pulp
Pulp Will Reunite for Shows in 2023
Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker teased the band’s return to activity last week on Instagram, and yesterday confirmed the news during a London Q&A about his new book, Good Pop Bad Pop. A source close to the artist has further confirmed to SPIN that Pulp will indeed play some shows in 2023 but that no other details were yet available. Formed in 1978 when Cocker and original guitarist Peter Dalton were teenagers, the beloved U.K. band released seven albums during its initial classic era from 1983 to 2001. Pulp split in 2002 but reformed as a touring entity between 2011-2013. The band hasn’t released a new studio album since 2001’s We Love Life, arguably one of the best in its discography. Beyond the new book, Cocker has been active with solo projects in the time since Pulp’s last breakup. He ...
The 90 Greatest Albums of the ’90s
This article originally appeared in the September 1999 issue of SPIN. “You must be high.” We heard that a lot during the time we spent preparing this issue. Which is understandable. Pronouncing the 90 greatest albums of the ’90s is a somewhat presumptuous thing to do. When you’re measuring the music this decade is offering to history—the sounds we partied with, copulated to, fought about, and wept over—everyone has an opinion. That ours should be more valid than yours is debatable. But hey—it’s our magazine. What, then, you ask, constitutes “greatest”? Don’t even start. Suffice it to say that, after much heated discussion and countless veiled insults, it came down to the factors of both remarkable artistry and cultural shock value. Sometimes a record’s knock-you-off-your-Skechers impa...
The 50 Best Alt-Rock Love Songs
Not all love songs are romantic. Not all love songs are even happy. It all depends on your definition of the term. For every “My Girl” or “Your Song,” there’s at least one track with a nuanced take on the darker, more complicated sides of love — the drama of a long-term relationship, the fear of losing a partner, the void left in love’s wake. Many of those songs fall under the admittedly broad umbrella of “alt-rock.” So to mark Valentine’s Day, we decided to gather 50 of our favorite “love songs” in the genre — both conventional and otherwise. Throughout this list, you’ll find lines about blooming romance and marital bliss. You’ll also find nods to drug addiction and car crashes. There’s something for everyone. – Ryan Reed 50. that dog. – “I’m Gonna See You” You take the good, you tak...
The 25 Best Albums of the Britpop Era
Contrary to popular belief, Britpop was not a subgenre. It was also not a catchall for every bit of culture being manufactured in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (That would be “Cool Britannia,” and like Britpop it almost exclusively applied to English entities.) Instead, Britpop was originally a press-driven crusade to champion domestic talent that represented the customs and lifestyle in their music. The credit (or blame) for the whole thing really goes to journalist Stuart Maconie, whose “Yanks Go Home” cover story in the April 1993 issue of Select framed indie acts like Suede, Pulp, Saint Etienne and the Auteurs as an antidote to the “bad grunge” that was “killing British music.” Although Suede frontman Brett Anderson graced the Select cover, he publicly derided th...
The 25 Best Soundtrack Albums of the 1990s
In the 1980s, music and film collided for cross-promotional blockbusters both transcendent (Purple Rain) and transcendently cheesy (Footloose). In the ‘90s, soundtracks continued to sell in the millions, capturing cultural moments like the Seattle grunge of Singles or the Britpop and electronica of Trainspotting. Auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson reached deep into their record collections to set the mood while movies like Above the Rim and Menace II Society pioneered the concept of soundtracks as hip-hop mixtapes. A great soundtrack can propel an unsuccessful single, like Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose,” to the top of the charts, or revive a decades-old hit, like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It can also push a cult singer-songwriter like Elliott Smith or Aimee Mann to an Oscar perf...
JARV IS Shares Latest Single ‘Save The Whale’
Jarvis Cocker’s solo debut album was going to be one of the highlights of the year. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the date got moved, but now we have some answers. The record, titled Beyond the Pale and being put out under the JARV IS moniker, will now be out on July 17. From that album, the Pulp singer has already shared “Must I Evolve?” and “House Music All Night Long” from the collection. Now you can add a third song to it. The video for “Save the Whale” was recorded while Cocker was in quarantine and features images posted online of him over the past few years. Here’s what he had to say about it. “The title popped into my head as I was leaving the cinema after having seen Nick Broomfield’s Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love documentary. The “Smooth World...
