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Music : This Is Hardcore
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Rating: 
- Pulp's Berlin
Uncomfortable is probably the best word to describe this album. It's not always an easy listen, the sonics of the production tend towards the treble on a great deal of the songs and gone is the shimmering pop sheen of A Different Class (which to be honest I think was overrated, His 'n' Hers being a "purer" version of the same ideas.) It's really worth getting hold of some of the singles from around this time as the b-sides such as The Professional, Champagne Socialism and Ladies Man are better than some of the songs on here and really spell out Jarvis' dissillusion and dissenchantment with the pop world he had spent so long trying to enter. There are times on this album when you feel Jarvis whispering in your ear and it so often sounds like a broken man crying for help but feeling strangled. It's not pleasant but it's definitely more soulful than the formulaic work they had started to produce in the wake of Britpop. Musically, despite what the other reviewers say, I think that Pulp changed completely with this album and never returned to anything approaching their previous sound. The songs are generally much slower, rockier in a more traditional sense, with Bruce Springsteen and Elvis being evoked throughout the album in the guitar and vocal work. It feels as though they were consciously trying to escape everything that they felt was expected of them, regardless of the results, which is why some songs don't really work. The following album saw them relax a bit more into the new territory they were charting for themselves but this definitely felt like we were losing them and that's why it's such a great album. It's a bit like The Stone Roses' Second Coming, ironically, as Pulp made a leap up the ladder on the back of The Roses disintegration. You won't listen to it everyday but it's worth a spin if you're in the right mood.
Rating: - A darker, more complex follow up to Different Class.
"This is our 'Music from A Bachelor's Den' / the sound of loneliness turned up to ten / a horror soundtrack / from a stagnant water bed... / and it sounds just like this". The first line of the first track, The Fear, ably establishes the dark, decaying feeling of the morning after that Pulp we're surely feeling following the fallout of Britpop and the unparalleled success of their previous album Different Class following years of indie-obscurity. Whereas that record had revelled in giddy excess, chip-shop glamour and tales of boozed-up holidays and promises of meeting old loves in the new millennium, This Is Hardcore instead takes a long hard look in the mirror, gargles out the stench of the alchopops and brushes away the debris of another soulless night on the town to find the hollow, soulless feeling of middle-age slowly creeping in.
The songs on This Is Hardcore reflect a life at the crossroads, with a narrator no longer impressed by one-night stands, drug-fuelled odysseys, discothèques and night clubs, and instead, realising the emptiness and self-parody at the heart of shallow celebrity. Although it's safe to say that Cocker had always preferred to sing about the outcasts and losers at the heart of a sleazy society, there had always been an element of celebration or romanticism to undercut the images of peeling wallpaper, teenage bunk-ups or drugged-fuelled trysts. Here, his characters are presented in grainy close-up, with the stench of tobacco tainted family rooms, alcohol soaked clothes and personal defeat, all positively rife from one song to the next. From the opening track, which recalls the seedy voyeurism of I Spy, but takes things further into the haze of drug-induced paranoia (gelling with the art-work and reminding me of the character from Pink Floyd's The Wall... that jaded rock star hiding away behind the façade of his chic penthouse apartment, which has also become his tomb!!) with the production work of Chris Thomas further expanding the sonic landscape to take in ambient/electronic elements and the odd nod to trip-hop, whilst the band favour a more stripped down sound with acoustic guitars, live drums and a hint of orchestration.
The juxtaposition this creates is perfectly in tune with the themes behind the music, with the combination of arrangements and production creating a hollow vacuum of excess that the heart and soul (of both the music and the narrator) must cast off in order to further understand who they really are. Here, the lyrics throughout are more confessional in tone than the anthemic musings of His N' Hers and Different Class, with Cocker continuing The Fear with lyrics like "this is the sound of someone loosing the plot / making out that they're ok when they're not / you're gonn'a like this... / but not a lot / and the chorus goes like this", before the rest of the band join in and the song takes off into something that more closely resembles the classic Pulp sound. The next track, Dishes, is one of the more minimal offerings... beginning with a hint of keyboards and Cocker's dead-pan vocals intoning "I am not Jesus, though I have the same intials / I'm the man, who stays home and does the dishes...". The song later blooms into something more pop-like in feel, with the rest of the band eventually joining in to add drums and a keyboard counter-melody, creating a piece of music that's not a million miles away from the songs on Different Class.
