Jarvis Cocker says he has ‘a few gems’ on cassette tapes – but we may never hear them

Jarvis Cocker has “a few gems” hidden away on a series of cassette tapes, but the chances of listeners hearing them are slim.

The Pulp frontman confirmed he has “about five hundred” cassette tapes worth of recordings stuck in the loft of his London home, but sifting through them all to find the worthy songs would be too big a task. It is not the first time Cocker has shared a hint of unreleased work, with the veteran songwriter leaving himself voicemails as a way of noting lyrics. But some of those lyrics are lost for good after an automatic wipe on his messages was issued after a fortnight, meaning the words to what could have been “the greatest song” of all time are gone forever.

Further potential hits are in Cocker’s possession now, but according to the legendary frontman, we are unlikely to hear many, if any, of these songs. Speaking to Daniel Rachel, author of The Art of Noise, Cocker confirmed he has boxes full of cassettes which could be the key to his next big hit.

He said: “We used to record everything on cassette. I’ve got about five-hundred cassettes in my loft in London. I keep thinking, one day I’m going to listen to those and I’m going to find these lost gems. I did actually try and do it once.

“I got onto side two of the first cassette and it got chewed up in the cassette player, so I chucked the cassette at the wall and it broke. So that was the end of that process, but what I’d heard up to that point wasn’t amazing. It was probably all right to do at the time, and maybe there is something on there and I will get round to listening to those 500 cassettes one day. I can’t bring myself to throw them away. That’s a lot of work.”

Cocker reformed the legendary band Pulp back in 2023, with the group set to release their first album in twenty-four years. More will release on June 6, and marks the group’s first piece of new material since 2001’s We Love Life.

A statement released at the time of the album’s announcement reads: “This is the first Pulp album since We Love Life in 2001. Yes. The first Pulp album in twenty-four years. How did that happen? Well, when we started touring again in 2023 we practiced a new song called Hymn of the North during soundcheck and eventually played it at the end of our second night at Hammersmith Odeon. This seemed to open the floodgates. We came up with the rest of the songs on this album during the first half of 2024.

“A couple are revivals of ideas from last century. The music for one song was written by Richard Hawley. The music for another was written by Jason Buckle. The Eno family sing backing vocals on a song. There are string arrangements written by Richard Jones and played by the Elysian Collective.

“The album was recorded over three weeks by James Ford in Walthamstow, London, starting on November 18, 2024. This is the shortest amount of time a Pulp album has ever taken to record. It was obviously ready to happen. These are the facts.

“We hope you enjoy the music. It was written and performed by four human beings from the North of England, aided and abetted by five other human beings from various locations in the British Isles. No A.I. was involved during the process. This album is dedicated to Steve Mackey. This is the best that we can do. Thanks for listening.”