One of the very best Pulp songs can be found on This is Hardcore, according to the band’s frontman, Jarvis Cocker.
The music veteran believes the band’s 1998 effort also has a few songs that are simply “not so good”, though the good outweighs the bad, it would seem. Released three years after the band’s chart-topping Different Class, Pulp took a wholly different direction for the sound and divided their audience and record sales in the process. Despite that, it features some of their very best songs, and one of them remains a favourite of Cocker’s. Speaking to The Ultimate Record Collector Magazine, Cocker said: “There’s some really good songs on This is Hardcore, including the title track, which is one of my favourite songs that Pulp ever recorded. But there are some not-so-good songs on it.
“Different Class tells a good story, and This is Hardcore doesn’t tell any kind of story really. It’s got moments that are good, but I’m not really sure what they mean, and it doesn’t hang together, I don’t think.”
Guitarist Mark Webber and drummer Nick Banks both believe the album as a whole is some of the band’s best work, but that there was a malaise in the studio which affected the album.
Mark Webber added: “Of all the records, if I was forced to have to listen to a Pulp album or was just sitting at home thinking, ‘What do our records sound like?’, that would be the one that I would go to. But I kind of hated This is Hardcore, even though I knew it was good work. I kind of hated it because of the way it emerged.
“And A Little Soul, I also really hated that song. In fact, when the album came out, we all did interviews, but I would say things like, ‘It’s great, but there are four songs that shouldn’t be on the album.’ That was the point where they asked me to stop doing interviews.”
Nick Banks added: “This is Hardcore is right up there with the best that Pulp have ever done because it’s so cinematic, it’s so expansive, it’s just fantastic. I really love playing that song because music should do something to your insides, and This is Hardcore, for me, really does. That’s just the pinnacle. There’s some stuff that perhaps, on previous albums, might not have made the cut.
“It’s darker – Pulp have gone through periods where it’s gone darker, and you have to sometimes go through the dark to get to the light, who knows. You have to take what the fans say, and the fans really, really do like This is Hardcore.” The group has featured This is Hardcore in almost every show they have performed since the release of the album. Tracks like Help the Aged, The Fear, Party Hard, and Dishes have also featured on the group’s More tour.
