I managed to track-down the full interview that Jarvis did with Absolute Radio last week. They don't make it easy to find - i.e teasing us on their social media with a couple of video clips from Jarvis talking about AI and how long the album took to make.
Anyway, if you can be bothered, you need to download the app "Rayo" (I thought for a second that was the dating app for beautiful celebrities but then remembered that was Raya, as in the handsome Arsenal goalkeeper...I wonder if he's on there...), then find Absolute Radio and go to The Sunday Night Music Club with Danielle Perry and navigate to last Sunday's show. The chat with Jarvis starts just after 32 minutes.
Most interesting things that I don't think he had revealed elsewhere in the early promo for the record so far:
- Spike Island was recorded first and separate from the three week album sessions in Nov-Dec'24. Near the end of the summer James Ford had three days free shortly before Pulp went to America. This must be from when that news-story/picture appeared of Jarvis near the studio in Walthamstow.
- So they used this session as a test-run to see if they'd feel comfortable recording more material on their return. They recorded and mixed the song during that time. Jarvis plays the slide-guitar on Spike Island. They went to America feeling that they had proven they could work quickly on new material with Ford. Jarvis had 95% of the album lyrics written before returning to the studio.
- Jeanette (Lee), Jarvis (and Pulp's) manager, gave him the seal of approval for the song. Pulp were happy for it to be the lead-single and carried-on with the album.
There's some other stuff mentioned too that might be of interest including some of Jarvis' interesting lyric-writing methods. Sorry, I don't know how to record a stream apart from using my phone's microphone. I'm sure someone else can do a better job.
Here's a link where you don't have to download their app but you do need to register with them to play..
That's really interesting, thanks! I noticed in the Mojo interview that they said Spike Island was recorded in August, and I wasn't sure if that was a mistake. Evidently not!
Me too, wasn't sure if it was a typo where they generally put the songs together and make lazy assumptions, but it never seemed like a JARV IS song to me
I assumed that was an error but suppose it's conceivably something they'd been mucking around with in the before times. It was the first new song after Hymn for the North right? So would be feasible that it was another older one he had under his belt before Pulp songwriting started in earnest.
__________________
"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
I too, thought that was a mistake about Background Noise being written with Jarv Is... It sounds more pop/Pulp. If true, I guess it took a lot of pressure off of Nick, Mark and Candida to feel that they had to help write an album. Because of the 11 songs on More, it seems:
1 is a Jarvis solo effort (Hymn) 1 is a collaboration between Hawley and Jarvis (A Sunset) 2 are unfinished Pulp songs from days of yore (Grown-Ups and Got To Have Love) 1 is a Jarv Is... song previously performed live (Slow Jam) 1 is apparently another Jarv Is... song (Background Noise) 1 was (instrumentally) written by/started by Jason Buckle
So that just leaves the four below as possible 2024 "Ok, let's see if we can write from scratch for songs for a new Pulp record" tracks :
- Tina - Farmers Market - My Sex - Partial Eclipse
And who knows, once further new interviews emerge and more is revealed about the individual songs, these four might involve more collaborators or stem from a different time as well!
If the songs are crap, you can imagine reviewers jumping to the obvious/lazy conclusion that this is a "hodge-podge of songs, lumped together to make something commercial - i.e a Pulp comeback album" but luckily, we've heard live versions of eight songs and they all sound promising.
And if Nick, Mark and Candida were just getting into the groove of writing and contributing to songs again for the first time in decades, maybe their appetite has been whetted to do more (not "More") material...
Final thought - it being Easter weekend, Slow Jam had the working title of "Bad Friday", didn't it? Coupled with the lyrical references to Jesus and "Resurrection Man", this makes it officially Pulp's Easter song. Now they just need to re-record "Snow" properly, for the next record - seeing as they're used to borrowing from the back-catalogue - and we'll have a proper Pulp Christmas song too
Feels like Jarvis songwriting has evolved too. Before for Pulp 1, he didn't much write outside the band sessions didn't he ?
Then the solo career happened and more fully formed tune written on his own. So it makes sense that for Pulp 2, Jarvis is going into the studio with songs, rather than just basic ideas or even nothing.
