Pulp Album: “Masters of the Universe”

Well, Freaks wasn't a brilliant album by any means, but it had enough great songs that I decided to go ahead and check out Masters of the Universe--a companion album, if you will, containing singles and b-sides of the era. As it turned out, I was more than a little disappointed. This has to be considered the weakest of Pulp's albums; it does have a few good songs, but they're far outweighed by mediocrity. Mark of the Devil is quite nice, and just as cheerful as it sounds, whilst Dogs are Everywhere displays a sense of black humour--quite a revelation, given the mightily humourless nature of the band's music at this period. The Will to Power is also worth hearing, if for no other reason than the fact that it's one of only four songs credited to violinist Russell Senior--and it's not bad, either. Little Girl (with blue eyes), 97 Lovers, and They Suffocate at Night (the latter already available on Freaks) all show evidence of Jarvis's future lyrical themes in utero, but that doesn't make them great songs by any means. Aborigine and Simltaneous aren't terrible, but the album as a whole is uninspired.

Nonetheless, as a Pulp completist, I'm glad to own it--although it irritates me to no end that Jarvis was too embarassed to allow the inclusion of one of the b-sides, Silence, here. It just doesn't make sense. I mean, given that this compilation is aimed squarely at completists, who uncritically try to amass everything the band's done, what's the point? It's not like the rest of the album's all that great, anyway. And come on, what would YOU rather have, a "sanitized" version of Master of the Universe (for radio play, apparently--yeah, right...) that is identical to the original but for substituting the word "vegetate" for "masturbate", or a NEW song, no matter how bad it is? Get real here...

All in all, this is definitely only for the very, very hardcore. No one else need bother.