It looks like "Hits" is for sale on their website but it shows a release date of 2017 and a placeholder-like description.

Some of the other albums are for sale such as "Separations" but this has the Fire catalogue number. As Rough Trade is a record store as well as a label, this would make sense. 

Not sure what is happening to be honest. If this happens, let's hope we get a 3 CD reissue (the original, B-sides and the "lost" album) rather than a straightforward reissue or a bonus CD full of songs we already have. 

It would be interesting to find out exactly what happened with that song. The official website told us "Pulp aren't technically splitting up, but neither are they making any plans to return to the studio (other than for the new extra tracks on the Best Of, already recorded)" on 5th September 2002 but then when the tracklisting was released, Alex told us that "the other song wasn't finished". Maybe this is correct or the band decided that "Emmanuel" wasn't up to scratch. It's a shame that no single was released to promote "Hits" because it could have ended up as a B-side. 

Ah c'mon, he's a busy man!

As for the reissue, hmm. I don't think they'll tinker with the tracklist. I'd have 'Mis-Shapes' on there of course, (and 'O.U.'), to make it a proper singles rundown, but 'Underwear' is one of their biggest songs these days, and I think 'Last Day' is wonderful and I like that it's on the CD.

Really, if we're redoing Hits, then a new two-disc 'best-of' compilation drawn from their time with Universal and Rough Trade (rather than a straight singles rundown) would be nice.

Something like

DISC ONE
'Sheffield: Sex City' - 'O.U. (Gone, Gone)' - 'Babies' - 'Razzmatazz' - 'Lipgloss' - 'Acrylic Afternoons' - 'Do You Remember the First Time?' - 'Pink Glove' - 'His 'n' Hers' - 'Common People' - 'Mis-Shapes' - 'Disco 2000' - 'I Spy' - 'F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.' - 'Something Changed'

DISC TWO
'The Fear' - 'Dishes' - 'Help the Aged' - 'This Is Hardcore' - 'Like a Friend' - 'The Trees' - 'Wickerman' - 'Bad Cover Version' - 'Sunrise' - 'Last Day of the Miners Strike' - 'After You' - 'Spike Island' - 'Slow Jam' - 'My Sex' - 'Got to Have Love' - 'A Sunset'

Your mileage may vary as to certain tunes, of course.

I find greatest hits such a anachronistic concept in a playlist age. Shed 7 at least re-recorded all the tracks with new arrangements for their recent one.

Eamonn wrote:

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I'd hate Pulp to do that. I remember for Suede's hits album Anderson rerecorded the vocals for Trash cos he was embarrassed at sounding like he was on helium on the original. But going back to change history...feck that.

Greatest Hits are cashcows for the label. Madness today announced their 13th. Which is the same number of studio albums they've released!

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Its not just the vocals, the added keys on that version of Trash are horrendous too. Its the worst reworked version of a good song I can think of

HoltbyCity wrote:

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I find greatest hits such a anachronistic concept in a playlist age. Shed 7 at least re-recorded all the tracks with new arrangements for their recent one.

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 I agree, Hot Chip recently released a best of which had one new song on it which was released as a single before the album came out. 

So if you looked at the album on a streaming service before it was released the only song you could play was the new one and all the other tracks were faded out even though they were all already available to stream! I could have, if Id wanted to, recreated the album as a playlist before release. 

-- Edited by JohnWayne on Thursday 2nd of October 2025 12:15:51 AM

If they really are reissuing Hits, I just find that such a strange idea. It's by far their least popular (and most redundant) major label release. On the other hand you've got WLL which was a top 10 album that fans have been clamouring for a deluxe version of for years. And yet....

Eamonn wrote:

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Disagree. Hits has never been issued on vinyl and the CD version has actually gone on to be a steady seller despite its inauspicious initial chart position. It's now sold more than 300k copies in the UK over the years (mostly via HMV and Amazon bargain bins presumably - but no different to other artists backlists) which must be close to 10 times what WLL sold (less than 30k in its first week, dribs and drabs after).

We Love Life has already had a couple of vinyl releases and would need all the unreleased 1999/2000 gold to make it more of a pull.
Very few people bought vinyl in 2002 when Hits came out, hence it never being released on the format. They do now. Universal wouldn't need to worry about adding extra content, it's low-effort and likely to sell more than any other Pulp reissue other than Different Class imo. Especially after an arena tour this year fresh in the minds of thousands of casuals...

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But £35, purely to have Miners' Strike on vinyl? 