Although the music here has that distinctive Pulp sound, the lyrics remain dark and despondent throughout... This isn't an album for those wanting to sing along with the common people, but rather, an album to cry yourself to sleep to when you realise she isn't coming home (and on top of that, she's left you with the kids!!). There's the typically mordant streak of humour featured throughout, but the songs are less boisterous. Even something like Party Hard, which has a sparkling keyboard melody care of Candida Doyle seems worn down and weary, with Cocker's not-quite-there-vocals exposing the tedium behind the whole Britpop scene ("and have you ever stopped to ask yourself / if you didn't want to party... / then why did you come here?"). Next is Help the Aged, a lush little song with gorgeous strings, languid percussion and Cocker's sleepy vocals all luring us into a (mostly) gentle song about the foibles of growing up, with Cocker's main concern being the loss of stamina and libido when everything starts going grey, falling out, or heading south for the winter.
True, the album isn't without it's flaws... like a lot of albums from the same period, it's probably too long, with the record as a whole pushing the 60 minute mark, whilst songs like Glory Days, Seductive Barry and Day After the Revolution would have probably made better B-sides. But that said, the rest of the album is fantastic stuff, with Pulp pushing their sound in such a way that it manages to reference both the early sound of It... and Freaks, as well as the peak His N' Hers/Different Class Britpop years, whilst simultaneously forging a new sound pitched somewhere in between. The use of sampling and lighter touches of trip-hop in the title track is fantastic, with the huge orchestral feel mixed with the drums and pianos, not to mention Cocker's sly lyrics ("this is hardcore... you make me hard"). There's also TV Movie, a largely acoustic song with clever lyrics that hold a double meaning ("without you my life has become / a hangover without end / a move... / made for TV /bad dialog / bad acting / no interest / too long with no story and no sex"), the gorgeous Little Soul, which is possibly the greatest song Cocker has ever written, and the joyous pop of Sylvia, which leads us towards the end on a bitter high ("I can't help you but I know things are gonna get better!").
This is Hardcore is perhaps a little rough around the edges... but, regardless, it still represents Pulp at the peak of their abilities. The combination of great pop melodies with darker lyrics that seem to point more towards Cocker's true feelings circa '98 works well, and shows Pulp to be probably the most vital band of the Britpop-era (...alongside Radiohead, The Divine Comedy and Luke Haines).
Rating: - This is the sound of someone losing the plot...
With "Diffrent class" Pulp became one of the most popular bands in britain, their follow up was this album entitled "This is Hardcore" a fitting title for a rarther dark and uncompromising album. Fans of "Diffrent class" may even be a little suprised by this album but "Diffrent Class" was Jarvis Cocker exploring English life, this album is Jarvis Cocker exploring Jarvis Cocker and at time when he was heavily addicted to drugs he is'nt too pleased with what he finds.
In "The Fear" Cocker is partially mocking the listener while speaking of his own troubles, "Help the aged" starts as a plee for helping the elderly but becomes a song about fear of things to come and "This is harcore" is a dark and explicit exploration of teenage life.
It's not a happy album, by any standards but through the darkness comes a sound of hope that things are going to get better, its very diffrent to "Diffrent Class" its a diffrent view on things and while it's not as much of a classic album there's more emotion and it may well leave you thinking much more about life than "Diffrent Class" did and that makes it not only one of Pulps best albums but one of the greatest albums of human emotion ever made.
Rating: - Classic
This, in my opinion, is alot better than different class. DC may havehad the classics like Common People and Mis-Shapes (check out the Franz Ferdinand cover of that) but This is Hardcore's songs have alot more depth in the lyrics than different class ever did, the best tracks on this album are probaly This is Hardcore and Party Hard then maybe Dishes. This album is certaintly Pulp at height, you must get this album
Rating: - Calssic Album If There Ever Was 1
I Bought this album agaist the wishes of my friends who told me it was SH**E...But aftre listening to it a fuew times (belive me you'll need 2..i got 2 like it a bit)
Stand Out Tracks
This Is Hardcore (a fantastic epic ofa song...some great lyrics and quite simply a classic)
Help! The Aged (A cracking tune..which has playbackablity)
The Fear(Takes a fuew listens b4 u can really like it..but wen u do!!!!)
Glory Days (love this tune..quite cute)
A Little Soul(a tune that could of turned up on any of the great albums and would not look out of place)
Party Hard (great little tune..good lyrics)
The rest of the songs are good but don't have the same standout quality.
