Pulp
97 articles
Free articles
Pulp: Non Stop Erotique Cabaret
Report and Interview by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 4 June 1994
"I WAS WONDERING", says Jarvis Cocker. "There was a baboon in the top floor of a flat behind where we played in Paris last night." ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, 1998
JARVIS COCKER is that most British of pop creatures, the Nerd-as-Superstar. Like the young Morrissey, he’s the spindly misfit, the scrawny mis-shape who outwitted the ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Martin Aston, Rock's Backpages audio, April 1987
The Pulp frontman on why he started the Sheffield group; his urge from an early age to make music; why he writes the songs he writes; refusing to be a judgmental spectator; what makes Pulp different; the attractions of Jacques Brel, Scott Walker and Burt Bacharach; and truth and beauty...
File format: mp3; file size: 29.6mb, interview length: 30' 51" sound quality: ***
List of articles in the library
Profile and Interview by Jon Wilde, Sounds, 8 March 1986
Meet the "new hard centre" in indie pop's choc box. JONH WILDE finds that PULP have grown on him. ...
Live Review by Martin Aston, Melody Maker, 24 May 1986
AN ODDBALL bunch, Pulp. A National Health-spectacles climbing frame inside a second-hand suit with a blissful deep-throated voice like a dark angel or at least ...
Interview by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, 31 May 1986
Pulp are from Sheffield and make rather outrageous records. Paul Mathur talks to them of dogs, wheelchairs, Nazis and baked beans. ...
Pulp/Colenso Parade: 100 Club, London
Live Review by Push, Melody Maker, 13 December 1986
COURAGE IS the key word. Pulp throw out sudden drum rumbles and savage violin wails, lazy guitar twiddles and keyboard stabs, all wrapped around vocals ...
Live Review by Roy Wilkinson, Sounds, 13 December 1986
STROLLING ON with all the visual impact of a bar mitzvah band from the Depression, Pulp are getting over a dormant interlude based around singer ...
Interview by Martin Aston, Underground, May 1987
Jarvis Cocker, diplomat, playwright, crooner and NH spex wearer, this is yer page... ...
Pulp: Preaching From The Pulpit
Interview by Roy Wilkinson, Sounds, 27 June 1987
Sheffield popsters Pulp are creating a haunting music which is virtually without peer in the Britain of 1987. We meet them on the eve of ...
Live Review by Neil Perry, Sounds, 5 March 1988
IN AN ideal world Pulp would already be serenading kings and queens, taking up residencies on Broadway and returning their OBEs; world domination takes time, ...
Live Review by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 18 February 1989
PULP HAVE splashed this strangely since 1979. That's 10 years of comic tension, a decade of bizarre normality. Pulp wear wing-collar shirts borrowed from Man ...
Pulp, BOB, Langfield Crane: Halifax Festival, Piece Hall, Halifax
Live Review by Dave Simpson, Melody Maker, 21 September 1991
WELCOME TO the otherworld. Halifax, deep in the Yorkshire moorland, is the north's equivalent of the Forgotten Planet, a fearsome anachronistic hell-hole where middle-aged women ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 21 September 1991
PULP have waited a very long time to become overnight sensations with their space age disco anthem 'Count Down', but in a world of footwear-fixated ...
Pulp: Interview With Jarvis Cocker
Interview by Paul Mathur, Volume, November 1991
IN THE EARLY '80s, a deeply disturbed Sheffield pop group called Pulp crafted a brace of lovably awkward pop classics, most notably the "controversial" 'Little ...
Pulp: Lower Refectory, Sheffield University, Yorkshire
Live Review by Dave Simpson, Melody Maker, 19 December 1992
IT HASN'T BEEN a great year for the pop iconoclast. For most of '92, prime movers from Ashcroft to Robinson have defined themselves by the ...
Saint Etienne, Pulp: Mayfair, Glasgow
Live Review by Pete Paphides, Melody Maker, 6 March 1993
WHAM BAM, THANK YOU, GLAM! ...
St Etienne, Pulp: Mayfair, Glasgow
Live Review by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 6 March 1993
A MIRRORBALL of confusion spins and sparkles over the hall. Blank faces stare at the stage where Pulp are playing. Is this pop? ...
Wedding Present/Pulp/Kingmaker: The Leadmill, Sheffield
Live Review by Simon Warner, The Guardian, 7 April 1993
THE STEEL CITY, commemorating its centenary and celebrating soccer success, turned rock capital as a week of music events, including concerts, seminars and workshops, got ...
Pulp: Pulpintro — The Gift Recordings
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, December 1993
15 YEARS IN THE MAKING, yet Pulp's first "proper" LP is only a bits-and-bats package. For a band that's been going for 15 years, it's strange ...
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Select, December 1993
Pulp are the world's most patient overnight sensation... The punk rock roots in Sheffield. The naive first album. The naive second album. Moz envy. The wheelchair. Art ...