He even says he went in studio with lyrics already written. So it's likely most of the songs are his. and the other 3 are bringing beats, bits and arrangements.
3 weeks recording sessions also makes it nearly impossible to write an album (for Pulp, that is, it worked for other bands).
-- Edited by andy on Monday 21st of April 2025 05:07:53 PM
One of our young Pulpers (Hugo?) has asked Mark what his fave song from the album is. Can't find it now but he replied that it's "Slow Jam" - I can't wait to hear the studio version. Its interesting that's he's chosen a Jarv Is... number. Maybe it's been souped-up with Pulp involvement...
my biggest fear became my biggest hope. Candida did a great job on A sunset (compared to the first very live of the song), I hope she did the same on Slow Jam.
When its your first album in 25 years, i'm pretty sure you have a strong song selection, so if slow jam and a sunset made the cut, it means they managed to make something good out of them.
It could be like Different Class or This Is Hardcore, an album with 11 singles.
One of our young Pulpers (Hugo?) has asked Mark what his fave song from the album is. Can't find it now but he replied that it's "Slow Jam" - I can't wait to hear the studio version. Its interesting that's he's chosen a Jarv Is... number. Maybe it's been souped-up with Pulp involvement...
In fact it was @pulpkeepcalm (fan since the 90s i think).
Andy wrote:
When its your first album in 25 years, i'm pretty sure you have a strong song selection, so if slow jam and a sunset made the cut, it means they managed to make something good out of them. It could be like Different Class or This Is Hardcore, an album with 11 singles.
True. I'm sure they worked a lot in order to have really good material and of course improve others.
With the Pulp archive being well and truly blown apart (Grown Ups for example - of all songs demoed, id never have given that as an option, also Cuckoo being released on that compilation) - id say that every option had been made available to them in regards whether to revisit old failed demos, new songs from riffs etc. Its not just gonna be a mish mash of bits from here and there.
Another thing that matters is cohesion. Do the songs feel like a disparate collection drawn together, or are they organically bound together by strong underlying thematic threads? Do they share a sentiment or a feeling?
I think, so far, that they do. And funnily enough, it's not far from the 'Pulp Love Life' sentiment of their last album.
I mean, I think We Love Life was dedicated more towards presenting the gnarlier side of life: 'seamy nature' might be the phrase the grit of the true story of the Weeds, the murder of Minnie Timperley, the decayed love of The Trees, the love-on-the-rocks of Birds, very literal undercurrents below Sheffield in Wickerman, the bitterness of Bad Cover Version, the bereftness of Roadkill, *especially* I Love Life... the only real respite coming only when you "admit that you're a ****up like the rest of us". It's only then that you get Sunrise, isn't it?
These songs, so far, carry on in that vein: much as This Is Hardcore flows organically into We Love Life - and obviously the album isn't out yet, so a MAHOOSIVE pinch of salt is needed with me saying this but so far, it feels like there's a continuity. These are songs, I think, about the necessity of love, the necessity of life, the necessity of feeling and acting and doing things.
Spike Island is about realising you need to 'come alive' again - 'I was born to perform, it's a calling'; Got To Have Love which lyrically is all about the necessity of true authentic feeling otherwise 'you're just jerking off inside someone else', arguing that only love can 'bring you back to life'; Slow Jam, in its Jarv Is form, bemoans 'when love slows down' amid a conversation with Jesus, then Background Noise responds that you only realise the true worth of your love when it's on the rocks, that 'you only notice when it disappears', that it's the strength of the feeling that matters, and invokes JC again: 'Jesus Christ now, what a feeling'.
'The Hymn of the North', truly stunning, starts with a lovely verse: 'Factories lie empty / Manufacturing emptiness / Life still needs to be filled nonetheless' - as Jarvis urges the subject to 'go and find something to love'. Farmers Market discusses the importance of pursuing what really matters - 'Hold on, are these groceries really that important? More important than getting your number and finding out who you really are?'- and concludes that you need to pursue authentic experience - 'Ain't it time we started living'?