OVERALL A ALBUM YOU SHOULD HAVE IN UR COLLECTION
- Pulp's BerlinUncomfortable is probably the best word to describe this album. It's not always an easy listen, the sonics of the production tend towards the treble on a great deal of the songs and gone is the shimmering pop sheen of A Different Class (which to be honest I think was overrated, His 'n' Hers being a "purer" version of the same ideas.) It's really worth getting hold of some of the singles from around this time as the b-sides such as The Professional, Champagne Socialism and Ladies Man are better than some of the songs on here and really spell out Jarvis' dissillusion and dissenchantment with the pop world he had spent so long trying to enter. There are times on this album when you feel Jarvis whispering in your ear and it so often sounds like a broken man crying for help but feeling strangled. It's not pleasant but it's definitely more soulful than the formulaic work they had started to produce in the wake of Britpop. Musically, despite what the other reviewers say, I think that Pulp changed completely with this album and never returned to anything approaching their previous sound. The songs are generally much slower, rockier in a more traditional sense, with Bruce Springsteen and Elvis being evoked throughout the album in the guitar and vocal work. It feels as though they were consciously trying to escape everything that they felt was expected of them, regardless of the results, which is why some songs don't really work. The following album saw them relax a bit more into the new territory they were charting for themselves but this definitely felt like we were losing them and that's why it's such a great album. It's a bit like The Stone Roses' Second Coming, ironically, as Pulp made a leap up the ladder on the back of The Roses disintegration. You won't listen to it everyday but it's worth a spin if you're in the right mood.
Rating:
- A darker, more complex follow up to Different Class."This is our 'Music from A Bachelor's Den' / the sound of loneliness turned up to ten / a horror soundtrack / from a stagnant water bed... / and it sounds just like this". The first line of the first track, The Fear, ably establishes the dark, decaying feeling of the morning after that Pulp we're surely feeling following the fallout of Britpop and the unparalleled success of their previous album Different Class following years of indie-obscurity. Whereas that record had revelled in giddy excess, chip-shop glamour and tales of boozed-up holidays and promises of meeting old loves in the new millennium, This Is Hardcore instead takes a long hard look in the mirror, gargles out the stench of the alchopops and brushes away the debris of another soulless night on the town to find the hollow, soulless feeling of middle-age slowly creeping in.
The songs on This Is Hardcore reflect a life at the crossroads, with a narrator no longer impressed by one-night stands, drug-fuelled odysseys, discothèques and night clubs, and instead, realising the emptiness and self-parody at the heart of shallow celebrity. Although it's safe to say that Cocker had always preferred to sing about the outcasts and losers at the heart of a sleazy society, there had always been an element of celebration or romanticism to undercut the images of peeling wallpaper, teenage bunk-ups or drugged-fuelled trysts. Here, his characters are presented in grainy close-up, with the stench of tobacco tainted family rooms, alcohol soaked clothes and personal defeat, all positively rife from one song to the next. From the opening track, which recalls the seedy voyeurism of I Spy, but takes things further into the haze of drug-induced paranoia (gelling with the art-work and reminding me of the character from Pink Floyd's The Wall... that jaded rock star hiding away behind the façade of his chic penthouse apartment, which has also become his tomb!!) with the production work of Chris Thomas further expanding the sonic landscape to take in ambient/electronic elements and the odd nod to trip-hop, whilst the band favour a more stripped down sound with acoustic guitars, live drums and a hint of orchestration.
The juxtaposition this creates is perfectly in tune with the themes behind the music, with the combination of arrangements and production creating a hollow vacuum of excess that the heart and soul (of both the music and the narrator) must cast off in order to further understand who they really are. Here, the lyrics throughout are more confessional in tone than the anthemic musings of His N' Hers and Different Class, with Cocker continuing The Fear with lyrics like "this is the sound of someone loosing the plot / making out that they're ok when they're not / you're gonn'a like this... / but not a lot / and the chorus goes like this", before the rest of the band join in and the song takes off into something that more closely resembles the classic Pulp sound. The next track, Dishes, is one of the more minimal offerings... beginning with a hint of keyboards and Cocker's dead-pan vocals intoning "I am not Jesus, though I have the same intials / I'm the man, who stays home and does the dishes...". The song later blooms into something more pop-like in feel, with the rest of the band eventually joining in to add drums and a keyboard counter-melody, creating a piece of music that's not a million miles away from the songs on Different Class.
