Its happening

I'm hoping for yes.

I'm really hoping they bring the string section along and the whole live band setup and just put out one final, beautiful record - then they can tour a bit more and call it a day.

I'd feel very fulfilled as a fan if that was how they ended it. We're very lucky to be getting what we're getting now as I thought it was over for good in 2012, but a nice latter-day record with all the bells and whistles would just cap things off wonderfully.

On a side-note, the Elysian Collective put an eye emoji on the instagram post mentioned above. The studio itself wrote 'Confirmed' as well. I'm getting very excited now.

On another side note, it could be a way as shown above to resurrect some of the WLL stuff that never came out on a deluxe edition. One can dream, right?

-- Edited by legohairjordan on Wednesday 14th of August 2024 09:54:26 PM

Ian wrote:

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Simple question. What do you think?

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 I dont think they will and I dont think I want them to.  Apart from suede, I cant think of any other band that has a gap of a decade and made a decent comeback LP.   I would rather pulp not disappoint me.

A bit precious innit?! The integrity of the canon has been threatened since Freaks came out in 1987 

Seriously though, they either think their new songs are good or they don't. If it's an EP rather than an album, it would be more down to not wanting to spend months/years in a studio rather than not believing in the material.

Aw, I absolutely loved The Next Day and Blackstar :) I love Bowie full stop and find myself going through phases where I'll be mad into the early 70s stuff, then I'll be mad into the 90s stuff and to be honest I hold TND and Blackstar right up there with his best works. Just goes to show how taste differs!
Pulp really blew me away last year when I wasn't expecting it. That stage production was so well put together and presented. The string section added so much. I can definitely hear them and see them managing something very special. I'm equally happy if they don't record anything at all. We've a great canon of work there already to enjoy endlessly. One song I would just love to hear recorded with the string section in all its glory is Hymn of the North. That's right up there for me as one of my favourites. Just one of those songs that really moves me. An album can have 6 or 7 songs (station to station, blackstar). Doesn't have to be a 12 song affair.
Cuckoo is another one I'd love to hear in better quality. Grandfather's Nursey is already there. What will be will be.

I love The Next Day! Big highlights for me would be How Does the Grass Grow? and Valentine's Day but I pretty much like it all. I often think with that album he perfected each sound he had. For example, If You Can See Me sounds like an Earthling era song but if it was on Earthling it'd be a contender for its best track. Valentine's Day is like a contender for the Ziggy era, How does the grass... that's like Scary Monsters era etc etc. Heat is like Outside era. You feel so lonely... that's like Heathen era. I just felt like he revisited everything and perfected it with that album. Then once the slate was clean he could produce the likes of Blackstar and surprise everyone all over again.

I think Buddha is his strongest 90s offering but I have a soft spot for Outside and Earthling too.

He left us on a real high and even if he hadn't done those last 2 albums he was always going to be my old favourite but it was a fitting end artistically to do those last two particularly Blackstar and I'm so happy there was the time for it to happen.

Same with Pulp. They'll always have huge emotional significance to me no matter what happens but going back to what Jarvis said before about Glastonbury 95 would be the closing scene in the film...sometimes my mind wanders off to imagining them leaving on another high in album terms. WLL has been the end in my mind for years though and it's fitting in it's own way. They had the success (DC), then the hangover (TiH) and this(WLL) was like picking themselves back up and swearing to live a cleaner life after the hangover here comes sunrise. And that's one nice ending. A sunset could be one too though. What will be will be. It's been a fantastic voyage either way :)

I think if you haven't heard many good-to-great albums by projects that took a 10+ year break then you haven't listened to enough albums

I love how organically We Love Life takes everything full circle. That album and Hardcore feel like companion pieces. With We Love Life you have the mature musical progression of Pulp's sound, given air and room to breathe for the first time proper. And it's there in the songs: Bad Cover Version recalls the jealous ballads of His 'N' Hers, Weeds recalls the class anthems of Different Class, it's all in there; especially in Wickerman which is an odyssey through all of those past stories, meandering yet purposeful... so beautiful and poetic... it's an album about how endings are beginnings, and it's never too late to start again and open a new page... life, death, and renewal, through nature's life-cycles (trees and sunrise), and before the sunrise the penultimate track Roadkill sounds like it could be off the very first Pulp album... a foray into the past then a leap into the new...

I could honestly be talked into thinking it's the greatest thing Pulp have ever done (even though I don't go a bundle on Bob Lind). But as perfectly as it brings things full-circle, it leaves the future open. That's the genius of a wise, wise album that knew it was ending something before the jig was actually up: the fact there's unfinished business is actually what so neatly finishes the business. The three songs we've heard (two Jarvis/Hawley tinkerings and one outright Pulp track) all plough that same furrow.

Everything has been incredibly astute with how the Pulp legacy has been managed. Jarvis got to go and do his own thing and make songs he couldn't with Pulp, like his album with Steve Albini (it's so sad to think that half the people in the room on Further Complications aren't with us anymore). And Pulp sat back and saw that Pulp aged incredibly, incredibly well - finer than fine wine - songs like Common People and Mis-Shapes have only grown in momentous purpose... we need them more than ever now, really, really, more than ever. I think they know that.