What was it Jarvis said at Glastonbury 1995? "You can't buy feelings and you can't buy anything worth having." 'A Sunset', which concludes the album, has lyrics which are about that notion. A beautiful sunset can't be bought, but anyone can enjoy it, can't they?
There's this one thread that keeps appearing in the lyrics, this one sentiment Jarvis keeps repeating: "it's just a feeling":
Spike Island It's a guess, no idea It's a feeling Not a voice, in my head Just a feeling
Background Noise What brought me back Just a hunch, just an inkling, just a feeling Force of habit, a compromise, a failure But I've got this feeling
Got to Have Love It's time to come to your senses
Farmers Market Ain't it time we started feeling? Ain't it time we started feeling? Ain't it time we started feeling?
In other words: might the album be about a FEELING CALLED LOVE? (I mean, in Got to Have Love, he even spells out 'L O V E'...)
I think the songs we've heard thus far are often about rejecting commodified experiences, distractions, minutiae and other gubbins in favour of opening yourself up to feeling. That the internal is more tangible than other stuff. And it's very crucial and to some extent even desperate! The urgency of Got to Have Love, or the songs that Background Noise calls back to - not just First Time? but also there's flickers of OU in there ('Got on the train, it started to rain / I started to think about being single again / I got off at the first station'). Maybe there isn't a specificity, but the lyrics are kind of, I don't know, painting from a palette that we can recognise.
Even in 'My Sex', Jarvis's sex evades description, it can't be pinned down in that way. It's authentic and it's internal, that's how he feels the authenticity. (Maybe reaching here. I think My Sex is probably more just about shagging? Deliciously so)
What a premature analysis of an unreleased album where the lyrics might yet have changed! But still, whatever. I wonder if that's the core conceit of the album: the necessity of feeling, and of opening yourself up to it and embracing that in a world where so often we're numbed into nonparticipation, in a 'contactless society' - to continue, as Pulp have, to keep on living and loving and feeling...
So, in conclusion? I don't think the album will feel disparate or disunified or cobbled-together. A very strong 'hook' seems to already be emerging, although as I said earlier, we'll definitely have to wait to hear the whole album.
-- Edited by lipglossed on Sunday 27th of April 2025 01:16:18 AM
Not sure where to put that since the search form does not work.
I just had a Pulp dream. They asked to fill in for the guitarist (not mark) and i was put on stage few hours later, with no rehearsals and no setlist. Let me tell you that it was a scary (but exciting) dream
After hearing Spike Island, anyone else wish they'd held After You back for these sessions?
Totally. I like After You now a bit more but i gotta in 2013 i really disliked it, compared to the demo which was more organic and gritty. To me After You is a superior song. But. they kinda fit and sound good together. So we can completely stick it in a tracklist when the album is released, it wont sound out of place i think.
I kinda hope they re-recored it during the sessions, and hope for a bonus track release at some point this year. Maybe yeah ?
-- Edited by andy on Sunday 27th of April 2025 11:59:58 AM
It could be like Different Class or This Is Hardcore, an album with 11 singles.
I wouldn't quite go that far. I accept that the majority of "Different Class" could have been released as a single but a lot of that would depend on the order in which they were released. For example, the second single was always going to sell well following the success of "Common People" but to me, "Live Bed Show" and "Bar Italia" are great album tracks but not singles. Also, "I Spy" would have needed censoring, "FEELINGCALLEDLOVE" may have needed a shorter intro and "Monday Morning" a shorter outro as the shouty bits are probably a bit much for daytime radio. "Pencil Skirt" or "Underwear" would have been fine though had the latter not already been a B-side.
With regards to "This is Hardcore", I have never classed this as a single-heavy album. The title-track would never constitute a single for me but it was a bold move with a great video and "A Little Soul" is just crap. The obvious "Party Hard" aside, there's only really "Sylvia" and "Glory Days" that I would class as singles. "Help the Aged" does have a soaring chorus and great video but I'd say that it was more a follow-up single than a comeback. "I'm a Man" would have sold well but it's a bit over-sludgy and they couldn't play it live.
