Associated Press
[Source: AP]
Pulp has returned with a new album, their first in 24 years. Who could’ve predicted that?
Not even the band, it turns out. “It took us by surprise as well,” dynamic frontman Jarvis Cocker told The Associated Press. “Why not?”
If there are casual Pulp fans, they don’t make themselves known. The ambitious Britpop-and-then-some band emerged in the late-’70s in Sheffield, England, artistic outsiders with a penchant for the glam, grim, and in the case of Cocker, the gawky.
Fame alluded them until the mid-’90s, and then it rushed in with the trend of Cool Britannia.
Their songs varied wildly from their contemporaries, like the recently reunited Blur and soon-to-be back together Oasis. Instead, Pulp’s David Bowie-informed synth-pop arrived with humor, ambiguity and intellect — songs about sex and class consciousness that manage to be groovy, glib, awkward and amorous all at once.
Then, and in the decades since, Pulp has inspired devotion from loyal fans across generations. They’ve charmed those lucky enough to catch band members in their heyday before a kind of careerism led to a hiatus in 2002 — and those who saw them for the first time during reunion tours in 2011 and 2022.
With all that reputation on the line, it’s reassuring that the band has decided to give its audience “More,” their first new album in over two decades.
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