Pure Fop for Common People
Still, you don't need to know the history of Brit-pop to understand the root of Cocker's anger on "Cocaine Socialism."
Ten years ago, the British band Pulp wrote and recorded a projected single called "Cocaine Socialism." The track seemed to incorporate every Big Rock indulgence of the '80s and '90s: martial rhythms, overbearing horns and echoing vocals. Jarvis Cocker preened and posed, but the words he sang were bitter and brutally sardonic. "You can be just what you want to be/ Just as long as you don't try to compete with me."
Cocker had seen Pulp through frequent lineup changes and stylistic re-routes since starting the band when he was a teenager in Sheffield in the late '70s. He'd weathered constant indifference throughout much of the '80s, and led the band to relevance and success in the mid-'90s. Plus, Cocker had evolved into a uniquely dashing figure: witheringly witty, but still self-deprecating and human; indifferent to trends (not to mention bathing), yet innately stylish.
Still, you don't need to know the history of Brit-pop to understand the root of Cocker's anger on "Cocaine Socialism." He pinpointed the moment where a lifestyle or set of beliefs becomes just another commodity, political or otherwise.
Ultimately, Cocker decided the song was too nasty to be a single. Instead, he rewrote it into a more ambivalent album track called "Glory Days." "Cocaine Socialism" was relegated to B-side status. This year, the original version finally became publicly available on the new double-disc edition of 1998's This Is Hardcore, part of Island Records' U.K. campaign of Pulp reissues and archival releases.
What a difference 10 years makes. When he recently completed another protest song, the deliriously foul-mouthed "Running the World," rather than sheepishly burying it, Cocker used to it to launch his MySpace page this past summer. It marked his return to pop life, having put Pulp on hiatus in 2002 to decamp to France to start a family.
"Running the World" also appears — albeit as a hidden track, 30 annoying minutes after the last listed track — on Cocker's first solo CD, Jarvis (Rough Trade), which came out in Europe last month. On the album, Cocker moves further away from the classic Pulp sound — guitar-pop meets disco — to a more pastoral place: piano, vibraphone, guitars that jangle or twang and artful orchestrations abound.
Jarvis is a deeply dark album that somehow winds up life-affirming. But then, Cocker has always been adept at occupying two positions at once, both an observer and participant in many of his scenarios. He delivers a haunting reading of "Baby's Coming Back to Me" that sounds as if his love forever resides miles and miles away. "I Will Kill Again" satirizes middle-class malaise but, now that he's a family man, does he understand this character more than he'd like?
Cocker is too sensitive, too neurotic to not take the zeitgeist seriously. (Anyone who's spent enough time with Pulp's signature song, "Common People," understands this.) And to think, now he's a dad. So he imagines getting mugged and murdered for his cell phone on "Fat Children." "Disney Time" compares Mickey Mouse's empire to porn; Cocker figures both are about even in their relation to reality.
On "From A to I" he plays the part of a British Charlie Brown, so deeply runs the existential despair. "They want our way of life/ Well, they can have it any time they like," he moans. Is he voicing pessimism, reflecting it or tweaking it? The wit in couplets like "Not one single soul was saved/ I was ordering an Indian takeaway" keeps the song perpetually off-balance.
"Big Julie" doesn't concern itself with the problems of the world, but it's one of the most poignant songs on the album. One of Cocker's sympathetic if slightly idealized odes to misunderstood females, "Big Julie" features an almost flawless lyric, culminating with the line, "You go and chase your dreams/ But if your dreams are not your own/ Then wouldn't it be better/ Just to work things out at home?"
To some American music fans, Cocker and Pulp might seem like Brit-pop also-rans, if they're remembered at all. But U.K. groups like Franz Ferdinand and Art Brut — who've reaped varying but significant audiences in the U.S. — owe a sizable debt to Pulp. Gawker's music blog Idolator recently attempted "The Battle to Save 'Mis-Shapes,'" a ploy to refocus attention on the Pulp song "Mis-Shapes" and away from the much-mocked New York hipster DJ night of the same name. And yet Pulp fans in the U.S. consistently contend with import prices — that is, when we don't just illegally download what we want.
No, he won't ever be bigger than Jesus, or even Morrissey. Still — American label, American promotion, American tour: It wouldn't hurt to try.
The mis-shapes and the misfits love undertherock.blogspot.com.
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