I'd say that "We Love Life" had more singles than "This is Hardcore"; "Weeds", "Minnie", "Birds in Your Garden", "Bob Lind" (censored) and "Bad Cover Version" (earlier) are obvious radio-friendly hits. Oh, and "Sunrise" could have been huge in 2000 when everyone wanted a piece of it.
It could be like Different Class or This Is Hardcore, an album with 11 singles.
I wouldn't quite go that far. I accept that the majority of "Different Class" could have been released as a single but a lot of that would depend on the order in which they were released. For example, the second single was always going to sell well following the success of "Common People" but to me, "Live Bed Show" and "Bar Italia" are great album tracks but not singles. Also, "I Spy" would have needed censoring, "FEELINGCALLEDLOVE" may have needed a shorter intro and "Monday Morning" a shorter outro as the shouty bits are probably a bit much for daytime radio. "Pencil Skirt" or "Underwear" would have been fine though had the latter not already been a B-side.
With regards to "This is Hardcore", I have never classed this as a single-heavy album. The title-track would never constitute a single for me but it was a bold move with a great video and "A Little Soul" is just crap. The obvious "Party Hard" aside, there's only really "Sylvia" and "Glory Days" that I would class as singles. "Help the Aged" does have a soaring chorus and great video but I'd say that it was more a follow-up single than a comeback. "I'm a Man" would have sold well but it's a bit over-sludgy and they couldn't play it live.
I'd say that "We Love Life" had more singles than "This is Hardcore"; "Weeds", "Minnie", "Birds in Your Garden", "Bob Lind" (censored) and "Bad Cover Version" (earlier) are obvious radio-friendly hits. Oh, and "Sunrise" could have been huge in 2000 when everyone wanted a piece of it.
Its all valid points... now. But in the 90s things different and literally anything could work as singles. This is Hardcore being the biggest example. Or Radiohead's Paranoid Android. or even Bittersweet Symphony. In what world would you believe Bittersweet Symphony would be a hit now. but in the 90s... different times.
You name it. Many bands had a successful single with weird "not single" material. Song 2 almost never happened because the band thought it was throaway.
To me, every DC song is catchy enough to be a single. Sure some need a radio edit but any of them would have worked in an era when people were less likely to listen to manufactured songs. You say Bar Italia is not a single, but it's actually a very popular song live now, and i'm pretty sure it would have made a great last single for the DC cycle.
For TIH, the basis is OK Computer. If Paranoid Android worked, any of the TIH song could have been released as a single. This is Hardcore was heavily played on TV, something that could just not happen today. Maybe just Seductive Barry from TIH could not be a single.
Of course We Love Life is single heavy too. All Pulp records from His N Hers were kinda like that.
Lastly, A Little Soul is not crap ! Its actually one of my fav Pulp song, and some of the deepest lyrics Jarvis has ever written. Weird that some of you despise it. It's a work of genius for me.
Apologies, I have always hated "A Little Soul". I fully understand how important the subject matter is to Jarvis but the song does absolutely nothing for me.
I do like "Bar Italia" but for me, it seems to work better as the album's closing track than it ever would have as a single. I do remember reading somewhere that Island were initially opposed to releasing "Sorted for E's and Wizz" as a single because of its folky/slower sound when compared to "Common People" so maybe at that point, they were thinking along the same lines as I was in my previous post. Obviously, they must have changed their mind at some point to allow "This is Hardcore" as a single, perhaps in light of seeing how many copies "Different Class" sold.
Interesting point around Radiohead but Pulp's sales and chart positions did drop following the "This is Hardcore" single (though not disastrously). I believe that they could have easily turned it around if the 2001 comeback single had been a lot stronger, particularly now we've heard "After You" and "Got to Have Love", either or both could have been a chartstorming hit.
I thought exactly the same about "Song 2" when I first heard it; a B-side that somehow found its way onto the album which did sometimes seem to happen with Blur in general. I thought that "Look Inside America" and "On Your Own" were the obvious singles (the latter eventually was) then when "Song 2" was being promoted, I couldn't believe it. But it worked very well.
No offence but can we not have the same old convos about the old albums?! Especially when Lipglossed has written a great post about the themes on the new record?
hehe dont apologize its ok to not like A little Soul. I just dont get it why some of you hate it. It's got a good melody, a very smart production, even smarter lyrics and way of talking about the subject. It's a Jarvis gem. Something only he could come up with.
