Pulp Album: “This Is Hardcore”

How do you follow the multi-platinum selling, perfect pop of Different Class? Well, you can wave bye bye to that gold disc and release your darkest collection of songs to date. That's exactly what Pulp did with This is Hardcore. It may have been considered a commercial "flop" by some insiders, but their loss was very much our gain. This is Hardcore is undoubtedly Pulp's finest collection of songs. It's depressing, funny, sad, despondent and uncomfortable to listen to if you are approaching that difficult age of 33. This is a moody, almost sleazy album in places and it's all the better for it. Different Class had an instant appeal to it, but I quickly lost interest.Two years on, Hardcore is still essential listening. That's the biggest compliment you can give to any album, if you still play and treasure it months after the hype has faded. It took a few listens for me to fully appreciate this album, but it soons hit you. Practically every listener will identify with the opening track The Fear. A tale of missed opportunities and panic attacks when everything goes horribly wrong. It all rings so true, and Jarvis knows it. Helped of course by the fine melody, the album touches on many fears but you sort of laff because Jarvis delivers his lyrics like some stand-up comedian. Other highlights include Helped The Aged and the title track which is aided along the way by strings Diva Anne Dudley. Hypnotic and seductive and quite simply brilliant. The track Dishes will make you chuckle whilst TV Movie and A Little Soul will scare you slightly. I never thought that Pulp would release a finer album than His N Hers, but Hardcore is in a class of it's own.

Perhaps the most unexpectedly honest of Pulp's canon, This Is Hardcore is a very, very strange record. It lacks the ephemeral but undeniable charm of the undeniable and loudly POP first two Island records, but adds a far deeper layer to the early '90s incarnations of Jarvis Cocker's lustful moanings. Pulp present, then, without any of that sickly prog pretense, a concept album that must be the antithesis of Sgt Pepper - it's about aging, an odd little subject for a man who's only thirty-five years old. Nonetheless he tackles it, thankfully, with his most brutally ironic observations yet. The crux of it all comes on this record's weakest track, an irony Cocker may very well appreciate. "Party Hard" is vintage Bowie glam-rawk, but contains a lovely, evocative line in a song about the middle-aged pushing themselves to exhaustion just to fit in with the younger generation. "Why do we have to half kill ourselves just to feel more alive?" is Cocker's plaint. The opener, "The Fear", admits shortly after Cocker's cheeky boast about producing "our 'Music From a Bachelor's Den'" that you're "gonna like it...but not a lot." Naah. He's understating the point. "Dishes" features a lovely violin refrain, as well as his subtle jab at the greater music community (the endlessly quotable AND quoted "I am not Jesus, though I have the same initials.") The standouts from then on are "Help the Aged", the swaggering shoegazer of an orchestral title track, and the daresay amusing but distressingly dark Barry White referencing "Seductive Barry" (featuring the lustful moanings of not just Cocker, but Neneh Cherry of all people!).

Most of the record is oppressively nihilistic and dark - by no means a bad thing, as it gives the cutting observations their hurt. It is only when Cocker, the dazzlingly talented combination of Candida Doyle (keys) and Mark Webber (guitars, sometimes sounding not unlike early Jonny Greenwood), and the most audible rhythm section of Nick Banks and Steve Mackey try to add a little levity that this record starts to sag. On their own, the remaining tracks "Sylvia" (a lovely McCartney-by-way-of-The Bends-stadium rocker), "Glory Days" (distressingly close to the breakthrough "Common People" but boasting a more avant-garde arrangement) and "The Day After The Revolution" (Cocker's snide, harsh dictum of modern hedonism) are superb examples of all that is Pulp. Unfortunately they do not belong at the end of an album that begins with this amount of introspective insight.

In a strange little way, This Is Hardcore's concept drains out along with its focus. It's a brilliant album and an exciting EP, sitting next to each other rather uncomfortably on the same vinyl slab. The lack of cohesion is distressingly evident. It seems that Pulp, aware that their darker stylings hadn't exactly clicked with their fans (witness the failure of the Freaks LP), decided to brighten things up a bit in a way that seems...well...forced. Unfortunately the lack of faith in their fans and an over-reaching eagerness to please has been detrimental to their final acheivement.

Buy all means, do purhcase this album. It is Pulp's best, but also their most distressingly miscellaneous.

(Most versions, including the one sold here, are packaged with the superb b-side "Like a Friend", famously appearing in the 1996 film version of Great Expectations. It shows up in the "portait scene" [ahem] and this may very well make Jarvis and fans alike smirk but the song itself is excellent).

"This Is Hardcore" is a slightly darker and seedier, yet more vulnerable sequel to the social observations and issues of fury, frustration and desire addressed on "Different Class". Indeed, the bitterness and rage felt on "Different Class" seems to have given way to a kind of sadness on "This Is Hardcore". After the success and the brilliance of "Different Class", whatever album followed was bound to be compared to it, but "This Is Hardcore" sounds a little more "grown-up" than "Different Class" in a way, for if "Different Class" was the soundtrack to a life from age 16 to 29, then "This Is Hardcore" feels more for life at age 30 and over. The lyrics are still as ingenious as those on "Different Class", but with less humour and more sentiment. "A Little Soul", "Dishes" and "Sylvia" are almost tragically touching. "Party Hard" sounds like a Bowie track from his late 70's "Eno-produced" album period, with Jarvis Cocker even sounding vaguely like Bowie on the song. My favourite songs on the album are "I'm A Man" and "The Day After The Revolution" which has a strange kind of "bittersweet" air of finality to it without being sickly, like a happy ending to a particularly tense film where everything turns out okay. The only track I'm not too keen on is "Seductive Barry". It just moves too slow and lacks any real hook. Overall though, another really great album from Pulp and enjoyable to listen to both on it's own and back to back with "Different Class".

Having bought this album over a year ago, it is hard to sum it up in a short review. But to say the least, it is a worthy follow-up to "Different Class", the closest to a perfect album I have ever heard.

With the alleged "Death" of Britpop, this change in style could not have come at a better time. Having been around the block more than a few times, they know how to experiment with different styles without making fools of themselves. It takes a few listens to really get into the album. For people who loved "Different Class", "This is Hardcore" is different, but ultimately a satisfying album.

The first five tracks are more lavish and dark, while the album livens up towards the end, with songs like "Silvia", "Glory Days", and "I Am a Man", which is more like the Pulp of the "Different Class" days.

"Different Class" was their defining moment, and "This is Hardcore" definitely continues to showcase their unique and brilliant sense of style. A truely great achievment.

An amazing follow up to the popular "Different Class" album, a bit darker than its predecessor and a bit better! Although different class is a brit-pop/glam classic I feel This Is Hardcore is slightly more sophisticated. If you are a Roxy Music fan you will enjoy this album, it reminds me at times of "For Your Pleasure." I'm really thankful that Pulp is not a mainstream band here in the states, just think of the offal people that would contaminate such an intellegent band and album.