So wtf do you do at a listening party? Do people sit around and listen or what? Is it just on in the shop while you browse around? I'm the same really, Andy. Prefer to have my cup of tea and a biccie and sit listening in peace without other people around. I'll likely go just for Pulp though but wondering what to expect.

Must have a listen to that, Eamonn, this evening. Thanks for letting me know. Didn't buy Hotpress yet

-- Edited by Jean on Monday 19th of May 2025 05:00:04 PM

Newcastle one is in Reflex. The shop is tiny, hard even to shop in, shuffling past people all the time, waiting patiently (grumpily patiently) to get to where you want to get to. Not a comfortable place to absorb an album over 40-50mins. Agree with some others: alone, headphones, sofa. Went to a listening party years ago, Suede Head Music, but it was in an intimate dark club, quite nice, and snagged a huge promo item.

That being said, I want those badges and that pen. Haven't had one of those multi-pens in years, was just fancying one a few weeks ago. Wonder what the orange rectangle is? Grim that there's ANOTHER exclusive vinyl to track down.

HoltbyCity wrote:

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I'm not sure I could think of anything worse than trying to come to terms with some important new music, in a room full of strangers.

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Absolutely. I've waited 24 years, I can wait another week.

Love the Pulp BIC pens. They said their will be listening parties in my neck of the woods!

-- Edited by cutcopy on Tuesday 20th of May 2025 05:13:51 AM

There's one in Napoli? Amazing. I'd never have expected it. The place they're holding it - Fonoteca - is a sort of combined record store/bar/gallery. So I guess we'll just grab a table and a few beers and hear it for the first time together.

It's only a day before the official release though, and a week after it's played in the Rough Trade shops in the UK. So I'm sure it'll have leaked by then. But will I be able to resist listening to it?

Not sure what happens at a listening party nowadays but I assume that they would either play a physical copy or some sort of stream, perhaps each store has a login to access this. An employee could easily rip a physical copy and I'm sure that there are ways of ripping or recording a live stream. Therefore, a leak is certainly possible.

Ah, Nick Banks can already play MORE at home! 

https://bsky.app/profile/therealnickbanks.bsky.social/post/3lpovt5a37c2t

https://www.reddit.com/r/PulpBand/comments/1ks5ry8/pulp_accidentally_leaked_got_to_have_love/

Got to have love, next single

That sounds incredible.

Apparently the new single is tomorrow.

I find it a hard listen having bad the song for nearly 26 years albeit in a rough demo. However to hear how it has been. developed, and with lyrics.... It's like a new song all over again. What a ****ing fantastic song. It's up there. I'm telling you.

Huw stephens is to play the new single in BBC6 Music. Tune in!!

Pulp accidentaly uploaded the Got To Have Love reel... my god... really the song of the year

Now playing! (16:58 UK time)

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_6music

Video now online:

-- Edited by Pip on Thursday 22nd of May 2025 05:01:10 PM

Well that certainly didn't disappoint. Wowee. The spoken word bit gave me shivers.

Great to finally have a studio version at long last. The spoken word bit is straight out of Different Class.

I noticed the word 'jerking' was muted on 6 Music, so it seems we have a radio edit.

Definite radio edit, it was only three and a half minutes long.
Version on Spotify/Album version is almost 5 minutes.

It's always been a winning chorus even when all we had for years was the instrumental demo with the BVs.

Production is strong, good vocals and lyrics. Just not convinced by the spoken-word part on the edit as it leaves out the more impressive part. What remains is a ...little bit cringe? And a wise man, well weej, once said that you can get away with spelling out a word/song title once in your career but here we are with another feeling called LOVE.

Pretty good overall. Still waiting for a killer middle-eight.

Let's carry on the "Got to Have Love" discussion on a new thread.

Mark will be at the Nottingham listening party from 5:30

https://www.instagram.com/p/DKHbJqvsVYU/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

It just sucks being an Aussie fan. On the listening parties page they had listed Australia and I thought maybe Redeye in Sydney or Rockinghorse in Brisbane or one of our many splendid record shops would have a party but now no mention. It can be really deflating being a Pulp fan being so far away....

-- Edited by cutcopy on Tuesday 27th of May 2025 06:59:33 AM

Eamonn wrote:

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Looking at Pulps competition for a number one album on the week of release, Little Simz seems to be the main rival.

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Don't worry, 6Music Dads always pull through.  Especially the way physical to digital is weighted.  

I just realized Farmer's market first lyric line is the answer to the first lyric line of Scott Walker's On your own again
Yeah, I'm bit slow but : do not read the lyrics...

how many more album will we have from Pulp? I'd say 2 in the next 5 years.

He seems quite motivated by the loss of Steve to stop putting things off for tomorrow.

