Every now and again there is an album that comes along that redefines boundaries and sets a new standard. In 1995 Pulp released their album Different Class which was certainly among the top ten albums of the 90s and the most thrilling British release of the year.
Of course Pulp, by 1995, were veterans of the alternative pop and rock circuit. They had years of experience behind them and had paved the way with a good run of singles releases. The album before Different Class, His ‘n’ Hers, was a superb effort which laid the foundations for what was going to be the Britpop Revolution of 1995. So if Pulp were now part of the alternative consciousness with Do you Remember the First Time? and Babies, they just needed a big break and that came in Glastonbury 1995. The Stone Roses pulled out and Pulp stepped into the breach to headline. So a crowd, that wanted to see the Stone Roses instead saw Pulp and they went wild for Cocker and the band’s mix of homespun philosophy and charity shop style. Just one gig propelled the band to the greatness to which they had always aspired and deserved.
Part of the success was that Pulp had released superb album and released a superb single, Common People. But Different Class did exactly what it said on the packet. It was in a Different Class from the band’s previous work and also consolidated what was a very Pulpish sound into something unique but also sellable.
From the very beginning of Mis-Shapes it is clear that this is an extraordinary album. And the open We don’t look the same as you, we don’t do the same as you, but live round here too It’s a song that celebrates diversity and preaches tolerance but not on a terms of compromise. Indee, it acts as the battle cry of the album by striking against those who lack imagination, ambition and have low expectations and simply conform. Pulp seem to be declaring war on normality: and cocker is clear that “revenge is gonna be so sweet.” And this attack is an intellectual one because: “we won’t use bombs, we won’t use guns we’ll use the one thing we’ve got more of: that’s
our minds.”
The next song, Pencil Skirt, is tawdry little ditty about infidelity that really starts on the album’s theme of destructiveness. It’s about the temptation of an engaged woman by a lover who isn’t her fiancé. He seems to be driven and excited about the danger and destruction he is causing and also totally convinced of his talents and abilities. What is striking is that it is not done for love but for power and excitement and is without morals: “I’ve kissed your mother twice and now I’m working on your dad.” The chaos he causes is his raison d’etre in his drab and wretched life.
In its time Common People was a great anthem for the yangers and townies who sang it as if it affirmed their belief that being common was a good thing. I recall standing in the Event club in Brighton not long after the song was released to see a crowd of the town’s least promising young citizens chanting it with pride. It was rather sad. Of course, it is actually a deeply ironic and angry song that attacks that glamour and pride that can sometime be found amongst those who have little or nothing. Cocker directs his anger against someone with money who has no idea of how the other half live, who thinks it might be fun to play being common. Cocker plays her along but his sentiments are clear in the rousing end of the song when he declares “you’ll never fail like common people…you will never understand how it feels to live your life with no meaning of control.” For this girl has an escape route, she could phone her dad and stop it all. But in real life there is no way out. And it isn’t funny or something to be coveted.
The arrogance of this song is breathtakingly brilliant. In I Spy Jarvis asks early on in the song “can’t you see a giant walks among you seeing through your petty lives.” It is effectively the rant of a wronged outsider, probably a spurned lover, but more than that it is a song about aspirations: You’ve got to wait for the best. But it is also a song about belief in one’s own greatness: the wish for a blue plaque outside the place where he first touched a girl’s chest and the imagined critical notices show this. It is a song about watching and not really getting fully involved and feeling jealous about what others have and thus is the perfect song to follow Common People. And whilst the threats at the end of the song maybe real or imagined, it is disquieting perhaps to think what being have-not does to one’s perception of the world.
The mood lifts with Disco 2000. In many ways the mission of the album has now been fully stated and after the tawdry, we need the uplifting. It is in many ways a fickle and whimsical song but as is typical it has a hard heart: unrequited love. Two people, jarivis and Deborah, and their lives together as they grow up is marked by the pathos of her going with other guys and not him, of her not really noticing him despite the prediction that they would get married. When he suggests “Let’s all meet up in the year two thousand” it is without realising that she will be married and their love still unfulfilled. In fact a very sad and desperate song, but it’s got a good beat.