Live Review by Ted Kessler, New Musical Express, 11 December 1993
JARVIS COCKER stands on a little raised section of the stage, one finger pointing a la Travolta to the heavens, the other holding the mic ...
Report and Interview by Siân Pattenden, Select, February 1994
Teetotal, or total pissheads? Who drinks what, and what does it say about them? Select goes on the ale (strictly for research purposes, of course) ...
Interview by Siân Pattenden, Just Seventeen, 23 March 1994
The lead singer from Pulp mutters on to Siân about eating worms, falling out of windows and, er, subtle hair colouring... ...
Brash trash — The Charlatans, Pulp, Tindersticks: Sound City, The Tramway, Glasgow
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 6 April 1994
The Charlatans and Pulp play the opening night concert at Sound City in Glasgow ...
Pulp: Metropolitan University, Leeds
Live Review by Simon Warner, The Guardian, 29 April 1994
IN A MORE just world it would now be time to set aside the macho posturings of the rock burn-out and the dead-ends of the ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, May 1994
POISED ON the brink of widespread success after nearly 14 years as linchpin of Sheffield glum-rock combo Pulp, Jarvis Cocker muses upon the long and ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, May 1994
FORGET EVERYTHING you know about what great music is – Bessie Smith, The Beatles, Neil Young, Al Green, all gone (not forever, just for 40 ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 7 May 1994
GESTURE GIGOLO ...
Live Review by Simon Price, Melody Maker, 14 May 1994
SPRING BONK HOLIDAY ...
Primal Scream, Radiohead, Pulp, Manic Street Preachers et al: Reading Festival, Berkshire — Saturday
Live Review by Andrew Mueller, Melody Maker, 3 September 1994
ON A REMARKABLE autumn's day on which Chelsea go from to two down to three up at Leeds, Everett True gets hospitalised because he's too ...
Report by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 16 September 1994
Jon Savage sees the north take its regional revenge ...
Bedsitters' night out — Blur, Pulp: Alexandra Palace, London
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 10 October 1994
Minimalist pop has its day as Blur and Pulp share the bill at London's Alexandra Palace ...
Britpop: Modern Life Is... Brilliant!
Overview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 7 January 1995
It was the year grunge died, the year of jungle... arses. It was the year that BRITISH POP found its feet again, and what's more, ...
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, May 1995
Jarvis Cocker, the only kid in his Sheffield classroom who wore lederhosen, didn't have a girlfriend till he was 19. Now he's a pin-up and ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 6 May 1995
THERE'S A new spring in Pulp's stride. Maybe it's the afterglow of romping to victory in the Sound City pop quiz earlier today, but Jarvis ...
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 27 May 1995
Starring: JARVIS COCKER as THE JUNKSHOP ROMANTIC STEVE MACKEY as THE PLAYBOY RUSSELL SENIOR as THE ALIEN CANDIDA DOYLE as THE CARE BEAR KID NICK ...
Memoir by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 2 June 1995
How an obnoxious teenager, revelling in the obscurity of her pop passions, met Bros in the supermarket aisle to Damascus ...
Pulp, PJ Harvey, the Cure et al: Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset
Live Review by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 30 June 1995
City of 100,000 dancing lights: Caitlin Moran on a Glastonbury weekend that will be remembered chiefly for the coming of Pulp ...
Interview by Andrew Smith, The Face, July 1995
Ladies and gentlemen: introducing Sheffield's own Jarvis Cocker, man of the common people, unlikely sex symbol, top pop personality and the best TV presenter we never ...
Report and Interview by Andrew Mueller, Melody Maker, 30 September 1995
This Saturday, JOHN PEEL will interview JARVIS COCKER on Radio 1FM and play tracks from PULP'S forthcoming album. ANDREW MUELLER goes to Peel Acres to ...
His Little Percolations: Pulp's Jarvis Cocker puts the T in Britpop.
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1995
You came through the '70s revival relatively unscathed. Did it look like becoming a millstone? ...
Interview by Pete Paphides, Time Out, 11 October 1995
Captain's log, chartdate 1995: Pulp, Britpop's most militant misfits, are set to trounce rivals with a new zeitgeist-friendly album of caustic lyrics, hum-me tunes and ...
Pulp: Different Class (Island 524 165)
Review by David Sinclair, The Times, 27 October 1995
Louche canon finally on target Jarvis Cocker's lowlife lyrics have come of age on a Pulp classic, says David Sinclair ...
Working-Class Heroes: Pulp: Different Class (Island)
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 28 October 1995
Jarvis Cocker, sexual outlaw, professional eccentric, godlike television personality and master of idiosyncratic dance steps you already know and adore. SIMON REYNOLDS heralds the entrance ...