Now the new line-up are in the groove as a unit, have confidence in their songwriting and have put the recording monkey to bed, hopefully there will be more writing after this tour.

Ive been thinking like that as well. 24 years ago. When I picked up WLL in 2001 I got it about 3 weeks after it was released on the day of my final Year 12 HSC exams. I could not have cared less about the exams, I was more concerned about getting to Target and hopefully they might just have a copy. In 24 years I've changed careers twice, undergrads and postgrads, moved cities, long term relationship ie basically married, bought a house + other fully fledged adulting stuff like grief, getting into gardening, Steely Dan, elections, offset accounts and whether the interest rate is gonna come down -- but on Friday I get to be 17-18 again and not the middle aged grumpy lady that I now am (thanks perimenopause - to much info). Got the day off work and heading straight to Rockinghorse. And the one thread in all that life is this silly band from sheffield.

-- Edited by cutcopy on Monday 2nd of June 2025 10:49:38 AM

Pip wrote:

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Love it.

I had just started sixth form college (after high school) and in a weird way this fantastic, more mature Pulp sound with songs about birds, sunrises, rivers and weeds perfectly suited my sudden transition into what I foolishly believed to be a far more mature 16 year old.

Of course, I was still just a daft kid really.

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I'm super similar, I was in the last year of school and had pretty much given up ever being on time as I knew I'd fail everything anyway, and I wanted to take the long way to school walking along an abandoned railway track with my minidisc player. I got really into WLL at this time and 16 year old me definitely thought I was living in Wickerman. Just replace the abandoned Trebor factory with the active Jacob's factory and the smell of Jaffa Cakes.

This was about 2005 and at the time listening to Pulp still felt like something from an earlier generation, no different to listening to Led Zep or something like that. Different Class was a whole decade ago! When Jarvis reemerged for the solo album in 2006 it felt like a real "event". It had been 5 years! since the last Pulp album. An unimaginable amount of time. Now it's been 20+ years since I discovered Pulp through borrowing CDs en masse from the local library and getting my mate to rip them to minidisc.

And around 20 years or so since I discovered in a magazine that a DVD existed of the mysterious Pulp videos, so I blagged a National Express down to London and went to the HMV on Oxford Street - navigating entirely by the map of London I knew from a game called "The Getaway" on PS2 - to find a copy (and the Divine Comedy live DVD). They became the definition of "cool" that defined so much of my life.

I've since emigrated, and amazingly I got to see both Pulp (in a pretty intimate gig for 26!) and The Divine Comedy in Italy last year. Now this year, they both have new albums. And my usual bar is hosting a Pulp listening party on Thursday, even though the owner has never heard of them. It's a bit mad really. 

-- Edited by JohnPaul_II on Monday 2nd of June 2025 09:40:51 AM

I can still remember listening to the Birds in your Garden early morning when the sun was rising, going to university. It really made the commute less painful.

Sony discman is right! The third Friday of October in 2001. After school I went into the local record store in anticipation of the following Monday when WLL would be released. The owner, who was used to me popping-in for my weekly purchases of new albums, largely governed by whatever was getting eight out of ten in NME or four stars in Q, tells me that the new Pulp one was in already. Couldn't believe it. Did my evening shift at the supermarket (had to start it - and finish it) and finally that night I went to bed, had a detailed and careful perusal of the album booklet, turned off the lights, earphones in and the CD embossed with floral/weed-print went into the silver Sony discman. And I prayed that the song I was most looking forward to, Birds In Your Garden, would sound as good as the reviews had hinted at.

Before track seven though, listening to the album in full of course, I remember Wickerman making me feel like I was in the middle of a film. That whole section from "I went there for old time's sake..." I would later lift almost verbatim for my English Leaving Cert (A Level) exam. When Birds came on and the first chorus soared, I could have wept with joy, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. I might have overreacted but I was two weeks away from seventeen, I didn't know a thing at all.

I can't remember much else about that debut listen but suffice to say, when I saw Pulp for the first time - my first proper gig at all, six weeks later, I pretty much knew the album note for note.

 

-- Edited by Eamonn on Tuesday 3rd of June 2025 09:17:48 AM

The album has leaked, unsurprisingly. Seems for the course with any big release these days.

Be warned, the leak I found has a couple of volume leaps / drops on the first and last tracks. Might not be the digital version you want to stick with long-term

you do you

Pip wrote:

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The album has leaked, unsurprisingly. Seems for the course with any big release these days.

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"Where" exactly 

I don't actually remember the first time I heard WLL in full. I mainly remember it being leaked a few weeks beforehand, and getting hold of most if not all the tracks via this forum, with lots of excited discussion as they emerged. Roadkill was the one that stood out for me - I guess as it hadn't been done live, so it was one of the few surprises. But by the time I actually went out and bought the vinyl (from HMV in Coventry... ah, those were the days) the impact had been diluted a bit!

andy wrote:

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Pip wrote:

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The album has leaked, unsurprisingly. Seems for the course with any big release these days.

