Jane Savidge – Pulp: This is Hardcore Review

For want of a better word, Jane Savidge has correctly and brilliantly analysed the fear which gripped Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker a few years shy of the 21st century. Fame would become the undoing and Cocker, ever the trendsetter, was feeling as crummy and cold as the celebrities who would later rally against the isolation and implications of strangeness so closely tied with being in the spotlight. Savidge, almost immediately, makes a bold claim. The burning of commercial accessibility of Pulp and Britpop began with the stage invasion Cocker mounted against Michael Jackson. This is Hardcore, her latest book on the lead-up, fallout and impact of those events, is a burning recollection of how hard it is for a band to break from the image set on them by the public. 

Pulp’s commercial low yet career high, This is Hardcore, is documented with precision and perfection throughout this piece from Savidge, whose long-running experience with the Britpop era lends itself mightily to these comparisons of porn and the dead-eyed stare found within the glitz and glam of fame. Picking quotes from decades of interviews with the Pulp frontman to paint a neat and chronological picture, This is Hardcore gets down to the nitty, gritty details of an album which depends on the truthful analysis of its self-reflective singer. If these quotes from recent interviews of the last few years are to be believed, This is Hardcore, the album, still toys with Cocker’s mind. It may be his greatest achievement as an artist, but through this comes a sense of personal loss never to be recovered from.

Reflective comparisons between the initial reaction to This is Hardcore and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is a stroke of genius – a fine portrayal of how generational divides can soften to the impact of sexualisation or taboo subjects. From the mirrored experience of meta-described The Fear to the hardened core found in the title track, Savidge does well to shine some new light on old songs. Her experiences with the band at the time, anecdotes and piecing together of quotes already available presents an essential and enlightening read on a period now beloved by Pulp fans who were not around at the time of the breakdown. All we can do, those of us born in 1999 and beyond, is reflect on the mood without the context of the tabloid pressures, the breakdown in the recording studio or the suffering of mild lyrical constipation, as Cocker put it in one of many interviews.  

Essential reading, plain and simple. Not just for fans of Pulp hoping to learn more about the beloved frontman, but a clear case for how fame affects the soul and the achievement of it can come crashing down. It rings through with a similar clarity and scope to Ian Winwood’s Bodies. Cocker could have been one of those examples but through luck and a re-evaluation explored in This is Hardcore, he comes through the other end with a new sense and presence. Critically evaluating the tracks and giving them the decades needed to breathe is no small feat but Savidge, for all her expert knowledge and first-hand experience with the band at a tumultuous time, comes through with acerbic detail and thoughts on a band which defines a once-in-a-lifetime band.  

You can purchase a copy of This is Hardcore by Jane Savidge here.