9. PulpThis Is Hardcore

Jarvis Cocker is amazing. I also know This Is Hardcore was a troubled album and took a long, long time to make. They were maybe doing a little bit of soul-searching at this point about what their identity was, because there’s no ‘let’s all get together in the year 2000’ here. There are songs looking forward in different, softer ways, like on ‘Help The Aged’. Only Jarvis Cocker could write a song about pensioners. I love his take on the world.

The title track itself is fabulous, so epic, and I love the malevolence in it. I think what makes a great album is being able to go from the light to the dark, with its music having a power that alerts us to the onset of a rather dark force that may be within all of us and should not be ignored. [Looks at notes and laughs.] That sounds quite good, actually. I could be a polytechnic professor! But I love the way Jarvis has that fabulous ability to appear very colloquial and chatty while at the same time following these dark, epic themes. And the whole band have to be congratulated for building the mood behind him.