Pulp boast a discography chock-full of hits, but which is frontman Jarvis Cocker’s “ultimate banger”? Here’s how he blind-ranked five Pulp tracks for NME – check out the Blind Ranking video ahead of the band’s “final musical manifestation for a while” at the Mercury Prize award show this week.
- READ MORE: ‘Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?’ review: Britpop misfits take a deserved victory lap
NME caught up with Cocker last month ahead of the London premiere of their documentary film What Do You Do For An Encore?. Our chat with the frontman broached topics from the unique history and DNA of Pulp to what the future looks like for the band. We were also able to get Cocker to rank five of Pulp’s songs in order of greatness, without knowing what track could come up next.
The first track presented to Cocker was ‘Spike Island’, which set the tone for the ranking as a whole: “Sounds like I’ve been going to a manifesting workshop or something, but hopefully I will get it right.” The next song to be ranked was ‘Babies’, which “was a big song” for Pulp, according to Cocker. Over three decades after its release, he reaffirms that he’s “proud of the use of the words ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ in that song.”
Reflecting on ‘This Is Hardcore’, Cocker said: “It’s a memory from a painful time of life. But I’m kind of glad that we got that song from it. I’m not sure where it came from, I was blind drunk when I wrote the words and I was blind drunk when I first sang it. So I guess it was my head talking to me.”
‘Disco 2000’ was up for consideration next. “I suppose it was when I knew that Pulp was starting to get popular,” Cocker reminisced. “The year 2000, when I was a kid, it was like a mythical thing. That was when the future was going to begin…” Lastly, Cocker ranked the iconic ‘Common People’.
Watch the video below to see how Cocker blind-ranked all those songs – and let us know if you agree with his pick for the “ultimate banger”:
Cocker and the rest of Pulp are due to perform at the Mercury Prize award show on Thursday, October 22, on behalf of War Child Records’ star-studded ‘Help (2)’ compilation. The Sheffield band contributed ‘Begging For Change’ to the record, with an all-star choir featuring Damon Albarn, Grian Chatten, Kae Tempest and Carl Barât. The band have publicly acknowledged via social media that the appearance will serve as their “final musical manifestation for a while”.
Speaking to NME at the premiere of What Do You Do For An Encore?, Cocker shared that the band are “going to have a bit of a rest”. As for when Pulp might get together again, he said: “We’ll just see what will happen. I like to think of Pulp as an organic thing. Sometimes it bears fruit and sometimes it doesn’t, but I feel fairly confident that we will manage to do something else, but I don’t know when.”
Want more Blind Rankings? Check out our videos with Johnny Marr and Brandon Flowers.
The post Here’s how Jarvis Cocker blind-ranked five Pulp songs: “Hopefully I will get it right” appeared first on NME.