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Despite its influence the time span of Britpop was so very brief.
From the release of "The Drowners" and "Popscene", through Blur vs Oasis
to its death knell with the release of OK Computer
merely 5 years and change.
But the band that best represented that fleeting yet culturally enduring moment,
the class divides, the classic pop literacy and the-misfits-have-overrun-the-country attitude
is Pulp.
Formed in 1978 but finally with a chance at chart success in the Britpop era,
the band fronted by the awkwardly charismatic Jarvis Cocker
produced some of the most cuttingly insightful tracks the 90s
with "Do You Remember The First Time?, "Mis-Shapes" and "This Is Hardcore"
But their 1995 tale of class, sex and supermarkets would define Britpop forever more.
This is New British Canon and this is the story of "Common People."
Pulp were formed in Sheffield in the North of England in 1978,
by the 15 year old Jarvis Cocker and his school friend Pete Dalton.
Named after the Michael Caine film, they wouldn't play their first gig until 1980.
By this point Cocker and Dalton had already lost their first two members.
Frequent lineup changes would soon become commonplace for the group.
In 1981 Pulp gained their first bit of national exposure
after gaining a session on indie godhead John Peel's show on BBC Radio 1.
Their set showed off their rudimentary keyboard-affected sound,
Cocker's vocal is assuming the tone of a Yorkshire Scott Walker
the music a mixture of fellow Sheffield bands The Human League
and Comsat Angels.
A disco-fied post-punk that would later be refined, evolve and follow the band to their mid-90s heyday.
Pulp's focus and only consistent member was Cocker.
His gangly frame, glasses, charity shop fashion and even his left field first name
marked him out from the normals of his hometown,
but would define his music and Pulp's outcast status.
Lyrically he wrote about sex in ways few others dared:
The rest of the 80s would provide Pulp limited upward momentum.
Though they released two albums in the form of It and Freaks,
revolving door lineups, problems with their independent label
and Cocker falling out of a window trying to impress a girl stunted their progress.
Pulp remained a local band,
only really appealing to those that liked the indiest of indie.
One good thing to come out of the 80s was in 1984
the addition of Russell Senior on guitars and violin;
Pulp's Johnny Marr to Cocker's Morrissey.
Despite this while Pulp never officially broke up,
in 1988 Cocker moved to London to study film and video at St Martins College.
During the 90s the fortunes of Pulp would improve significantly.
In 1990 their single "My Legendary Girlfriend" had been a NME single of the week.
As the decade wore on and the prevailing British guitar music trends
of jangle pop, shoegaze and baggy
evolved into the more amorphous and yet more commercially viable Britpop movement,
Pulp became a band of note.
With their burbling synths, danceable indie grooves and Cocker's outcast charisma
the veteran band for once seemed to fit in with the zeitgeist
alongside bands like Suede, Blur and Oasis.
Pulp's 1994 major label debut His 'N' Hers had been a breakthrough for the band.
It had managed to reach number nine in the UK Charts
and two of its singles, "Do You Remember The First Time?"
and the re-release of "Babies"
had been the band's first to break the Top 40.
His 'N' Hers was later nominated for a Mercury Music Prize.
Things were looking up for the band.
When playing mid-afternoon at Reading Festival 1994
the band had debuted a work-in-progress version of a new track,
with lyrics not quite bolted down:
By this point the lineup of Pulp alongside Cocker
consisted of Candida Doyle on synthesizers, Russell Senior on violin,
Steve Mackey on bass, Nick Banks on drums
and touring musician soon to be full-timer Mark Webber on guitar.
Coming into 1995 this version of Pulp
and this inauspicious track would make the group a household name.
"Common People" had been prompted by Cocker's time in London.
Having traded in some old records at Notting Hill Record and Tape Exchange
he decided to buy a small Casiotone MT 500 keyboard with his store credit.
Back in Sheffield and Pulp rehearsals
and most of the band were less than impressed by Cocker's awkward chord sequence.
Mackey had compared it unfavorably to Emerson Lake & Palmer's "Fanfare for the Common Man."
The comparison drew Cocker's mind back to an experience at St Martins,
and what it meant to be a 'common man.'