Review by Bob Stanley, MOJO, November 1995
JARVIS COCKER, THE WORLD'S least likely sex symbol!" If I read that line one more time I'll scream. Give the man a break. He's svelte ...
Interview by Martin Aston, Attitude, November 1995
"Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits... oh we don't look the same as you / We don't do the things you do / But we live round here ...
Pulp: Jacques Brel Art Disco I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life
Interview by David Quantick, Q, November 1995
"I'VE BEEN in the studio all the time. I mean, look at me, I'm nearly transparent! I feel bad, really – they're saying it's the ...
Pulp: Sorted For Freezing Gigs!
Interview by Johnny Cigarettes, New Musical Express, 18 November 1995
Phew!!! It may be bloody cold outside (minus three degrees, actually) but in the frozen expanse that is Norway, things are definitely hotting up for ...
Pulp: Different Class (Island)
Review by Keith Cameron, Vox, December 1995
WHERE, ONE wonders, does he do the dishes? The pre-eminence gris of kitchen-sink drama has spent so long washing other people's dirty linen, the plumbing ...
Comment by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 8 December 1995
Unless the music business pulls its finger out, we'll have nothing to look forward to once Britpop dies. ...
Interview by David Stubbs, Melody Maker, 23 December 1995
Forget Blur vs Oasis — this was PULP's year. Two Number Two singles, a Number One album, triumphant festival appearances, the MM hacks' LP and ...
Sorted for Kids — Pulp: Brighton Centre, Brighton
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 22 February 1996
In a police station one night, on stage the next, and the Pulp fans have never been happier. Caroline Sullivan reports ...
Report by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 23 February 1996
In with the old, out with the true. How the Brit Awards were turned into a TV farce ...
Jarvis Cocker: Serious about songs
Profile by Andy Beckett, The Independent, 25 February 1996
Andy Beckett on the wry idol who was more than ready for overnight success ...
Interview by Dave Simpson, Melody Maker, 30 March 1996
So Jarvis Cocker is innocent. But that doesn't mean he's got off the hook — we still want a word or two with Michael Jackson's ...
Pulp: Here's Looking At You, Kids
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1996
PULP LANDED in Sweden last night, but they're still coming down from Japan. Circumnavigational jet lag vies with cultural bouleversement for command of the mental ...
Interview by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, 18 April 1996
Frontman JARVIS COCKER wreaks revenge for the 'Common People' ...
Britpop Football Special: Ooh-aah, Rossit-ah!
Report and Interview by Ian Watson, Melody Maker, 25 May 1996
Martin Rossiter as Eric Cantona? Liam Gallagher squaring off against Damon Albarn? Robbie Williams and Steve Pulp in the same footie team? No, you're not ...
Comment by Johnny Cigarettes, The Face, September 1996
In the Nineties, we are all everyday people, says Johnny Cigarettes ...
Interview by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 20 December 1996
A young New York painter looks like becoming "the first artist of Britpop". Jon Savage on how Elizabeth Peyton's portraits of Jarvis, Liam and Noel ...
Pulp: Sorted for Pipe and Slippers
Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, Telegraph Magazine, 8 November 1997
At the age of seven, Jarvis Cocker realised he was not immortal. Now the Pied Piper of his generation has decided the end is nigh. ...
Rejoice! Rejoice! Britpop is dead
Comment by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 28 November 1997
The jig is up, the hype exposed, and now Oasis, Pulp and the rest will have to do a proper job ...
Inside Jarvis: A Reluctant Stardom
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Seven Years of Plenty, 1998
Autumn 1993 ...
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 27 March 1998
Jarvis Cocker, latter-day folk hero, talks to Caroline Sullivan ...
Pulp: This Is Hardcore (Island CID 8066)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 March 1998
OF ALL the Britpop stars, it was always going to be Jarvis Cocker who would grapple most readily with encroaching maturity. Having dealt unflinchingly on ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 28 March 1998
...But it's not just rude things JARVIS COCKER and PULP are talking about. They're also chatting about the new album, losing a band member, losing ...
Neuroses Grow On You: Pulp: This Is Hardcore (Island) ***
Review by Gavin Martin, Vox, May 1998
Gathering storm clouds, gruesome sex and self-flagellation: dim the lights for Pulp's very own horror movie ...
No Success Please, We're British: Pulp: This Is Hardcore (Island)
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, May 1998
At it since 1983, missus! Can they keep it up now the camera's on them? ...
People's Poet: Pulp: This Is Hardcore (Island)
Review by Nick Hornby, Spin, May 1998
On the long-awaited sequel to Pulp's breakthrough album, Different Class, England's unofficial laureate Jarvis Cocker perfects his poetry of the prosaic. By Nick Hornby ...
Overview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 15 June 1998
They maybe rock icons, mad, bad and dangerous to know. But somewhere, some long-suffering woman remembers them in nappies. Caroline Sullivan on that great institution, ...