It's weird, it's probably his most heartfelt song, and his fans are turning their back on it. Its crazy. I'm sure he was a bit disappointed the song was not bigger in every way. but it's music, sometimes it cant be explained.
I agree though that not releasing a big single like "After You" and "Got to Have Love" in 2001 was a mistake. But Pulp are known for weird choices. Still, we take singles for granted years after they are released like "yeah, that was obvious". but was it ? Common People success was a surprise, Wonderwall was a surprise for Oasis and Liam didn't even want it on the album thinking it was rap music !
Singles and popular songs work in mysterious ways. timing is everything, and of course now endorsment, social media help. Back then you only got radio and tv plays. And if ratings weren't good, you were quickly dropped.
Apologies. I would just like to add that "Grown Ups" is mentioned in "Truth and Beauty":
"Modern Marriage", "Street Operator" and "Grown Ups" all had rather more potential, being along similar lines to the poppier Pulp of "His 'n' Hers" and "Different Class".
No offence but can we not have the same old convos about the old albums?! Especially when Lipglossed has written a great post about the themes on the new record?
Cheers Eamonn :)
Frisko2000 wrote:
After hearing Spike Island, anyone else wish they'd held After You back for these sessions?
No, not really. To tell you the truth, I'm one of those weirdos who prefers the James Murphy-produced version over the original demos. I think it sounds better.
I also think it worked best with the 2011-13 'incarnation' of Jarvis. Plus it was remixed by Soulwax and made it onto the GTA V soundtrack, which is an added bonus.
It's also the last song Steve ever made with Pulp.
I prefer the 2000 demo but I still like the 2013 version. I don't wish that they had held it back for this album, it's better left where it is. Been there / done that kind of thing.
I prefer the 2000 demo but I still like the 2013 version. I don't wish that they had held it back for this album, it's better left where it is. Been there / done that kind of thing.
Yeah, plus it feels different from these new songs. And it's a bit snappier than 'Spike Island', for example.
I'm a little bit tentative about "A Sunset". One the one hand, it has a nice little melody and lyrics that manage to deliver an anti-capitalist message in a non-ham-fisted way through telling a story that sounds a little like a parable really - which, in-turn, chimes with the God/Jesus/Spiritual references elsewhere in the album that Lipglossed wrote about above.
And I don't mind a camp-fire song in the Pulp canon (they're a tricky band to do justice to when you have an acoustic guitar at a party and you want to adopt new Pulp fans. I find Babies probably works best).
But... musically, based on the live versions, "A Sunset" is a tad under-whelming. Hawley guests on a Pulp song for the first time in nearly 25 years and when it starts-up, it sounds like one of the previous songs he collab'd on, "Born To Cry". You could sing the verse lines on that song over this one. Even Jarvis' top-line vocal strays quite close to Heaven by Talking Heads (which he has covered before).
Quite basic guitar chords strummed, none of Hawley's finessing on the axe that he's capable of until a little bit of lead ornamentation in the chorus. The middle-eight does work well but overall, I do think the song suffers a little from the "lumpen melodic predictability" that Owen Hatherley, in his book, Uncommon, accuses Jarvis of on, I think, We Love Life or This Is Hardcore.
To me, as much as I like Richard's music, he does tend to play it safe lyrically and melodically. Great voice, great guitar-playing but ultimately, many of his albums are quite interchangeable. And maybe not the optimum partner to bring-out the creativity in Jarvis' own music-writing. I've said elsewhere that I'd like to hear a full album of a joint-collaboration between the two and that still stands, but I don't think they necessarily make for Pulp songs.
The final version on "More" might work well in the context of the album, a gentle full-stop on what proceeds it and hopefully Candida and Mark have sprinkled in a bit of magic on top. Fingers-crossed.
Pulp sign an open letter defending freedom of expression in the wake of attempts by Westminster to censor the band Kneecap. Other signatories include Fontaines DC, Massive Attack, Paul Weller, Primal Scream, The Pogues, Thin Lizzy, and Lisa O'Neill, who's supported Pulp on multiple occasions. Full text here: x.com/paulwellerHQ/status/1917865396276785340
Kneecap to play support in Dublin then? Ah, messing, i know the letter is less about the content of any comments and more about freedom to express.
