The Friday Canon: PULP

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

No, I can't believe we haven't done them yet either. With just 12 UK Top 40 hits, you get FOUR ticks below. However because I'm feeling generous, for one! canon! only! you are allowed an EXTRA text-box vote for a song that's missing - if a song gets enough votes it will be included in the canon proper.

[Poll #1070087]
Duran Duran: (link)
1. Rio
2. Hungry Like The Wolf
=3. Girls On Film
=3. The Reflex
5. Save A Prayer
6. Wild Boys
7. Planet Earth
=8. A View To A Kill
=8. Is There Something I Should Know
=8. Ordinary World

Carter USM/Wonder Stuff/Pop Will Eat Itself: (link)
1. Carter USM - The Only Living Boy In New Cross
2. Carter USM - Sheriff Fatman
3. Pop Will Eat Itself - Can U Dig It
4. Carter USM - After The Watershed
5. Pop Will Eat Itself - Ich Bin Ein Auslander
6. Pop Will Eat Itself - Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!
7. Wonder Stuff - The Size Of A Cow
=8. Wonder Stuff [w/ Vic Reeves] - Dizzy
=8. Carter USM - Rubbish
=8. Wonder Stuff - Don't Let Me Down Gently

Comments

OH CONTRARIANPAWS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Arf Arf 5 voters, 0 for Common People.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

ok byebyepride / freakytigger mindmeld a bit spooky here.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Jarvis still gets points from me for the whole Jacko-Brits saga. Hahahahaha. But botherd about his music, rly. This Is Hardcore was a proper spooky mournful dirge though - that's my favourite single I think.

Y O Y O Y

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

did they release Something Changed as a single?

Pulp 91-94

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

...were really really good & I was still very excited by them in 95 though I wish I hadn't re-bought Different Class. It's good but it doesn't have the character of His N Hers or Separations or the singles around that time - also I thought it was MAZIN at the time and I'm a bit sad I still don't. ("I Spy" is terrific though).

Anyway the great thing about them was that they had SUCH a strong identity - everything about them was so.... Pulp-ish and fit together so well, more so than any of the other big 90s bands. They'd managed to zero in on one particular mood (of sweaty-palmed guilt basically) and explored it minutely. I guess they couldn't have sustained that intensity though - even by "Do You Remember" it was heading down self-parody avenue.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It was you who introduced me to Pulp - I really dismissed them and then you played me Razzmatazz insistently and I had to admit it was awesome.

[celentari.livejournal.com]

Balls, I ticked 5 by mistake - lose Something Changed.

Re: Pulp 91-94

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I've never heard the pre-'Common People' incarnation of Pulp but my favourite Pulp song is from...I think '98? 'Like A Friend', off the Great Expectations soundtrack. It explodes into this really awesome melody, and I never get the sense that Jarvis is trying to Make A Point which can make the bigger hits a bit overbearing.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

Haha, in which case you have the same four as me. Though, to my mind, they are the correct and obvious four. Of course.

Re: Pulp 91-94

[martinv.livejournal.com]

Like a Friend is definitely one of my favourite Pulp songs. Good call.

If you called your dad he could stop it all

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

We were talking about Common People on my own LJ yesterday (flocked out of habit - I can take the lock off I think). There's some interesting stuff there from koganbot and others.

Anyway it just occurred to me that Cocker's logic in this line was also my logic when I was an angry young schoolboy getting annoyed at compulsory Christianity: Jesus was a phoney who cd never live like common people.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten this!

Re: Y O Y O Y

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I still own it, somewhere, I'm fairly sure.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Myself, Lex and katstevens are the only voters not to have ticked either 'Common People' or 'Do You Remember The First Time?'

Conclusion: We have better taste in Pulp songs than the rest of you.

My votes were for
Mis-Shapes / Sorted For E's & Wizz (which I still have at home, and which came with an inner sleeve to cut out your own Barbie-esque Pulp costumes.
This Is Hardcore - dark, deeply disturbing, totally brilliant
Help The Aged - I just loved the way this song built up
A Little Soul - just lovely lyrics, great tune

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

A Little Soul wd have been my 5th pick - love the handclaps!

I don't think I can remember such a huge sense of disappointment (among contemporaries) when "Help The Aged"...I want to say 'leaked' but things didn't leak then. When they heard Help The Aged. I don't think it's a bad record but it's not one of their classics.

My Four, and why

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Do You Remember The First Time - this was sort of marginal, it just reminds me of being into them at University and everyone being 20 and vibing off the same stuff :(

Sisters EP - last hurrah for the old claustrophobic voyeur Pulp, and has the amazing "I only went with her cos she looks like you MAHGOD" bit.

This Is Hardcore - old claustrophobic voyeur Pulp rises from grave as horrifying cokehead zombie. Extremely nasty.

Sunrise/The Trees - PROGTASTIC. Entirely for redemptive powers of "Sunrise".

If I was picking my favourite four Pulp singles, as opposed to top 40 hits, only TIH would make it - others wd be Razzmatazz, My Legendary GF, and either Countdown or Lipgloss.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

I hate being populist in my tastes but surely Common People, one of the all time great pop singles, is a reasonable choice here?!

As much as almost every other overplayed indie track angers me (very deeply) when played at an indie club, I will always find time for Common People. It never ever gets boring. Disco 2000 on the other hand....

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I like it more than one of my picks, to be fair, but I have got bored of it (and I felt it probably wouldn't need the votes, as apparently did several other people!)

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

I only know 6 Pulp songs, which are the 4 I ticked above ("Common People", "Disco 2000", "This is Hardcore", "Babies") plus "Do You Remember the First Time" plus "Styloroc (Nights of Suburbia)". Is there any particular reason I should bother to check out one of their albums?

Re: If you called your dad he could stop it all

[koganbot]

"there's some interesting but ignorant stuff from koganbot"

I wonder if it's possible for someone like me to really in my gut comprehend the lived experience of being a Pulp fan.

What exactly are you gonna do for an encore?

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

This Is Hardcore - old claustrophobic voyeur Pulp rises from grave as horrifying cokehead zombie. Extremely nasty.

Possibly the best thing they ever did.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Help The Aged always had the feel of almost being a novelty record to me. But then I ticked Bad Cover Version which actually is a novelty record so what do I know.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I never liked it that much to begin with. Pulp have always left me kind of ambivalent. Not annoying, not amazing. I think it's because I don't identify with song lyrics very well (as discussed over on koganbot's Ashlee Simpson posts) and the music needs to be brilliant to win me over. Hence my liking of echoey dismal epic This Is Hardcore, where Jarvis's words kind of get lost in random bibbling.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's only really doing this poll and thread that's made me realise how Pulp were the defining band of me being at University. I'm in danger of being too poleaxed by nostalgia to say anything (or maybe in danger of making a million useless posts!)

[martinv.livejournal.com]

I've never been that about the lyrics, either to Common People or, to be honest, to most other Pulp songs. Surely CP is more about the repeated build-ups, the way the music just keeps reaching peaks you can't see how it's going to surpass, and then surpasses them?

This is Hardcore does a similar thing, but is a bit more subtle.

My favourite Pulp single, Sunrise, has just the one 'climax', to my mind, but is possibly the best one ever.