Pulp: This Is Hardcore

This Is Hardcore

Best song: This Is Hardcore

Worst song: TV Movie

Overall grade: 6

On ‘His ‘N’ Hers’, Pulp were very much a pop band with the arty side only occasionally coming out to play. On ‘Different Class’, they struck the perfect balance between the two to create a defining album of the era. On ‘This Is Hardcore’, they’ve begun, in places, to neglect hooks and lose accessibility, which results in a more challenging listen; but it’s an album worth putting effort into.

See, the subject matter of Pulp records has always looked at the shadier parts of life, things a lot of people would rather not think about, but before now, it was always taken from a more lighthearted, satirical angle. Here we’re confronted with bare-bones harsh truths, nothing dressed up, and it’s graphic and sometimes a little disturbing.

This is an album about young people, and worry about growing old is present in several songs. In ‘Dishes’ Jarvis compares himself to Jesus, who died at 33, and it should be offensive but it’s not. ‘Help the Aged’ is a highlight – it’s probably the most melodic, radio-friendly song here and it would almost have fit in on the last album, so it’s a brief respite from the album’s unfriendly demeanour. And is that… is that a Mellotron? I’m not completely sure but it sounds like one. (I have a minor obsession with the Mellotron. It’s as great a rock instrument as the electric guitar.)

The title track is not something you will ever, ever get used to. Everything I said in the introduction is multiplied by ten for this one song, with no imagery and no euphemisms but the kind of language that makes you also recoil from it, and it stays with you for a long time, not a hook whizzing round your head but an uncomfortable memory in the back of your mind.

Despite the fact that the songs actually have more instrumental sections than before, I feel like the band has become more lyrics-based than ever. Their CD insert booklets carry the message ‘Please do not read the lyrics while listening to the recordings’ and while I stick to that for the first couple of lessons, I think it’s worth doing, if only because it’s the only way you’ll pick up things like ‘I was having a whale of a time until your uncle Psychosis arrived’ and ‘When I close my eyes I can see you lowering yourself to my level.’

As the record goes on, the songs become more and more theatrical (see: ‘Seductive Barry’ ‘Glory Days’ and that ‘keeeeeep believing!’ hook in ‘Sylvia’) and I can almost see them as part of a musical. Especially the final track, ‘The Day After the Revolution’, which is overblown exactly like the last number of a Broadway show, and surprisingly positive considering what’s come before it, although not sickeningly so – it remains grounded with moments like ‘You know the answers but you get it wrong (just to confuse things.)’

The album ends with a single chord being held for ten minutes. Ten whole minutes. I find it hard to give this any kind of artistic meaning, but you should listen to it all the way through once, just so you can find the hidden whisper of ‘Goodbye’ partway through.

Yes, Pulp have definitely changed here, maybe permanently. They’re less restrained, taking more risks, and when you hear the line in ‘The Fear’ (the meta-song opener which perfectly captures the feeling  of loneliness): ‘This is the sound of someone losing the plot’ and relate it to the smash-hit success of ‘Different Class’ and ‘Common People’, you wonder how much of this is autobiographical.