The Automatik

Now listen; these freaks we’re talking about, they’re just normal people gone a bit wrong, that’s all.
In the end, the real victor in the Blur vs. Oasis war was Pulp. Like so many other Pulp fans, Different Class was my Pulp 101. This album literally changed my life. It was gratifying to hear someone singing about my experiences without producing the paranoid fear that I was merely a Gen X demographic target. “Common People” was the ultimate anthem for a slew of middle-class misanthropes who rejected the macho rebellion that had become associated with songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Yet unlike the moshing mentality that eventually killed grunge, being a Pulp Person had everything to do with individuality. Songs like “I Spy” and “Mis-Shapes,” with their cerebral spin on revenge, were like venom extracted from my own subconsciousness, while “F.E.E.L.I.N.G. C.A.L.L.E.D. L.O.V.E.” spawned desires I didn’t even know I had.

Yet the reasons that I continued to adore Pulp were found in the older albums like His ‘n’ Hers and Freaks. There is a genius about the way that Jarvis Cocker manages to make sex sound dirty without being embarrassing and the way he captures minutiae and transforms it into the inherent truths of the world. Pulp’s songs validated many of the parts of my personality that I had squelched for a long time; I felt freer and more confident than I had in years. However, I don’t listen to Pulp because they are only some reflection of myself; their influences and interests have sparked a passion in me to explore things I might never have known of otherwise.

How could a band this brilliant have skulked for so many years in the shadows of the hundreds of other bands over whom the NME drool? The answer is an illustration of how perfectly Pulp has always straddled the line between the miscreant and the mob. Once Pulp got a taste of stardom, and the furor of Different Class died down, they didn’t become a hit-making meat grinder, nor did they fall apart. This Is Hardcore wears its black heart on its tailored sleeve and doesn’t always hit the mark, but it’s not a washout. And how many people shouting along with “Common People” at Glastonbury could still tell you what that song means to them, much less expound upon the amazing body of work Pulp created in the years before they appeared on the Brit Awards? The irony is tangible.

Pulp fans are still around but they don’t have to scream to be heard. Although the band has, by all accounts, broken up, Pulp fans wait patiently, as they always have, for Pulp to provide yet another reason to worship them. The members continue to take an active part in the art, film, and music worlds.

When I first wrote this piece, I predicted that Pulp’s next album, the follow up to This is Hardcore, might just be their best work yet, a shining example of why we fans fell in love with them in the first place. If you’ve heard We Love Life, you’ll see I wasn’t far off the mark.