Perhaps only Pulp could base a painful song about failed love around the history of a bed but, as Jarvis points out, “this bed has seen it all from the good time to the bad.” From the early days when the headboard was banging in the night seven years ago to the days now when the bed is silent, the bed was the witness and chronicler of love. It is a song that is so simple that it has resonance where a song with grander aims and manner would have lacked texture.
Of all the songs on the album the only one that seems to display any kind of innocence or optimism, is Something Changed. It is imbued with faith that some good things are meant to be and even in the worst situations good things do happen perhaps when least expected. Jarvis declares that “when we woke up that morning we had no way of knowing, that in matter of hours we’d change the way we were going.” And that I suppose is the glimmer of hope that exists in the sad and angry songs. You never know when something might change.
Like when Jarvis waggled his arse at Michael Jackson, Sorted for Es and Whizz is a sarcastic jab at the pompous. It is a sideswipe at those who take the whole festival thing a bit to seriously. Ostensibly a ballad about a festival from the details that they bought the tickets from a fucked up man in Camden town to the fact that they cannot find the damn festival, it is a satire because all the shortcomings can be overcome because they’re sorted out for Es and Whizz. My favourite comment is on the faux comradeship that the festival gives the ravers: “Everybody asks your name, they say we’re all the same again, and then it’s “nice one, geezer.” And that’s as far as the conversation went. When Jarvis asks at the beginning whether this is the way the future’s supposed to feel or just 20,000 people standing people standing in a field. There is little doubt by the end the song that it strongly the latter.
Jarvis’s almost ghostly sprechensang is in fine fettle in F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E it is rhythmic and precise as he describes the emptiness after the break up. The power is in the detail. The pain in the small things. This is, however, drawn out by the vicious cry of “what is this feeling called love?” Underneath it all is a sardonic humour, as he contemplates suicide and darkness. It isn’t chocolate boxes and roses. Well, we never thought it was.
Underwear is an ambivalent song that seems to be about the loneliness of the one night stand but could also be about prostitution. I just don’t know: comments welcome. It captures the sleazy intention of a fella confronted with a semi-naked woman and yet it is sung in a questioning way that asks the woman why she is in such a tawdry situation. But has the great lyric: “If fashion is your trade, then when you’re naked, I guess you must be unemployed.”
“There’s nothing to do, so you just stay in bed. Why live in the world when you can live in your head?” Imagine having no structure to your life, no purpose and you have the essence of this song. It has a splendid driving angst ridden vocal and jolting guitar tune that makes it rather uncomfortable to listen to.
For the Bravura finale, Bar Italia was the obvious choice. In this soulless world that Different Class has painted what is more obligatory than getting smashed and staying up all night? And where else would one go in London when everyone else id going to work in London but Bar Italia, that all night caff of the gods where all the broken people go.. This is oblivion, fun and happiness all in one and what is there too lose? “It’s ok, it’s just your mind.”
Different class is quite simply one of the albums that ages but doesn’t become dated. It rewards constant reappraisal and re-listening as different strand reveal themselves. But the thing that makes it timeless is it’s superb productions and excellent quality. It has a full sound and a heavy, but obvious heart. It should be required listening.
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It became increasingly apparent during 1995 that the answer to the question "Blur or ... more
Oasis?" was, in fact, "Pulp".Different Classwas the sound of a band so on "it" that they defined "it". Thirty years of fury, frustration, sexual longing, class angst a...
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It became increasingly apparent during 1995 that the answer to the question "Blur or ... more
Oasis?" was, in fact, "Pulp". Different Class was the sound of a band so on "it" that they defined "it". Thirty years of fury, frustration, sexual longing, class angst...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Advantages: Brilliant album, full of emotionful songs that defined Britpop, easy to get into, intelligent lyrics, Jarvis Cocker's voice Disadvantages: -
Ihatemusic 24.12.2006 (24.12.2006)
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Review of Different Class - Pulp
Advantages: Sex, drugs, and common people! Brilliant, catchy, important lyrics Disadvantages: some songs take a little getting used to; Can't I give it more than 5 Stars?
OKkaraoke 31.10.2002 (27.11.2002)
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Review of Different Class - Pulp
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