on 2011-05-02 dscanland Said:

I second this review. The whole album, Different Class, was a masterpiece. If you know nothing about Jarvis Cocker or Pulp, do yourself a favor and check out Different Class. Bloody amazing and catchy Britpop.
Not Rated

Review:

on 2011-05-02 CharlesMartel Said:

As far as most people are concerned, Britpop was all about Oasis and Blur, largely because of their much publicised contest in 1995 over which album would outsell the other. Yet Britpop was far more than that. It was an attitude, an attitude which grew out of frustration over the staleness of life. Music in the early 1990s was struggling. The shoegazers had never caught the attention of the wider public. And as for the state of the nation, well dont even go there.

Out of this emerged Britpop, brash, in your face and, oh yes, fuck off! Oasis and Blur might have led the charge of Britpop into the mainstream, but bands like Pulp were where the spiritual heart to it lay. "Common People" was Jarvis Cocker's masterpiece, apparently written about some vacuous girl he met at University. It is a clever put-down of classist and neo-classist attitudes which persisted (and still do) in Britain. It is about snobbishness  not just that which looks down, but also that which looks up. Above all it was anthemic to a new generation of excluded youngsters, and in that it hearkened back to the post-punks of a decade and a half earlier. How far we had not come! Same government in power: same old problems: same old status quo.
Rating: 8/10