Have I missed it or was it stated anywhere if there's support and who it might be? So close now. Can't wait! Mark in Belfast tomorrow night actually. Me being lazy me I am not pushing the boat out. You may come to Dublin for me, Mark.
-- Edited by Jean on Thursday 1st of May 2025 02:20:35 PM
Another thing that matters is cohesion. Do the songs feel like a disparate collection drawn together, or are they organically bound together by strong underlying thematic threads? Do they share a sentiment or a feeling?
I think, so far, that they do. And funnily enough, it's not far from the 'Pulp Love Life' sentiment of their last album.
I mean, I think We Love Life was dedicated more towards presenting the gnarlier side of life: 'seamy nature' might be the phrase the grit of the true story of the Weeds, the murder of Minnie Timperley, the decayed love of The Trees, the love-on-the-rocks of Birds, very literal undercurrents below Sheffield in Wickerman, the bitterness of Bad Cover Version, the bereftness of Roadkill, *especially* I Love Life... the only real respite coming only when you "admit that you're a ****up like the rest of us". It's only then that you get Sunrise, isn't it?
These songs, so far, carry on in that vein: much as This Is Hardcore flows organically into We Love Life - and obviously the album isn't out yet, so a MAHOOSIVE pinch of salt is needed with me saying this but so far, it feels like there's a continuity. These are songs, I think, about the necessity of love, the necessity of life, the necessity of feeling and acting and doing things.
Spike Island is about realising you need to 'come alive' again - 'I was born to perform, it's a calling'; Got To Have Love which lyrically is all about the necessity of true authentic feeling otherwise 'you're just jerking off inside someone else', arguing that only love can 'bring you back to life'; Slow Jam, in its Jarv Is form, bemoans 'when love slows down' amid a conversation with Jesus, then Background Noise responds that you only realise the true worth of your love when it's on the rocks, that 'you only notice when it disappears', that it's the strength of the feeling that matters, and invokes JC again: 'Jesus Christ now, what a feeling'.
'The Hymn of the North', truly stunning, starts with a lovely verse: 'Factories lie empty / Manufacturing emptiness / Life still needs to be filled nonetheless' - as Jarvis urges the subject to 'go and find something to love'. Farmers Market discusses the importance of pursuing what really matters - 'Hold on, are these groceries really that important? More important than getting your number and finding out who you really are?'- and concludes that you need to pursue authentic experience - 'Ain't it time we started living'?
What was it Jarvis said at Glastonbury 1995? "You can't buy feelings and you can't buy anything worth having." 'A Sunset', which concludes the album, has lyrics which are about that notion. A beautiful sunset can't be bought, but anyone can enjoy it, can't they?
There's this one thread that keeps appearing in the lyrics, this one sentiment Jarvis keeps repeating: "it's just a feeling":
Spike Island It's a guess, no idea It's a feeling Not a voice, in my head Just a feeling
Background Noise What brought me back Just a hunch, just an inkling, just a feeling Force of habit, a compromise, a failure But I've got this feeling
Got to Have Love It's time to come to your senses
Farmers Market Ain't it time we started feeling? Ain't it time we started feeling? Ain't it time we started feeling?
In other words: might the album be about a FEELING CALLED LOVE? (I mean, in Got to Have Love, he even spells out 'L O V E'...)
I think the songs we've heard thus far are often about rejecting commodified experiences, distractions, minutiae and other gubbins in favour of opening yourself up to feeling. That the internal is more tangible than other stuff. And it's very crucial and to some extent even desperate! The urgency of Got to Have Love, or the songs that Background Noise calls back to - not just First Time? but also there's flickers of OU in there ('Got on the train, it started to rain / I started to think about being single again / I got off at the first station'). Maybe there isn't a specificity, but the lyrics are kind of, I don't know, painting from a palette that we can recognise.
