, whatever changes we want to make. And it's all subjective anyway, depending on what songs you personally like (I've read one magazine article that thinks 'TV Movie' is the best thing Pulp ever did, so go figure).

But I'm increasingly of the opinion that This is Hardcore should have had a different ending. Look, don't get me wrong - I like 'The Day After the Revolution', and I think it's a decent finale, but it changes the narrative of the album a bit abruptly, and the lyrics are a little vague - yes, the whole "Irony is over" etc section is brilliant, but its verses are a little... underwhelming. It doesn't unify the album's themes like other closers do, and it compares weakly to every Pulp album closer on Island in that respect. Instead, it decides 'look, there was a revolution'. Fun - good, even - but it doesn't tie the album together. Another choice might have done so better.

And so, I think there's a fairly persuasive argument that the final track should've been 'Dishes'.

Sacrilege, maybe, but look: thematically, the album is about celebrity and fame, its shallowness, the unsatisfying charade of performance, sexual climax and anti-climax, the 'what-next?' feeling, youth fading, lines forming, lines snorting, all the baggage that Pulp had to put up with. And it's really, thematically, the first album that is about Jarvis, the first one where his lyrics are about him - yes, First Time and Mile End et al are drawn from personal experience, yadda yadda, but this is a character sketch - a bit like the type Blur used to do (albeit a subtler and more circumspect one. Basically, it's what The Great Escape could never have been).

If This is Hardcore - as per its title track - is about how unsatisfying and life-wrecking fame was for Jarvis, then its final track should be his rejection of it. His resignation, his abdication to simply standing in the kitchen, drying the dishes. No more trying to turn water into wine, no more Pulp Masterplan, that's all done now. In the end, returning to his domesticity is more fulfilling than the hell-raising shallow celebrity life; yes, it's dreary, but it's reality. You can't be a Man of the People if you're not actually one of them. At least, he has the 'you' he's referring to now, this other person in his life - something concrete and real. A suitable ending point.

I think it'd be perfect. And it's a lovely song, with lyrics that really bring the album to a sweet close, with lovely instrumental backing from the rest of the band, including one of those Mark guitar lines. I'm not sure what replaces Dishes as the second song on the album, that's a tougher decision, but for me, it's the ideal closing track. Would be interested to see what others think.

Eamonn wrote:

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Interesting thoughts....have to think about it.

Dirty World after The Fear would make a great track two. More fear and loathing in Lambeth.

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 Oh god yeah - really ladle on the freak-out and paranoia. Would've made the album even more of a statement.

Another thought that got itself wedged in my head - I think This is Hardcore is the perfect end to Side A, the way that Peter Thomas sample just sputters out is perfect, and it leaves you with this mood after having just listened to it. I think it'd be incredible if you had to get up, walk over to the turntable, flip the record over, gently lower the needle.... there's a crackle... and then you hear the piano tinkle that opens 'The Professional'. More louche lounge music from Sheffield's finest.

Well, this was an interesting read. Interesting perspectives on how it could have all been perceived so differently if it had come out sooner or if they'd gone a safer route with Cocaine Socialism and perhaps Like A Friend. I love both of those and know many non-fans who love the latter. Another aspect I think is that this was a dark album for the very young fans to grasp. Russell mentions in an interview about his young son bopping around to Common People and that's the thing, children liked Pulp in the mid-90s. I was in primary school still when TiH came out. I didn't even know what the word hardcore meant. At the same time, Jarvis was on Live & Kicking promoting it! It's an album I grew to love a few years later and I see it as a brave move now but I'm sure it must have lost that age cohort.