Although the music here has that distinctive Pulp sound, the lyrics remain dark and despondent throughout... This isn't an album for those wanting to sing along with the common people, but rather, an album to cry yourself to sleep to when you realise she isn't coming home (and on top of that, she's left you with the kids!!). There's the typically mordant streak of humour featured throughout, but the songs are less boisterous. Even something like Party Hard, which has a sparkling keyboard melody care of Candida Doyle seems worn down and weary, with Cocker's not-quite-there-vocals exposing the tedium behind the whole Britpop scene ("and have you ever stopped to ask yourself / if you didn't want to party... / then why did you come here?"). Next is Help the Aged, a lush little song with gorgeous strings, languid percussion and Cocker's sleepy vocals all luring us into a (mostly) gentle song about the foibles of growing up, with Cocker's main concern being the loss of stamina and libido when everything starts going grey, falling out, or heading south for the winter.
True, the album isn't without it's flaws... like a lot of albums from the same period, it's probably too long, with the record as a whole pushing the 60 minute mark, whilst songs like Glory Days, Seductive Barry and Day After the Revolution would have probably made better B-sides. But that said, the rest of the album is fantastic stuff, with Pulp pushing their sound in such a way that it manages to reference both the early sound of It... and Freaks, as well as the peak His N' Hers/Different Class Britpop years, whilst simultaneously forging a new sound pitched somewhere in between. The use of sampling and lighter touches of trip-hop in the title track is fantastic, with the huge orchestral feel mixed with the drums and pianos, not to mention Cocker's sly lyrics ("this is hardcore... you make me hard"). There's also TV Movie, a largely acoustic song with clever lyrics that hold a double meaning ("without you my life has become / a hangover without end / a move... / made for TV /bad dialog / bad acting / no interest / too long with no story and no sex"), the gorgeous Little Soul, which is possibly the greatest song Cocker has ever written, and the joyous pop of Sylvia, which leads us towards the end on a bitter high ("I can't help you but I know things are gonna get better!").
This is Hardcore is perhaps a little rough around the edges... but, regardless, it still represents Pulp at the peak of their abilities. The combination of great pop melodies with darker lyrics that seem to point more towards Cocker's true feelings circa '98 works well, and shows Pulp to be probably the most vital band of the Britpop-era (...alongside Radiohead, The Divine Comedy and Luke Haines).
Rating:
- This is the sound of someone losing the plot...With "Diffrent class" Pulp became one of the most popular bands in britain, their follow up was this album entitled "This is Hardcore" a fitting title for a rarther dark and uncompromising album. Fans of "Diffrent class" may even be a little suprised by this album but "Diffrent Class" was Jarvis Cocker exploring English life, this album is Jarvis Cocker exploring Jarvis Cocker and at time when he was heavily addicted to drugs he is'nt too pleased with what he finds.
In "The Fear" Cocker is partially mocking the listener while speaking of his own troubles, "Help the aged" starts as a plee for helping the elderly but becomes a song about fear of things to come and "This is harcore" is a dark and explicit exploration of teenage life.
It's not a happy album, by any standards but through the darkness comes a sound of hope that things are going to get better, its very diffrent to "Diffrent Class" its a diffrent view on things and while it's not as much of a classic album there's more emotion and it may well leave you thinking much more about life than "Diffrent Class" did and that makes it not only one of Pulps best albums but one of the greatest albums of human emotion ever made.
Rating:
- ClassicThis, in my opinion, is alot better than different class. DC may havehad the classics like Common People and Mis-Shapes (check out the Franz Ferdinand cover of that) but This is Hardcore's songs have alot more depth in the lyrics than different class ever did, the best tracks on this album are probaly This is Hardcore and Party Hard then maybe Dishes. This album is certaintly Pulp at height, you must get this album
Rating:
- Calssic Album If There Ever Was 1I Bought this album agaist the wishes of my friends who told me it was SH**E...But aftre listening to it a fuew times (belive me you'll need 2..i got 2 like it a bit)
Stand Out Tracks
This Is Hardcore (a fantastic epic ofa song...some great lyrics and quite simply a classic)
Help! The Aged (A cracking tune..which has playbackablity)
The Fear(Takes a fuew listens b4 u can really like it..but wen u do!!!!)
Glory Days (love this tune..quite cute)
A Little Soul(a tune that could of turned up on any of the great albums and would not look out of place)
Party Hard (great little tune..good lyrics)
The rest of the songs are good but don't have the same standout quality.
OVERALL A ALBUM YOU SHOULD HAVE IN UR COLLECTION