Even in 'My Sex', Jarvis's sex evades description, it can't be pinned down in that way. It's authentic and it's internal, that's how he feels the authenticity. (Maybe reaching here. I think My Sex is probably more just about shagging? Deliciously so)
What a premature analysis of an unreleased album where the lyrics might yet have changed! But still, whatever. I wonder if that's the core conceit of the album: the necessity of feeling, and of opening yourself up to it and embracing that in a world where so often we're numbed into nonparticipation, in a 'contactless society' - to continue, as Pulp have, to keep on living and loving and feeling...
So, in conclusion? I don't think the album will feel disparate or disunified or cobbled-together. A very strong 'hook' seems to already be emerging, although as I said earlier, we'll definitely have to wait to hear the whole album.
-- Edited by lipglossed on Sunday 27th of April 2025 01:16:18 AM
I might be wrong but I'm sure in some press or interview after the album announcement saying the lyrics concerned them more with his feelings more than previous records (again happy to be wrong on this but I seem to remember).
Which is a really nice running theme - as you've nailed here @lipglossed - and in reply to another post I earlier saw, I do wonder how many songs were written for this thing.
Other than the handful that were written previously for various other projects, did they just write enough to add to those to make up an album, or were other tracks written during this seemingly fertile period of songwriting for the band? Did they whittle through a bigger number and land on the album tracklist as it is, or did they simply write and compile the record from the tracklist we see before us?
Hopefully we get some answers in the future. They were always a band to have a lot of leftover material as history has shown, but part of me isn't sure there's another 7 or 8 tunes sitting there that didn't make this record given the swift time it took to make.
-- Edited by legohairjordan on Thursday 1st of May 2025 09:16:08 PM
Well, they probably did a bit more than 20 seconds of research.
This is a debate for another thread i suppose and the english way of Freedom of speech is kinda different from the rest of the world, so let's not get into that.
But let's say when you face the direct consequences of such endorsements, you see things differently i suppose.
IMHO rich musicians should never get into that political territory. They dont have a clue, they live in a different world. ****s are Running the World was enough, but just.
-- Edited by andy on Friday 2nd of May 2025 06:56:43 AM
I mean, if Pulp didn't want to get political, we wouldn't have had 'Common People'. Just saying.
True, but there's political and there is supporting terrorism. Two different matters. Although Common People is more societal than political. The most political for me is Cocaine Socialism, and it's a damn good one, its witty, its smart, it's Pulp. And they got cold feet by releasing it as a bside !
England has a long tradition of wide free speech, so i get why they would sign that, but really, i wish they had not. I think this time, it's a mistake (see what i did there).
If 'More' leaked before June 6 would you listen to it? Cause we're in the sort of phase when things start to leak because files are on servers, distro centres.
-- Edited by cutcopy on Tuesday 6th of May 2025 02:11:56 AM
I'm not aware of a single album that I have bought in recent years being leaked. I remember getting hold of "We Love Life" and "Think Tank" by Blur before they were released but that was over 20 years ago.
I'm guessing that each record label's computers have some sort of software on them that would block employees from downloading a copy then perhaps the process for uploading to download sites and streaming is automated. It would also be reasonable to assume that fewer units of the physical formats are manufactured these days so less chance of one going "missing".
Few albums have leaked the past years for me, but since releases that interest me have slowed down there is no need for leaks anymore. I guess i'm happy now that an artist that i love releases a new record.
Back then, we were hungry teenagers, plus there was the thrill of a new technology i guess. and also the "forbidden" element.
Nice! I checked Amazon and Apple music earlier today for this very data and meant to ask on here if folk thought we'd find out this info in advance.
So...looks like Grown-Ups is a bit of an epic to go with Hymn and Slow Jam. Apart from the closer, A Sunset; it seems that Tina is the shortest song on the album - maybe that's the next single! Got To Have Love might be too long for that...
Also looks like Background Noise might have been elongated with a bridge section, here's hoping. It's now a good half a minute longer than the 2023 live versions.
If this is accurate, More is very similar in total running time to His'n'Hers. A couple of minutes shorter in total than We Love Life and Different Class. WLL/HisnHers are more directly comparable as they also had 11 tracks, DC had 12. That long-sustained note on The Day After The Revolution makes Hardcore harder to compare. Actually if you take 10 minutes off the end of that album you get to 55 minutes.
