You do not need an on-stage reunion to remaster an album. Just look at Pink Floyd. They’ll beat The Dark Side of the Moon into a bloody puddle that was formerly a horse if it means a few extra zeroes. It all feels a bit stock and inevitable when a band remasters their previous works. Few are heading into the recording studio to oversee it themselves. Pulp did, though. Frontman Jarvis Cocker and guitarist Mark Webber headed to Abbey Road Studios to oversee the overhaul of a masterpiece. If you liked the counterculture thrills of Different Class thirty years ago, you’ll not be surprised to hear those still relevant songs are as angry, excitable, and revealing as they were on first release. It’s what makes the More tour so special, and what means returning to their discography is an inevitability for anyone kicking against a world on the downturn. Never do you need an excuse to return to a great album, but a remaster can serve as a reminder of the still present potential in a person, that untapped thrill so many heard in 1995.
It lingers even now. Different Class is a rare beast of an album. It holds the same energy and passion now as it did back when the band used it to catapult themselves to the top of the charts. Those who spent the last eight years soundtracking their life to Different Class will notice the quality changes. Subtler details for the hardened fan. Mis-Shapes sounds a little cleaner, a slightly more vibrant sound than it has on older printings. There is only so much you can change or consider on a remaster without it feeling like historical revisionism, but Pulp finds the right balance for this thirtieth anniversary. What has changed beyond the music is Pulp. They weren’t looking for trouble in the alleys and smoking areas of clubs across the country, but now they’re taking a fight to an ever-diminishing mainstream.
Different Class still has a fight burning within, and that’ll be a relief to those who found such value in the likes of Common People, the anthemic hit which still rightly closes out their set, and I Spy, a seedy and sharp piece knocking the elite. All of these well-served class warfare thrills are matched by the instrumental strength Different Class still offers. Pencil Skirt has a clearer keyboard section in the lead-up to the track’s final moments, while Common People has a sharper urgency, an adrenaline-punching, near six minutes of pure quality. Different Class remains in a class of its own, and when there is such care taken to preserving the thrills of Disco 2000 and the slower charms of Something Changed and Bar Italia, it’s making sure the fight for survival heard across these songs is still thriving. Different Class sounds cleaner, cooler, and still incredible.
Pair that with a first-time release of the band’s monumental Glastonbury Festival headline set, and there’s a whole new reason to listen in to this remaster. Debuting songs like Disco 2000 and Monday Morning is a real thrill. There is no better spot, nor a more dangerous one for fresh music, than a headline slot at the world’s biggest music festival. Pair that with some blistering performances of Razzmatazz and Pink Glove, and you have an era-defining set which stands tall as one of the best Glastonbury sets in history. Hearing that printed, mastered brilliantly, and still holding within it a sensation fans will get when watching back footage or seeing the shows, is tricky. Pulp manages it. They have not lost sight of the new day dawning, the hopes of a better tomorrow Cocker sings of on Monday Morning. This has stuck with them and, in turn, listeners, who will be delighted to hear how brilliantly Different Class holds up. The very definition of timeless.