I'd easily resist a Hits reissue on vinyl. I struggle to resist that Pulp completist impulse. Am holding out on the new Different Class vinyl, seems about £25 too expensive to me, but I know I'll crumble in the end. But Hits, or any of the Pulp compilations (Intro excluded) don't seem like Pulp objects to me. WLL deluxe would be a must, Hits, why bother?

Eamonn wrote:

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Disagree. Hits has never been issued on vinyl and the CD version has actually gone on to be a steady seller despite its inauspicious initial chart position. It's now sold more than 300k copies in the UK over the years (mostly via HMV and Amazon bargain bins presumably - but no different to other artists backlists) which must be close to 10 times what WLL sold (less than 30k in its first week, dribs and drabs after).

We Love Life has already had a couple of vinyl releases and would need all the unreleased 1999/2000 gold to make it more of a pull.
Very few people bought vinyl in 2002 when Hits came out, hence it never being released on the format. They do now. Universal wouldn't need to worry about adding extra content, it's low-effort and likely to sell more than any other Pulp reissue other than Different Class imo. Especially after an arena tour this year fresh in the minds of thousands of casuals...

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You and your pesky facts!

HoltbyCity wrote:

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I never buy re-releases on vinyl, but then I have all the originals I'm after (after a long time of collecting).  Like why would someone buy the 2019 repress of Everybody's Problem, when the original can be picked up for only a little bit more?  I buy new physical formats, but represses just feel like replicas.  

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 I like your approach. I do buy most of the re-releases, but I don't like that I do. It's only the originals that feel a bit magical. If fans can't find rare originals, and second best is all they can get, then people will want them, but they seem to lose something in translation. They're never done as well, a bit erstatz: the disc labels are badly designed, the sleeve printing is lower quality (bad cover versions). Official releases now are like the knock-offs of 30 years ago, so why does it cost so much to look so rough?

inspirit wrote:

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HoltbyCity wrote:

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I never buy re-releases on vinyl, but then I have all the originals I'm after (after a long time of collecting).  Like why would someone buy the 2019 repress of Everybody's Problem, when the original can be picked up for only a little bit more?  I buy new physical formats, but represses just feel like replicas.  

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 I like your approach. I do buy most of the re-releases, but I don't like that I do. It's only the originals that feel a bit magical. If fans can't find rare originals, and second best is all they can get, then people will want them, but they seem to lose something in translation. They're never done as well, a bit erstatz: the disc labels are badly designed, the sleeve printing is lower quality (bad cover versions). Official releases now are like the knock-offs of 30 years ago, so why does it cost so much to look so rough?

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None of the originals are that hard to get hold of. The 7" of They Suffocate was the only thing that took me a while to track down, while the Caff record was a bit pricy. I got an original It in good condition for £8!

HoltbyCity wrote:

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I never buy re-releases on vinyl, but then I have all the originals I'm after (after a long time of collecting).  Like why would someone buy the 2019 repress of Everybody's Problem, when the original can be picked up for only a little bit more?  I buy new physical formats, but represses just feel like replicas.  

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The problem is the originals can be hard to source unless you actively seek them out but I do agree.  I bought a reissue of Sound Affects by The Jam, and then chanced upon a very good condition second hand copy in a bargain bin in Greenwich for £1.  The latter sounded so much better. If only I had waited I would have saved myself a few quid.  Similarly I have lots of 1970s/1980s LPs that are easy enough to find, but as CDs became more prevalent in 1990s, there are few original LPs available.  I still regret not buying Different Class LP back in the day, but I had more or less stopped buying vinyl at that point.

ArrGee wrote:

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HoltbyCity wrote:

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I never buy re-releases on vinyl, but then I have all the originals I'm after (after a long time of collecting).  Like why would someone buy the 2019 repress of Everybody's Problem, when the original can be picked up for only a little bit more?  I buy new physical formats, but represses just feel like replicas.  

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The problem is the originals can be hard to source unless you actively seek them out but I do agree.  I bought a reissue of Sound Affects by The Jam, and then chanced upon a very good condition second hand copy in a bargain bin in Greenwich for £1.  The latter sounded so much better. If only I had waited I would have saved myself a few quid.  Similarly I have lots of 1970s/1980s LPs that are easy enough to find, but as CDs became more prevalent in 1990s, there are few original LPs available.  I still regret not buying Different Class LP back in the day, but I had more or less stopped buying vinyl at that point.

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There's almost nothing I've never been able to get from Discogs.  There's currently 16 copies of the original Aperture vinyl on there, 2 Caffs and even 1 They Suffocate (although missing its cover); and they seem to be the rarest/most sought after Pulp releases.  

Eamonn wrote:

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Yeah but are they going for silly money?