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"Where" exactly 

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 Anyone ? 

Well, quite. What's another 24 hours (x 2.5) of waiting after 24 years?

Of course it will make want us hear it, its been 24 years ! Those 3 days feel longer than the last 24 years. 

Nevermind I found it.

Of course i bought it and the even the japanese version. Pretty sure 100% of us are supportive of the band in that regard. 

Trying to remember the actual release of WLL / buying it / playing it for the first time but nope, scene missing. Remember going to the gigs around it. 2001 was the year I crashed out of uni, burnt out on drugs, doing a series of jobs that involved manual labour and (the only positive) putting together my first film. Kind of a low point for my life really. Happily in much better place now, 2001 really seems like a different world.

Eamonn wrote:

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Fine, listen if you must, it's still illegal so no spoilers, yeah?

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Well i was gonna wait for the release date but the leak was mentionned here   its not like i was looking for it. 

Dont tell me you've never downloaded an album ever ! you saint. 

No spoiler, i swear. 

 

-- Edited by andy on Tuesday 3rd of June 2025 03:34:34 PM

andy wrote:

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Of course it will make want us hear it, its been 24 years ! Those 3 days feel longer than the last 24 years. 

Nevermind I found it.

Of course i bought it and the even the japanese version. Pretty sure 100% of us are supportive of the band in that regard. 

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I must admit, I have just spent around 20 minutes searching Google and Reddit and cannot find it. I have ordered a copy of course. 

Ian wrote:

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andy wrote:

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Of course it will make want us hear it, its been 24 years ! Those 3 days feel longer than the last 24 years. 

Nevermind I found it.

Of course i bought it and the even the japanese version. Pretty sure 100% of us are supportive of the band in that regard. 

---

I must admit, I have just spent around 20 minutes searching Google and Reddit and cannot find it. I have ordered a copy of course. 

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 Check Comment above dont think its widely leaked 

 

ill try and not listen to it too much mix and levels are weird between tracks

-- Edited by andy on Tuesday 3rd of June 2025 06:40:21 PM

-- Edited by andy on Tuesday 3rd of June 2025 06:42:59 PM

Thanks, I have downloaded it as I really wanted to get my hands on "Partial Eclipse" but after looking at the waveforms, I decided against pressing play.

Sure, my first listen will be via streaming on my way to work on Friday morning but even that's a massive improvement over what I have just looked at.

Can we start a new thread for discussion of the album/people's personal opinions and descriptions of songs? As this thread has been going for weeks so it seems dumb to tag it with spoilers at this stage.

Just got the dispatch notification from the record store in Sheffield I used to buy the album. Seems it was posted today - it'll be a while before.I get it here in Italy of course, but I guess it's likely that some people will be getting copies delivered tomorrow?

JohnPaul_II wrote:

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Just got the dispatch notification from the record store in Sheffield I used to buy the album. Seems it was posted today - it'll be a while before.I get it here in Italy of course, but I guess it's likely that some people will be getting copies delivered tomorrow?

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 Me too, says posted today from Sheffield, so I expect it'll arrive on Thursday. I'm out all day Thursday, and won't get back until after midnight (King Creosote concert), so I might be More'ing until dawn.

Loved the stories in this thread. Can't remember 1st listen of WLL, but I remember taking my sony discman into work the day TIH came out, so I could buy it at Our Price and listen on my lunch break. Took an unauthorised long lunch break that day, and got sacked a few weeks later because I skived off for a gig, and gave a very feeble excuse - getting sacked always felt like an achievement for me... I have not thrived in life.

 

lipglossed wrote:

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I've had a lot going on in my life lately and to have the consistent love of Pulp and to go into this album this week, something I've dreamed of for so long it all still feels just a bit weird like it's not really happening.

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 Whatever's been going on, I hope the universe is sorting it all out for you, lipglossed. New Pulp is a lovely distraction to have.

lipglossed wrote:

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I've had a lot going on in my life lately and to have the consistent love of Pulp and to go into this album this week, something I've dreamed of for so long it all still feels just a bit weird like it's not really happening.

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 lets Hope it brings you a bit of joy.

What a great way of putting it. You're right, on many days since the split in 2002 when no one, not even the band themselves, seemed to care much about Pulp, we very much "kept the lights on"!

Bar Italia got a credit in the 2006 deluxe editions and Pulpwiki in both Jarvis' lyrics book and Mark's visual history (Acrylic Afts also thanked in the latter). I think a little bit of More should be for us too!

Today i'm not listening to it, waiting for release day. Well, i will try not to :D

More in full, then a best of set list ? Looks like it's happening