Pulp's This Is Hardcore

(Paperback)

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This Is Hardcore is Pulps cry for help. A giant, sprawling, flawed masterpiece of a record, the 1998 album manages to tackle some of the most inappropriately grown-up issues of the day fame, ageing, mortality, drugs, and pornography and still come out crying and laughing on the other side. The subject of pornography dominates the record from its controversial artwork to the images conjured up by songs like "Seductive Barry" and the title track after Pulps main man, Jarvis Cocker who'd spent most of his teenage and adult life chasing celebrity, only to be cruelly disappointed when it finally arrived in spades hit upon the grand notion of using pornography as a metaphor for fame. The album's commercial failure as a follow-up to the band's Britpop-defining, Different Class, also symbolizes a death knell for Britpop itself. Dark, right Except just like Pulp themselves, Jane Savidges book is playful and sometimes very funny indeed. Kicking off with an imaginary conversation between Jarvis Cocker and the people who run the Total Fame Solutions helpline, Savidge expertly guides us through the trials and tribulations of an album that begins with the so-called Michael Jackson Incident, when Cocker got up on stage at the 1996 Brit Awards and waggled his fully-clothed bum at the King of Pop. Pulps This Is Hardcore may be a sleazy run through porn and mental demise, and an album that chronicles Cockers continuing disillusionment with his newfound lot in life, but Savidges book assesses the cultural and historical context of the album with insider knowledge and a sharp modern lens, ultimately making a case for it as one of the most important albums of the 1990s.

Author Bio

As co-founder and head of legendary PR company Savage & Best, Jane Savidge is widely credited as being the main instigator of the Britpop movement that swept the UK in the mid 1990s. During this time, Jane represented Suede, Pulp, The Verve, Elastica, Longpigs, whilst representing many other artists of the era including The Fall and Jesus and Mary Chain. She is the author of Lunch With The Wild Frontiers (2019) and Here They Come With TheirMake Up On: Suede, Coming Up and More Adventures Beyond TheWild Frontiers (2022).