I Love Pulp
1996. Late to the party, as usual.
Pulp had already been around since 1978 in their native Sheffield, England, but I also believe in something called Divine Timing: things come to you when you’re (sort of) ready. So, there I was, a music-obsessed anglophile teen like so many in the 90s, fully knowing that my native Brooklyn wouldn’t (yet) have what I was looking for after I heard Pulp on late-night radio.
I was instantly in love. I wanted to hear more of them, and nothing else. I needed access to that forbidden and fascinating thing, like a crush’s underwear drawer. Like a parent’s unattended credit card.
What I loved was their clever blend of instruments and the way Jarvis Cocker’s voice wrapped me up in story. He’s an electric poet and an excellent writer; a too-tall, too-skinny zeitgeist of a man that somehow knew what I was feeling. There are 3,367 miles between Sheffield and Brooklyn, but ever since that autumn night in 1996, we’ve been neighbors. “Mis-shapes” from the Different Class album busted down my proverbial door, and sang my mind right back to me.
We’re makin’ a move, we’re makin’ it now, we’re comin’ out off the sideline…
The disenfranchised disconnection of young adults in the industrial English North somehow connected to this brown girl from a fucked up household in New York City, and we both knew about dreaming from the underground, we loved our freaks, we loved our mischief, we loved our late-night artistic projects. We knew the romance of survival when you’re different, we knew how to be ironic, sassy, and hurt. From the vengeful “I Spy” to the teasing “Pencil Skirt,” to the melancholy in “Disco 2000,” I was right along in the stories the band was telling.
I went on a retroactive blitz where I bought everything of Pulp’s I could find at my beloved Record Runner, Disc-o-Rama, and the random CDs on sale at vintage clothing stores.
No one else understood my Pulp madness except for one of my good friends in high school, and we at least had each other to scream-sing lyrics at house parties when we had our proverbial turn at with the AUX cable. And everyone would ask, “what the hell are you listening to?” My friend and I were certain we’d never get to see Pulp. We were too young and too far away. They’d have to remain a distant dream.
Are you sure?
Fast forward to September 2024, and that same friend from high school tells me he has a batshit crazy surprise for me. Lo and behold, Pulp was playing! In Brooklyn! Like, 10 minutes from his house!
At the drop-dead-drowsy-gorgeous King’s Theatre, Jarvis Cocker and Pulp were there! Our sass poet in velvet, singing our teenage yearbook with us, with lyrics that now made so much more sense for better or worse in our middle-aged days. You know you’re connected to a great band when the lyrics grow with you, and you with them. You sit still and listen, read the lyrics again like a love letter. Like a traffic ticket. Bound to the emotions and the consequences. So many of the things we were too young to understand were crystal clear to us now. Jarvis had warned us, seduced us, even, about the passing of time. The cunning lessons and love that come with it.
We must have understood what he meant, because we knew the romance of being different. Of wanting more.
This is what we did for an encore.
Jarvis Cocker asked the audience if anyone could recall when, where, and with whom the band first played in New York. Here’s the answer. The Academy is now the Lyric Theater, home to “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Walk on the Wild Side NYC
The setlist made my inner 17-year-old squeal, including my favorites, “Mis-Shapes,” “This is Hardcore,” “F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.,” “She’s A Woman,” and of course, the all-too-relevant “Common People.” The mostly 40s+ crowd also had many younger faces among us, discovering the sound and the stories, and likely the genre of Britpop which is so varied and introspective (when it comes to Pulp).
The band sounded great, and the stage design was fantastic. Lyrics and images on screen from various songs teased us through the timeline of classics. Jarvis’s baritone was stronger than ever, and his poses were their usual legendary.
What more could we possibly ask for?
We’re used to seeing people of different backgrounds together in New York City, but a show like this full of love for a band that is still—despite their commercial success—pretty niche in the US, made it feel good to be in on a secret. Wonderful, in fact. Truly, we were members of a different class.
