Scotty wrote:

Agreed - His N Hers is possibly from the last 4 albums - in my opinion the best produced of the lot.

Different Class was a success for a number of major factors........Glastonbury and the release of Common People - now IF neither on or both of these occured , do you think we would be talking about such topics today? His n Hers was the breakthru, and DC was built upon the solid foundations of HnH. People started to recognise Pulp with the overdue success of HnH, but what if glasto and common people didnt occur.....its quite frightening really ! DC in my opinion is not as good an album as people claim it to be - take out common people, disco 2000, and misshapes.........its not that anthemic an album at all.

Its so easy for us all to pick out tracks and think oooooooooo if Chris Thomas produced this , or if Ed produced that - but the point im aiming to make is that HnH could not possibly have been any better than it is (ok with the exception of Shes A Lady - yuk - MURDERERS!!!!!!!) The sheer production of that album was more or less faultless in my opinion.

DC was a commercial dream built around one song. IF common people was never made, or released on DC - do you think it would be the success it turned out to be?

TIH - of the last 4 albums, for me, Hardcore was the let down. Certain tracks stand out by a mile ( Help the aged, Hardcore, Dishes, Revolution ) but when you listen to things such as Sylvia - wow what a track that COULD have been, that could have been the concert finisher. Same scenario with Shes A Lady - it got murdered in the studio and overproduced.

Alot of points people have made are valid - but i know it seems a little off topic, but what if it wasnt for Common People? I dont think pulp would have been the success they turned out to be. And that hurts to say that as I love Pulp so much, but I just could not see them competing with the likes of the tossers such as Oasis and Blur. Vic Reeves got it spot on during the documentry for common people - it was blur vs oasis .......pulp were not involved but they are better than both of them !

Leo VK wrote:

I agree with that completely...I never really took to This Is Hardcore in the way that I did with the previous albums, although everyone seems really excited about it's reissue, it's the one I definitely care for the least. It's almost like by the time Different Class had come out, the job had already been done...although I don't like to think of myself as one of these people that only likes a band while they are struggling and then ditches them when they are successful.

Don't get me wrong...I can quite happily listen to post-Common People songs, but they don't touch me in quite the same way as anything that preceded it. I'd go as far as to say that Pulp were my reason for getting into keyboards and synthesisers...I too love the idea of trying to use ancient equipment to make a "big sound". It's more of a challenge and more satisfying when you achieve it.

I was very impressed in the Common People documentary when they mention that "laser sound" and how important it was. I always thought it was some sort of cool guitar effect...and not just some naff laser-gun noise on a Casio keyboard!

Eamonn wrote:

I don't want you to think that i'm confusing the arrangement and the production - 90% of His'n'Hers era material is top quality, inventive pop music imo. But the reverb and echo laden tracks being as strong as they are, such that a novice to the nuances of music sound production such as the average listener - me and I presume most of us included, can identify it through most of the album. My natural preference is towards a pop-sheen Chris Thomas sound - which many of the 'HnH is superior to DC' brigade find boring, or 'dirgey', I think the word Mark used in his book.
I love His'n'Hers and perhaps Pulp's individuality would have been robbed a bit were it not for Buller's work. I just think an album with enough lyrical themes and musical ideas for it to still sound fresh 12 years on - the sound of the record quite simply doesn't. If these albums were all remastered - Jarvis and Steve I'm sure with their recent experience, could have given it that touch of modernity that I feel it would benefit from. Remember the band themselves decided they'd had enough of Buller 6 months after His'n'Hers upon the release of Suede's Dog Man Star which is mired in reverb.
In the end it's probably personal choice - I fell in love with the DC era Pulp before discovering Intro and HnH. It would be interesting to see how HnH would have sounded with Thomas - Fuss Free and others who favour HnH to DC - would you have liked the chance to hear a Bullerized DC?
To those reading...this discussion I hope isn't verging on the ana is it? l

Eamonn wrote:

You're right Mark. My mistake, Instead of 'remastered', i meant to say 'remixed' here...''If these albums were all remastered - Jarvis and Steve I'm sure with their recent experience, could have given it that touch of modernity that I feel it would benefit from.''

As for 'Freaks', it is indeed criminal to think that it was all bunged together for £600 - even in 1986 money! How are the 'Fire' finances these days does anybody know?

Eamonn wrote:

Buller is no Van Gogh

If it had been recorded without Buller's sound-producing hallmarks in the first place I wouldn't be advocating a 're-production' of the album. I'm not saying 'I want it to sound pristine 2006-stylee', I'm saying 'It should have sounded better - less quagmirey and reverb-laden first time round'.

Eamonn wrote:

You're right - the sound of the album is no accident and Pulp have gone on record saying they were happy with it at the time, suggesting that they had as much input as they wanted into the entire recording process. They're a pile of forthright, moody bastards - what we got was what they wanted, we're agreed.

But by the end of 1994 they (or Steve and Jarvis at least) also realised that there were flaws with how they had made it sound, which is why they never worked with Buller again.

My enjoyment of the album isn't hindered by the sound, I just personally believe it could have sounded better.

This discussion is just going to go round in circles - it's probably not that interesting a thing to discuss in the first place. But at least I've offered a different view towards the album, which just to re-iterate, I still think is pretty fantastic.

Fuss Free wrote:

It's one thing if you are remastering 35 year old tapes. In that case, you have to repair cracks and pops in the audio, and apply new standards for stereophonic sound. But in Pulp's case, I'm sure the original master recordings were preserved properly, and it's not as if we've adopted any new standards, we've been using CDs for 20 years now.

I suppose they could be raising the bit rate on the CDs though? I don't know much about that stuff, but every so often you'll see a cd advertised as "24-bit" rather than 16-bit (which I presume is the industry standard).

I'm not sure I need all that fanciness myself, being that most the CDs I buy today are recorded in somebody's garage with an 8-track and a single microphone.