PulpBand Guide
Formed 1978 · Sheffield, England · Britpop / Art Pop / Alternative Rock
Pulp are the most literary, the most witty, and in many ways the most genuinely subversive band of the Britpop era. Jarvis Cocker formed them in Sheffield in 1978, spent fifteen years in obscurity that most bands would never survive, and emerged in the mid-1990s with a run of records that combined disco grooves, kitchen-sink realism, camp theatrics, and social commentary sharp enough to draw blood. Different Class (1995) is one of the greatest British pop albums ever made, and "Common People" — its centrepiece — is one of the greatest British pop songs ever written. This is the complete guide.
Who Are Pulp?
Pulp are a British rock band formed in Sheffield, England in 1978 by Jarvis Cocker, then fifteen years old. The band spent over a decade in the margins of the UK independent music scene — releasing records, losing members, changing labels, and failing to break through commercially — before the arrival of their fifth album His 'n' Hers (1994) finally brought them to wider attention. Their sixth album, Different Class (1995), reached number one in the UK and produced three of the most celebrated singles of the Britpop era.
Cocker's songwriting draws from an unusually wide range of sources — the kitchen-sink realism of British social drama, the camp theatricality of glam rock, the disco and funk production of the late 1970s, and a literary wit that sits alongside the best pop lyricists of any era. His observations of working-class Sheffield life, of desire and disappointment, of class and aspiration, are rendered with a specificity and economy that makes them both deeply local and widely resonant. "Common People" is the most famous single example, but the quality extends across a catalogue that rewards sustained attention.
On 18 February 1996, during the Brit Awards at Earls Court, Jarvis Cocker walked onto the stage during Michael Jackson's performance of "Earth Song" — a spectacle involving a Christ-like Jackson surrounded by children and wheelchairs — and performed what he later described as a protest against the grandiosity of the staging. Cocker waggled his bottom and raised his arms in mockery. He was briefly detained by police and subsequently investigated (the case was dropped). The incident made him briefly the most discussed person in British popular culture and cemented his status as a singular, willfully eccentric presence in mainstream music.
That same year, Pulp's Glastonbury 1995 headline performance — when they were drafted in to replace the Stone Roses following an injury to John Squire — became one of the most celebrated festival sets in the festival's history, introducing "Common People" to an enormous live audience and demonstrating that the band were a genuinely thrilling live proposition.
Start with "Common People" — the most famous and immediately accessible track and still the best single entry point. Then Different Class (1995) as a full album — one of the greatest British pop records of the 1990s and the correct first full listen. His 'n' Hers (1994) is the essential companion.
Members
Band History
Discography
Pulp Trivia Quiz
Five questions — how many can you get right?
Best Songs by Mood
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