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 27 July 1998
"IS THIS the way they say the future's meant to feel?" asked Jarvis Cocker as his hands, seemingly independent of the rest of his body, ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, August 1998
The Pulp frontman takes a stairlift to heaven as he reflects on post-coital guilt and post-Britpop blues ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Mordue, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 18 September 1998
JARVIS COCKER wanders through London's Tower Books and Records like a spy in a foreign country. Close by, music fans are harvesting the racks of ...
Pulp/Eels: Hereford Leisure Centre
Live Review by Robin Bresnark, Melody Maker, 17 November 1998
HAPPY! SAD. H-h-h-happy! Sad. You know those theatrical mask things, one with a smile big enough to house a Manic's packed lunch, the other with ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 16 January 1999
Last week, Pete Waterman the Brian Clough of pop, stoutly defended his new teenpop cadets Steps and his revitalised label PWL. Here Doctor Waterman offers ...
Pulp — A Quiet Revolution: Queen's Hall, Edinburgh ****
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 2 September 1999
Blinds have more fun ...
Pulp: Postcards From The Hedge
Profile and Interview by Ted Kessler, New Musical Express, 2 June 2001
Galloping stallions, shagging on a mountain top and perhaps a spot of weeding. Welcome to the all-new pastoral pastimes of Pulp. ...
Jarvis Cocker: Sorted For Trees and Weeds
Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, The Independent, October 2001
AMID THE RUMPLED grandeur of West London's Cobden Club, the familiar angular figure of Jarvis Cocker stands out like a sore index finger. His ...
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, November 2001
Jim Irvin grills the willowy Pulp frontman about Scott Walker, Ginster's pasties and encounters with his younger self. ...
Pulp: We Love Life (Island) *****
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, November 2001
After scrapped sessions and a delayed release date, Cocker & Co follow up 1998's This Is Hardcore, with Scott Walker at the controls ...
Ten Questions For Jarvis Cocker
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, November 2001
Jim Irvin grills the willowy Pulp frontman about Scott Walker, Ginster's pasties and encounters with the younger self ...
Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 25 November 2001
THERE ARE TWO classic symptoms of nervousness. One is to dry up and fall silent. The other is precisely the opposite: to gabble like Kathy ...
In a Class of His Own: Jarvis Cocker
Live Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 2 December 2001
Jarvis Cocker could have been trapped in his role of English eccentric, a blend of Morrissey, Ray Davies and Alan Bennett. But he has found ...
Music for a Divine Moment: The Best Music of 2001
Guide by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 17 December 2001
IN THESE DAYS of crusades, jihads, and God-Bless-This-Lands, I've been wondering why so much music writing is riddled with religious imagery. ...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 22 December 2002
IN THE BBC CANTEEN, where passing celebrity chefs must recoil before a menu that has stubbornly resisted the onward march of culinary ponciness, Jarvis Cocker ...
Britpop: And The Beat Goes Off
Retrospective by Philip Norman, The Sunday Times, 17 February 2003
Britpop recalled the halcyon days of the Beatles and the Stones – but the party didn't last ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 5 September 2003
PULP HAVE a greatest hits record, and it’s about goddamned time. The enigmatic group, fronted by the inimitable Jarvis Cocker, are by far the oldest ...
Top 5 Unforgettable Glastonbury Moments
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Music Week, May 2007
1. 19-20 September 1970: The very first Glastonbury It was a triumph of faith over common sense. Having snuck in for free to the Bath Festival ...
Interview by Nick Hasted, Uncut, August 2010
From three chords on a cheap Casio keyboard, via Glastonbury, to the huge summer anthem of 1995. It's the song that broke Jarvis and co! ...
Live Review by Neil Kulkarni, The Quietus, 6 July 2011
Neil Kulkarni breaks his no-festival rule and braves the corporate overkill of Wireless to see his Pulp. His verdict? They "now stand mighty amidst the ...
Pulp: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 1 April 2012
FOR ALL our faults, it says something great about this nation that Jarvis Cocker remains the best-loved survivor of the Britpop boom, a man so ...
Modern Life Isn't Rubbish: The Trouble With Britpop Nostalgia
Comment by Luke Turner, The Quietus, 10 April 2014
The mainstream media are currently engaged in a collective misty-eyed throwback to the "glory days" of the mid 90s. Luke Turner, who was a teenager ...
Something Changed: Pulp's Different Class Revisited
Retrospective by Luke Turner, The Quietus, 21 September 2015
Luke Turner looks back 25 years to a singular album and a nation standing at a cultural crossroads ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 3 July 2016
On 1995's Different Class, Pulp and Jarvis Cocker were arty outsiders worming their way into the lives of ordinary folk, and they became pop in its most ...
see also Jarvis Cocker
back to LIBRARY
