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Pulp Album: “This Is Hardcore Deluxe Edition”
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This Is Hardcore Deluxe Edition |
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Release Date:2006-01-01
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Type:Album
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Genre:Rock, Mainstream Rock, Cover Art
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Label:Universal Music
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Explicit Lyrics:No
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UPC:00602498400487
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Review - :
{@Universal U.K}. reissued the three key '90s {$Pulp} albums as double-disc Deluxe Editions in 2006. The Deluxe Editions for {^His 'n' Hers} and {^Different Class} are both excellent, filled with terrific B-sides and unearthed demos, but they both function as superb supplements to acknowledged classics. In contrast, everybody acknowledges that {^This Is Hardcore} is a difficult record -- dark soul-searching albums often are -- one that sustains a claustrophobic atmosphere almost too well, but then kind of falls apart at the end. Here, the proper album is enhanced by the presence of the 14 B-sides and outtakes on the second disc of the Deluxe Edition; when added to the fascinating, flawed album, the overall set becomes a mammoth journey into the heart of darkness rendered more compelling by the additional material. Some of this new material -- and there are six unheard songs and demos here -- is a little rough, but their unfinished quality seems to be an appropriate fit for the conflicted emotions {$Jarvis Cocker} unveils on these songs. With the exception of {&"You Are the One,"} a surging {\pop} tune that falls halfway between the sound of {^His 'n' Hers} and the sensibility of {^Different Class}, all of these demos are quite nasty and dark -- and with another exception, the character sketch of a hipster on {&"Street Operator,"} they're all naked explorations of the emotional crisis {$Cocker} laid bare on {^This Is Hardcore}. Literally quite naked: there's a pair of genitally-obsessed tunes in {&"Can I Have My Balls Back, Please?"} and {&"My Erection,"} the former a drifting melancholy {\pop} tune the latter a dark {\disco} number sung through a vocoder that only makes it creepier. Then, {$Cocker} paints a rather horrifyingly cynical portrait of domestic bliss on {&"Modern Marriage"} (in his typically candid, witty liner notes, he reveals that he backed out of the engagement after recording this, and it's little wonder), and the fully-finished outtake {&"It's a Dirty World,"} a portrait of a stripper that sounds every bit as ugly, sordid and self-loathing as {&"The Fear"} or {&"This Is Hardcore."} There are some lighter moments here, too, and they're better than the lighter moments on the proper album: they come in the form of the stomping {$Slade}-meets-{$Sweet} {\glam} fantasia {&"We Are the Boyz,"} recorded for the {^Velvet Tinmine} {\soundtrack}, and the richly cinematic {&"Tomorrow Never Dies,"} which was stupidly rejected as a {%James Bond} theme (which was why it was originally released as {&"Tomorrow Never Lies"} as a {&"Help the Aged"} B-side). These, like the other previously released non-LP material here -- the impassioned melancholy of {&"Like a Friend,"} the slow sleazy crawl of {&"The Professional,"} the sterile alienating pulse of {&"Ladies' Man"} (like {&"My Erection,"} sung through a vocoder), the quietly contemplative {&"Laughing Boy"} -- all grow in stature by being accompanied by the outtakes, but nothing is as much as a revelation as {&"Cocaine Socialism."} Originally intended for the LP, {$Cocker} got cold feet and rewrote it as {&"Glory Days,"} one of the forced bits of positivity on the record, then released the lyric with new music as a B-side for {&"A Little Soul."} Here, the words are reunited with their original music and the results are glorious: a {&"Common People"} that purposely avoids {\pop} hooks in favor of unrestrained fury, which gives {$Cocker}'s vicious satire of the self-satisfaction of Tony Blair's newly ascendant New Labor Party shocking force. Nearly a decade on, it still packs a wallop, reading as an epitaph for '90s liberal ideals -- not only for Blair believers but for Clintonites in America, too. This is an unheard masterpiece and it's only the icing on the cake to a deluxe edition that turns a flawed but worthy album into a sprawling, complex, riveting double album -- one that is still flawed, but deeper and more exciting and vital than it was in its initial incarnation. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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