Pulp – Babies Review

Odd-yet-striking familial ties in the wordplay Pulp provided at the turn of the 1990s is a bold touch. Babies has all the bedroom-hiding terror of a seedy crime yet the sharp wit and interjections from Jarvis Cocker, the slick bassline Steve Mackey commands under as he pairs with fine rhythm from Nick Banks on the drumkit keeps the shock maturity of facing down sexual experience alive. Russell Senior and Candida Doyle make for essential additions too, and so one of the finest Pulp tracks is born. Not their best, yet despite the ambiguity and intensity found in this track, much like Razzamatazz and its taboo shock impact, Babies serves as an accessible piece from pop wonders Pulp. 

It may be the earliest mark of Cocker hitting a lyrical groove matched by the tempo of the band. They are not wildly flailing as they did on Separations, as glorious an album it is it lacks the structure which would find itself better developed on His ‘n’ Hers. Even then these glittering showcases of Sheffield at its seediest are neatly packaged on the Babies single, with the essential and underrated Sheffield: Sex City fitting in nicely as an afterthought. Babies is the individual case of shameful cupboard activities, Sheffield: Sex City is the city-wide normalisation of those off-kilter looks at love, the familiarity needed in the early days of lacking comfort and awkward angles. An anthemic regular for the reunion tour, Babies now serves as an interaction despite the song being afraid of the personable encounters it could reach out to.  

Hope bubbles away in the core of depraved desperation and Sheffield: Sex City further removes the magic. It hints at the This is Hardcore tones before they had even planted themselves, this grinding want. Lust lingers and once the aim is achieved, the intimacy is unlocked, and the interest fades. Sheffield: Sex City does the heavy lifting there, an eight-minute powerhouse filled with confident assertions unlike the preceding Styloroc (Nites of Suburbia), the faux-sounding shrieks and endless happy hour providing the sleek lino feel, the appearance of solid graft but slapped down with a bitterness and a cover for the empty shell below. Cocker can make sexual encounters sound sexless, debased as a formality instead of the intimate want it could be. Hope still hurries through his lyrics, the early rise of Sheffield: Sex City filled with bitterness for those touched by those flickers of sunrise.  

With Banks’ steady patter of cymbals and the thump of the bass drum, electronic waves ease their way in as Cocker indicates the communal coming of tobacconists and the early 1990s aesthetic, the colourful flourishes laid out in a city best known for its steelworks is tremendous. There is a pressure within, this desperate call to arms which comes through so many great Pulp songs, of taking action before the chance passes you by. Cocker is more than capable of singing through those reflections and regret, but Babies, for all its sordid moments, has its protagonist gauge what listeners can perceive as a victory. The wasted hope sounds better than the connection, as electric as it is, the hurt and horror it causes becomes the running sore Pulp so beautifully lays out across this monster of a single.