Pulp – Different Class
As a teenager I never really had any friends who were into guitar music. We used to trade bootleg tapes recorded at raves like Fantasia and Dreamscape. I never really listened to them as sitting in your bedroom listening to 5,000 ravers whistling off their faces on E just wasn’t the same.
I would secretly listen to New Romantic bands like Japan and Duran Duran, having discovered them on VH1 and bought on 10p second hand vinyl. I saw Common People on MTV and kinda liked it. When Disco 2000 came out I thought that Pulp could be a band for me – unlike Oasis and Verve they seemed to have more of a nod to the 80’s. I bought Different Class from MVC for £4.99 on cassette and listened to it on the bus home. I then found myself reading along to the lyrics (even know the liner notes asked to not to) and became enchanted with seedy stories from Jarvis Cocker’s mind. I’ve never known anyone to sing so candidly about sex and shit nights out.
Misfits was a personal favourite, I felt so betrayed when I heard the band seldom played it. It would be a couple not years before I found a girl who also adored Pulp and then slowly introduced me into other Brit Pop records i’d dismissed previously. This led to a love of the outsiders of the times like Mansun and Suede. I felt more of a kinship to the bands who wore eyeliner on stage.
There are some ‘proper’ Pulp fans who declare His n Hers as their greatest album. Don’t listen to them, they just don’t want to share their music with the masses. Different Class is a near perfect album – I only skip I Spy due to my disdain for whispering. If you’ve yet to hear the album get down to a record store and pick it up for £3 and be a rebel like me and read along whilst you listen.
– Fran Jolly