So every Pulp album since HnH has had more or less the same amount of "content" on it (50-55mins). Who knew?!
the cd pressing plant guy story is the most amazing story ever. There is a doco - a 3 part series I think??? We watched maybe last year based on Stephen Witt's How Music Got Free. Delightful book!!
Yeah I was just thinking wow we're 4 weeks out and things start to appear- albeit less and less these days because of I guess more "convenient" infrastructure...
also it was always a dream for me to be in the audience for a taping of Later with Jools. Lols. I know someone who was in the audience for one that David Bowie was on. I think it was from 2002? Heathen album.
Jools: Photos show Pulp in the proscenium end of Ally Pally, so presume that means they're the main act with 3 songs? (missed the last series, so don't know if we still get 3). Full band, plus quartet (Elysian quartet?). Other acts: The Hives, Suzanne Vega, Wunderhorse. Andrew McKinney has posted a couple of pics on threads.
-- Edited by inspirit on Thursday 8th of May 2025 11:39:34 PM
also it was always a dream for me to be in the audience for a taping of Later with Jools. Lols. I know someone who was in the audience for one that David Bowie was on. I think it was from 2002? Heathen album.
I was at the 2001 pulp one and I THINK i went to a Jarvis one. Also the Radiohead special, you can see the back of my head in that one haha
This is all so exciting. Brings back the excitement I felt in 2001 for a new Pulp record. I cannot wait for Dublin. I've got my t shirt at the ready.
Was listening to WLL last night coming home from band practice and just thinking how great Sunrise was live in 2023. What an album closer. The pounding drums, the guitar, the lyrics, bloody great song. Jarvis' moves against the graphics at the 2023 gig. Bloody love it. Hurry up Glasgow so I can see what the setlist holds. Is the setlist we saw the other day a clue? Are we gonna hear Dishes on this tour? :)
I'm going to avoid this forum (very hard for me!) between the Glasgow and Dublin gigs so if we meet beforehand by the Liffey, don't be revealing any spoilers, maith an cailín
I have been known to read the last page of a book so that I'm emotionally prepared and get no surprises! I'll definitely be having a look at the Glasgow setlist but I won't say anything, Eamonn
I'm likely bringing my dear mam to the gig. She brought me to my first one in 1996 when i was a young un, I was surprised she wanted to go, think it's for old times sake. And she's on a live life to the full buzz since she had the big C. We're heading to Dublin earlier in the day and she'll probably want to pop in somewhere for a carvery but if I get a chance I might get to see you beforehand, Eamonn! I'm tempted to go early and try get up near the front. Never been right up there.
Interesting to note in the Record Collector article, Jarvis says that they demo'd songs before the album sessions. I wonder when, where and how many tracks and if any of these songs were not recorded in the album sessions.
Potential scope for inclusion on a More deluxe edition in a few months (or a few decades, after WLL finally gets its turn...).
It is cool that we have a pretty comprehensive (if maybe not full) recording session history on Pulpwiki of Pulp in the studio over the years. As i don't think it's all that common for artists to share such info. I might be wrong but I think Mark Webber initially gave the details to Alex Deck for Pulppeople/the official website. Any chance he could update us with all the 2023-24 studio deets?!
Do you have to book? I'm glad to see it's on between 2 and 6. Will have to take a day off work but means I can be home in time to watch repeats of The Chase with me cuppa and be in bed by 10pm
-- Edited by Jean on Monday 19th of May 2025 12:47:21 PM
Ah, I just went onto the Facebook page of the record shop in Dublin. Tower Records Dublin says it's on between 2 and 6pm but no details of booking or anything so I thought it might be a free for all. I've no idea how these listening parties work.
Spindizzy Records Dublin doesn't have anything up yet so I'd say just look at the social media of the shop you're interested in.
Jean, two geeky Irish lads from Hotpress did a podcast on Different Class to mark the Pulp cover feature on the new issue, might be of interest. For everyone else, the accents might be hard going at times. We can't all sound like Mescal and Scott. I mean, I kinda do but...