“What a drag it is getting old,” Mick Jagger sang well before he got old. He turned 23 the same month the song with that lyric came out.
But, as we eventually discover, getting old is indeed a drag at times. Which is one of the recurring themes that creeps into mind when I listen to Pulp’s sixth studio album, “This is Hardcore,” which was released 20 years ago this week.
First, I need to spend a few diversionary words about my devotion to J.C. (Jarvis Cocker, in this case) and his band. While I lived through the Britpop era of the 1990s that brought Pulp to the fore, I was too busy then listening to Nirvana, The Sundays, The Cranberries, The Offspring and more. While I heard the radio-friendly hits by Oasis and Blur, I was more into the just-off-the-mainstream British bands like Elastica and Primal Scream. Even owning the “Trainspotting” soundtrack, which includes a Pulp song, wasn’t enough to clue me in sooner.
When I dove into Pulp about 10 years ago, I kicked myself for having waited to hear this band’s music.
While 1995’s “Different Class” album contains “Common People,” which has become the unofficial Britpop anthem and is a gloriously perfect song, the Pulp album that sticks with me is “This is Hardcore.” Cocker was in his mid-30s when recording this album, but Pulp, co-founded by a teenage Cocker, had been around 20 years when this album debuted. It sounds like the band’s dealing with cynicism and weariness. It sounds like a “middle-age” album, full of tension, mortality, messiness and dark undercurrents.
That starts with the album’s first song, “The Fear,” a manifesto about what the listener’s in for: “This is the sound of someone losing the plot / Making out that they're okay when they're not / You're gonna like it / But not a lot … .” It’s sung over queasy minor-key guitars, with the added touch of eerie theremin.
On the second song, “Dishes,” Cocker muses about having the same initials as a certain holy figure but realizing his own humanness in contrast to the other’s divinity—all while tending to dirty dishes, my daily chore in our household. I relate when he sings, “I'd like to make this water wine / But it's impossible / I've got to get these dishes dry.”
The next track, “Party Hard,” emphasizes Cocker’s often-Bowie-like voice in a song that’s as poppy as this album gets. The slyly funny “Help the Aged,” which advocates romantic activities for older people while reminding us of mortality: “In the meantime, we try / Try to forget that nothing lasts forever / No big deal, so give us all a feel / Funny how it all falls away.”
Cocker’s lyrics on the title track revel in sex and, at the same time, reduce it to a banal, mechanical act. “TV Movie” keeps up the theme of loneliness, albeit wrapped within a melody that’s among the band’s best. “Seductive Barry” is Cocker baring his libido again—a hallmark of many Pulp songs—and “Sylvia” is a great song about a woman he’s remembers.
But amid the songs on the back half of the album are “A Little Soul,” “I’m a Man” and “Glory Days,” which all resonate deeply with me. The first of those is Cocker telling another not to make the same mistakes he has, mistakes that have left him with little soul: “I did what was wrong though I knew what was right / I've got no wisdom that I want to pass on.”
“I’m a Man” deals with that ever-shifting question of what it means to be a man, a query that seems relevant as bad behavior by men is being fully exposed these days. More than ever, the old image of what it means to be manly is crumbling. Cocker already knew this: “Well, I learned to drink / And I learned to smoke / And I learned to tell / A dirty joke / Oh, if that's all there is then there's no point for me, oh / So please can I ask just why we're alive / 'Cause all that you do seems such a waste of time?”
Then, there’s “Glory Days,” the one Pulp song that’s included on my near-sacred list of songs that I want played at my wake some day long from now. It has a passing resemblance to a Bruce Springsteen-like anthem, a song that builds from small to grand. But it’s a sardonic anthem, reminding one that, on the whole, what we do in life rarely matters to many people: “Come and play the tunes of glory / Raise your voice in celebration/ Of the days that we have wasted in the café / In the station.”
Finally, the album’s closing song sums up the feeling that this album is about the end of something, maybe everything: “They say the future's beginning tonight / Whole empires will crumble, civilizations will fall.”
Albums that speak to us in our younger years sometimes age badly. They seem laughably naïve as we experience more life. “This is Hardcore” is not that album. As I’ve progressed through my 40s, it’s increasingly relatable. The themes mentioned might give the impression this is a morose album. But I hear it with the feelings of familiarity and hope that come from knowing other humans are going through the same things and yet still carrying on. Also, the lush instrumentation and ear-pleasing melodies work to counterbalance some of Cocker’s most cutting words.
I still hate this album’s cover photo, which is exploitative and prurient, and I wonder if I would have stumbled upon this album earlier had the cover not turned me off at first glance.
If you type this album’s title into Google, you’ll find it is a critic’s darling. It’s on many lists as one of the 1990s’ best albums. But it also seemed self-designed to torpedo Pulp’s sudden emergence into the mainstream of U.K. music, even as it advanced the band’s artistry. It reminds me of Nirvana’s “In Utero,” which I return to more often these days than the more popular “Nevermind.” NME even refers to “This is Hardcore” as the album that effectively ended the Britpop era. I don’t disagree.
Jarvis Cocker wasn’t, and still isn’t, a savior—despite his initials and this album’s anniversary coinciding with Holy Week. But he and his bandmates could conjure up memorable, meaningful lyrics linked to sticky melodies. In that way, this album is the band’s master thesis. It deserves to be remembered—and listened to—20 years later.