Pulp - 'Hits' (Universal-Island)
5/5
By: Toby L
'The trouble with your brother is that he's always sleeping... with your mother.'
With lines as remarkably straightforward and witty as Jarvis Cocker's, and the fact that his main interest Pulp are likely to disappear for a long time (though, we're informed, it's not a split), just what do we have left? Travis, Coldplay, Stereophonics. All well and good - but where's the frilly charity-shop shirts, the introverted, almost haunting band-members, the sly edge?
Actually, maybe Pulp aren't all that dazzling any longer, what with their being the latest in a long line of artists to release a 'Hits' package conveniently in time for the festive-market. But, ah, f**k it, with tracks as testimonial and important as these to the world of avant-garde pop, the band behind it all 'selling out' is the least of our concerns. From the opening surge of several '94 singles - inclusive of the rousing 'Babies' and still-awesome 'Do You Remember The First Time?' - an idyllic indie-haven is unresistingly fabricated, nostalgia of Cocker's original, arse-waggling TV-appearances and first real radio-exposure swarming back in vivid and fully-copyrighted Technicolor and Dolby surround-sound.
Correctly so, the centre-piece of the album plays host to an extortionate number of tracks from their defining 'Different Class' LP; so, whilst 'Common People' may still impact with its wry observations ('And everybody hates a tourist/Especially when they think it's all such a laugh'), it's actually its lesser focussed-in-on double A-side of 'Underwear' which truly overwhelms and startles, let alone the tear-dripping humanity of 'Something Changed' ('Where would I be now if we'd never met/Would I be singing this song to someone else instead/I don't know, but like you just said: something changed').
The hesitantly-received 1998 era, meanwhile, actually stands up as some of the firmest material on the collection, the harrowing, pained 'A Little Soul' and bleak, porn-obsessed 'This Is Hardcore' as dynamic and moodily orchestral as ever. The more recent Scott Walker-produced endeavours are suitably epic, the tuneful 'Trees' and 'Bad Cover Version' plentifully justifying their top-30 singles-positions, whilst new song 'Last Day of the Miner's Strikes - sampling Burt Bacharach and hopelessly anthemic - is this Sheffield quintet at their timeless best.
The image, the music, the press-quotes, hell, even making synthesisers seem cool again, Pulp's enduring legend may not quite glow as notoriously as their contemporaries - the esteemed likes of Radiohead, Blur and Oasis - but, if this compendium is to prove anything, then it's that the partially untrendy, challenging underdog will always remain one of the best-loved. And most sorely missed.
Artists in this article: Pulp
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