Pulp - Different Class (UK Edition)

Winner of the 1996 Mercury Music Prize, Pulp's Different Class features the band as arty outsiders worming their way into the lives of ordinary folk, and they became pop in its most democratically widespread sense. Seventeen years after Jarvis Cocker formed Pulp in post-punk Sheffield while still a schoolboy, the singer and his group rose to the make-or-break moment. Cocker wrote eight of the album’s twelve songs in a 48-hour burst of inspiration. Among them was “Common People,” which instantly stood out as a potential anthem.

Jaunty and whimsical in tone at the start, “Common People” seems initially to be just a wry true-life anecdote: posh girl recruits fellow art student from a humble background (Jarvis) as a guide to how the other half lives. But as the pace quickens, the song escalates into an accusatory tirade, fueled by Cocker’s stinging awareness of how stacked social odds determine life outcomes. 

The overriding theme of Different Class is captured in the motto on the back of the album (We don’t want no trouble, we just want the right to be different. That’s all.) and in the opening number, “Mis-Shapes.” The sigh-infused half-mumbled opening line (“Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits”) gives you no hint of the anthemic explosiveness that lies ahead, but it beautifully expresses the “Why do we have to deal with this silly shit?” question that comes up every time an oppressed group has to fight once again for rights and privileges that should be a given.

The album features the singles "Common People", "Mis-Shapes", "Something Changed" and "Disco 2000".

Heavyweight vinyl produced by Island Records in 2016. UK Import.