He'd met a well-to-do girl in a bar who'd expressed that she wanted to go
and live in Hackney, in the grimier part of London, and be with the 'common people.'
Back in his hometown he'd never really felt the class divide,
no one really had anything in Sheffield.
But in London the difference was more explicit
and her desire to go on some kind of working-class safari tour had stuck with him.
With this narrative in mind he wrote some suitably acid-tongued lyrics inspired by this encounter:
Much has since been made about the song's muse.
A couple of women have claimed to be her
and in 2006 the BBC failed to track her down given the information from the song.
But six years in between the incident and the writing of the song
may have muddled Cocker's memory.
She might not have been Greek nor studied sculpture.
But one aspect of the song he freely admits to be falsified
is that she never showed any romantic interest in him.
In the song, the girl wants to live and sleep and exist with the common people
as she sees them as exciting risk-taking entities
but the radio edit of the song cuts what Cocker considers to be the punchline:
She will never understand that their live for now mentality
is driven by sheer desperation.
They dance and drink and screw because there's literally nothing else to do.
She will never live that way.
The lyrics of "Common People" epitomized an atmosphere of glorified laddishness
that emanated from the Britpop scene.
Oasis were working class heroes and the middle class Blur were attempting to feign a lower class status,
whether that be adopting faux-Cockney accents, praising dog tracks or feeding the pigeons.
With "Common People," Pulp spewed vitriol at those cultural tourists with working-class envy.
Feeling that they had a potential hit on their hands,
Pulp convinced their label Island to let them record and release "Common People" as a single
before they'd even written their next album.
Production of the song was handled by Chris Thomas
chosen as he co-produced the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks album.
In the band's first meeting with Thomas he'd been wearing a neck brace
further endearing him to Cocker, who felt this marked him as a misfit-in-arms.
One of the unique aspects of "Common People"
is that the song increases tempo with each verse,
starting at 90 bpm:
with the final verse racing to 160:
But recording it proved an issue.
Said David Nicholas, the session's engineer:
Despite having used all 48 tracks, filled with such far flung instrumental touches as Senior's violin,
a stylophone and even laser gun sound effects,
coming up to their deadline, Cocker felt it was missing something:
By the release of "Common People" in May 1995
Pulp as a band was 17 years old.
Cocker was positioned as an elder statesman of the Britpop movement at the age of 32.
"Common People" debuted at number two in the UK Charts,
being beaten to the top spot by TV actors Robson & Jerome's cover of "Unchained Melody."
That would go on to be the highest selling UK single of 1995,
but nowhere near as important to British music as "Common People."
Pulp would never get a number one single.
Their second best attempt was later that year, "Sorted for E's and Wizz" made it again to number two,
denied by Simply Red and "Fairground."
While "Common People" was riding high in the charts,
Cocker felt motivated enough to write eight new songs
destined for their Different Class album released in October 1995.
On the back of the album reads the message:
And Britain as a whole took that message to heart and embraced it.
Different Class not only reached number one in the UK Album Chart
but went on to go four times platinum.
It also won the Mercury Music Prize in 1996.
Feeling that the band had now elevated themselves beyond mere common people,
Senior left the group in 1997 unable to handle the irony.
Pulp would go on to react against their newfound fame and celebrity in 1998 with This is Hardcore.
In the years since they've influenced everyone,
from the lyricism of Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner and Art Brut's Eddie Argos
to the disco-fied indie of Franz Ferdinand and The Killers.
Less than a month after "Common People"'s release,
John Squire, guitarist of the Stone Roses, was in the cycling accident
where he broke his collarbone.
This meant the Roses had to pull out of Saturday night at Glastonbury, requiring a new headliner.
Instead of giving PJ Harvey a three hour plus set, the organizers bagged Pulp for the role.
Their set, of course, ended with "Common People."
While for the rest of their set, the crowd had been in darkness,
Pulp unable to judge if they were doing well or not,
for their closer the field was bathed in light, each face singing back every word.
This was their anthem.
A snarling British anthem for this moment.
It may have taken them 17 years to get there but Pulp had made it.
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