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Caff doesnt tend to go for under £200. Suffocate and Aperture around £100. The rest all under £50.

 

Its relative though - £200 is the cost of a train from Sheffield to London (stood like a sardine outside the toilet). Whereas Caff would be a once in a lifetime prize possession

With the upcoming reissue of Different Class, the orignal aperture version will drop in value quite dramatically really. However you will still get greedy sods like Mr Peter Cracknell from Rare Record Shop on ebay asking for £385 for the Caff 7" and £250 for Common People yellow 7".

Wanted Babies original 12" vinyl but it's close to a hundy. Babies and Razz look to be about double the value of Lippy and DYRTFT on this format. I guess Island pressed a lot more of the latter two than Gift did of the two earlier singles.

I gradually bought the whole discography on vinyl in the early 2000s along with some CDs. I did end up with a couple of extra copies of things that I have since sold on. I have never really bothered with reissues unless they contain tracks that I don't have already (as per the 2006 ones). I don't even own a record player or CD player now and just listen to everything on streaming. 

A couple of things I did notice that still seem to be true now:

• It was much easier to get my hands on a copy of "Freaks" than it was "Separations"
• "Common People" CD2 avoided me like the plague for several years until I saw it in a second hand shop
• The 7" of "They Suffocate at Night" was a lot harder to find than the 12" (I'm talking the original, long before it was reissued)
• "Master of the Universe" has always been easy to find which seems a little odd considering it has a track that is unavailable elsewhere

HoltbyCity wrote:

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Its relative though - £200 is the cost of a train from Sheffield to London (stood like a sardine outside the toilet). Whereas Caff would be a once in a lifetime prize possession

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 Good point. I bought the coloured 7" singles collection when it came out. I think it cost £35 at the time, but that was a BIG deal for me, when I was on £40/wk in my first job (pre-minimum wage days, evil employer, dead now - literally p*ssed on his grave, which still satisfies me years later). I had to save up for it, and kept going into the indie where it was behind the counter, hoping it would still be there. The Discogs median is £200, one up now for £370. Current minimum wage is £458 for a 37.5hr wk. Wow, things have changed. May have said this before, if so, apologies.

Scottbloodyfrazer wrote:

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With the upcoming reissue of Different Class, the original aperture version will drop in value quite dramatically really. 

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I thought that would happen when TIH was re-issued in 2016, but originals didn't drop at all on Discogs.

Sturdy wrote:

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Yeah, I think the MotU 12" (and TSaN too?) sold so poorly at the time that Fire had a load left in the warehouse which made their way into circulation when Pulp got big. Hence them being more readily available after that.

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 Similar to that, mint copies of Everybody's Problem used to appear periodically on Ebay in the 2000s / 2010s, purporting to be sold by Tony Perrin's widow. I didn't get one, but it looked genuine, and the address given was York, which fits with Red Rhino. I wonder if anyone here got one?

Got lucky with Common People CD2 - 49p, Age UK.

 

 

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 Similar to that, mint copies of Everybody's Problem used to appear periodically on Ebay in the 2000s / 2010s, purporting to be sold by Tony Perrin's widow. I didn't get one, but it looked genuine, and the address given was York, which fits with Red Rhino. I wonder if anyone here got one?

Got lucky with Common People CD2 - 49p, Age UK.

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It was Tony K's widow - Tony Perrin is still alive and well to the best of my knowledge!

Sturdy wrote:

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HoltbyCity wrote:

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Do you know where specifically in Crookes they lived? Mark was either Cairns or Selbourne Road wasnt he.

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 323 School Road apparently:

 

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Thanks.  Interesting.  It's a pub now called Early Bar.

No wonder the Nine O'Clock Service cult was a temptation to several members - that's St Thomas' where it was based just opposite: 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/323+School+Rd,+Sheffield+S10+1GQ/@53.38291,-1.5068309,3a,75y,213h,84.28t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s0ypM6s0oT68NBm_qWtIpzA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D5.723276542465641%26panoid%3D0ypM6s0oT68NBm_qWtIpzA%26yaw%3D212.99585843683613!7i16384!8i8192!4m6!3m5!1s0x487979a20d21a6d7:0xd2fb67709e32f324!8m2!3d53.3828218!4d-1.5068542!16s%2Fg%2F11s2jxb1hp?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAwMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

If you look back on the Google Streetview images, the earliest one still has the butcher's sign on the wall - I'm sure either Jarvis or Russell said something about how the flat was over a butcher's fridge so it was always incredibly cold. It's daft but I like seeing those little bits of background detail. Wish we had more pics of the Wicker building.