Give yourself the treat of listening to Different Class and This is Hardcore back-to-back. Keen-eyed listeners, those with their ear to the speaker and an eye on the turntable, will note that The Fear opens with the final notes of Bar Italia. It’s the closest Pulp comes to a musical or thematic overlap between their two albums. Cool Brittania had come and gone in the gap between releases. Listeners of the time may have been starved for more Pulp, but it would have been a messy, dated album released in the interlude. So many of their contemporaries found themselves staggering to the darker tones or doubling down on the light thrills of the time. Those who engaged with the former, as Blur did with their self-titled work and 13 to follow, have lasted longer than those who didn’t. This is Hardcore track The Fear opens a whole new sound for the band, one which is as strong, if not stronger, than most of their other releases to date.
Pulp are not ones for subtlety here. Jarvis Cocker’s wordplay remains sharp and to the point, but with the whining and creeping instrumental noise backing him, The Fear takes on its title suggestion brilliantly. All of it, while sounding fantastic, reveals a miserable side to the creative pursuit. The Fear is a song which can summarise This is Hardcore well. A burnt-out band hitting away at their instruments as they strain themselves, trying to find a new route through old musical bedfellows. They do brilliantly, and in the end, it’s one of their very best tracks, but this is the sort of through-the-looking-glass songwriting which can collapse a band if they are not ready to reveal more of themselves. Had Cocker not laid out the staggering honesty, the undefinable fear but the definite anxiety, then The Fear would not have hit as hard as it does.
As a modern-day setlist staple, it takes on a new form. It’s not just a knock at artificial intelligence, but the slippery slope the world is on. “Until the end,” takes on a brutal, fresh meaning. Any song worth its weight can withstand the projection of a new message, be it from the band or a listener. The Fear is capable of that, not just through exceptional writing but some instrumental bravery. An astonishing guitar solo (for those wanting even more of that, the Complete and Utter Breakdown version of the song is the superior choice) pairs with some haunting strings and backing vocals. Few songs from this post-Britpop era, the Cool Brittania comedown, whatever you want to call it, have captured the mood of the times quite as well as The Fear.
That’s what Pulp did, and still do, consistently. It’s not enough to capture the spirit of the times, it’s got to be an honest reflection of them. Where listeners may fall for the popular alternatives cropping up in the late 1990s, there were few, if any songs, filled with the same truth, power, and open read on the world as The Fear. A lightning in a bottle moment for a band whose biggest hits will always outshine the This is Hardcore opener. But there’s a brilliance, a beauty too, to the anxieties at play here. Those hopeful days on the streets of Soho are over. Once the party stops, you have to get home. The Fear is a dark turn from a band whose underdog status had been a driving force. But once you’re at the top, the cliche of coming down is all too true. It’s the days when the band were experimenting with electronics, and though no songs would fully be influenced by it, the distortion and feedback at the end of The Fear sets an incredible tone which only strengthens This is Hardcore.
