Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Pulp: a band about life, death, and...

We need to talk about sex. But this isn't chocolate boxes and roses, it's dirtier than that. This isn't soft-focus film screen swooning, this isn't hardcore porno orgies, this isn't anything you've encountered in popular media. This is Pulp. And the things that Pulp have to say about sex (and actually about life) are possibly the most mature, truthful, hopeful, and hilarious that you will ever encounter. Forget about that 'Brits are shy about sex' stereotype. No one is quite as candid, unapologetic, yet touchingly honest as Jarvis Cocker when it comes to dealing with it. In cultural discourse, we tend to avoid sex or speak of it very seriously as a disinfected, isolated subject matter, something to be ashamed of. Jarvis cleverly turns this attitude on its head. Nothing is off the table in his lyrics; voyeurism, loss of virginity, sex toys, porn, incest, it's all there. By directly confronting the very thing everyone avoids speaking of, he can then go on to talk about everything and anything else. Starting from the subject of sex, he then moves on to broader subjects, taking away this ridiculous power we give sex as a separate, strange act. After the first shock value of Jarvis's orgasmic gasps and explicit lyrics wears off, we're left with the feeling of 'so what's the big deal?' And that's the thing, there is no big deal. As Jarvis so eloquently says in 'This Is Hardcore'; 'that goes in there, that goes in there, and then it's over.'
Jarvis pursuing his favourite activity: (social) voyeurism
Sex in Pulp songs is a strange thing, or rather, a million different things. It's filthy ('This Is Hardcore'), it's disappointing ('Do You Remember the First Time?'), it's romantic and joyful ('The Birds in Your Garden'), it's disorienting and frightening ('Underwear'), it's graceless and awkward ('Acrylic Afternoons') but ultimately, it's just like life; all of those things at once. We either demonize of idealize sex, we can't regard it as a normal experience in life. This is what Jarvis is trying to teach us to do, to normalize sex, so then we can get on with it and figure out our lives.
Eye-rolling, twitchy, scrawny, praying mantis-like Jarvis in all his sexy glory.
Pulp, who, along with Suede, accidentally started Britpop, famously spent fifteen years sitting around in Sheffield trying to get famous, until Jarvis fell out of a window trying to impress a girl, injured his leg and hip, and wound up in the hospital. He realized that his life was going nowhere and decided to take a film course in London. Pulp of the ever-changing lineup suddenly gained fame with His 'n' Hers in 1994 and the rest, as they say, is history. Jarvis became the weirdest sex symbol ever. No one knew quite what to make of him. In interviews and articles from the start of Pulp's fame, he is consistently compared to Brett Anderson, but everyone quickly realized that Jarvis might in fact be Brett's polar opposite. Brett has said in an interview that he is 'very worried about self-parody.' Jarvis thrives on self-parody. He has a profound humility and even at the height of fame, he is not so much looking down at his audience as inviting them to sneak into the party where he doesn't belong either. Jarvis (and Pulp) were out for a bit of fun, celebrating separate moments of ordinary life, having a laugh, while Brett (and Suede) lived in the region of the epic, the grandiose. Jarvis blatantly didn't fit in, even among the misfits he dedicates 'Mis-Shapes' to. He was older than most of the members of popular bands (in his early 30s at their breakthrough), he was wiser (he seemed to have a very cerebral approach to his music and a well-thought out direction), he was scrawny and graceless and hopelessly nearsighted. But he was (and is) utterly magnetic.


I find Jarvis's personality incredibly attractive because he sticks to his ideals. That, I believe, is what makes him and Pulp so hopeful and inspiring. In a 1994 interview, Jarvis recalls going to see the Stranglers on his own at the age of 15; 'no one else in his school was interested... He wore with pride a tie his mother had crocheted for him... "I just realized that there was no way, even if I wore casuals, that I would be like everybody else... So in the end, I thought if you've got an imperfection, you may as well flaunt it and turn it into an advantage."' So basically, from the age of 15, Jarvis was just himself, wearing crocheted ties and awful sandals and making music that wasn't making the big time, was himself so persistently and thoroughly that at last it became what everyone else wanted to be. Jarvis is that ultimate rarity in music, the star who has never, in his entire career, done anything that does not fit, that is ridiculous (well, everything he does is somewhat ridiculous, I mean pathetic or cringe-worthy). Every song, every project he has been involved in (there are way too many to list) has been in accordance with his ideals. He has never tried to be anyone else. He can go out on stage and be as silly as he wants to, it will still be great because he is Jarvis Cocker and no one else. He wasn't afraid to offend or voice his opinion; besides the infamous Michael Jackson incident (which made Jarvis my hero for all eternity), he wore a sign on Top of the Pops that read 'I hate Wet Wet Wet' and later explained it in numerous interviews, he talked loudly and unspitefully about things he disliked or resented and gave good reasons for it.
But would it really be Jarvis without the cringe-worthy fashion choices?
 Jarvis is also incredibly intelligent and articulate. He made it his mission throughout his career to close the gap between life and art in a way where art augments life and not spoils it. In a 1995 NME interview, he addresses this issue simply but succinctly; 'watching loads of telly makes everything seem dramatic. Everything has a pacey story-line and a plot and good music and then life doesn't have the pacey story-line, does it? It's all over the place. Where's the great dialogue and the amazing sex? So you think, "Well, this ain't good enough!" Which is ironic; the telly isn't even real.' Jarvis's lyrics point out a million of these inconsistencies in ordinary life; we take drugs to escape but feel trapped ('Sorted for E's & Wizz'), we want sex but are unprepared for the consequences ('Babies'), we seek romance and cannot find it in conventional places and symbols ('Someone Like the Moon'). In general, we crave from experiences the ultimate satisfaction that is a figment of the media's imagination. Jarvis blames this gap between expectation and reality for the increased use of drugs; 'but generally people take more drugs now, people seem to need to exaggerate the normal, invent a less boring world of their own.' Not that he condemns drug-taking or partying, he quite willingly acknowledges that he does both and enjoys it, but he never uses drugs for creativity, which is another thing I find highly admirable about him.
Fun fact: Jarvis has said that his hands are his favourite part of his body.
So that's the charm of Pulp and Jarvis; not afraid to be kitsch or awkward as long as they're themselves, wise but never preachy, fun but cynical, witty and chatty, welcoming, enthusiastic. Listening to Pulp makes me feel like I'm in a conspiracy with Jarvis; on the fringes of the party, participating but also observing. And even though 'Common People' may be the most overrated of Pulp songs (the one instance when the music eclipsed the lyrics) perhaps it sums up Jarvis's position best; able to observe the life of the 'common people' but scornful of pretension, understanding 'how it feels to live your life with no meaning or control' but no longer living it that way, looking in with a protective compassion on the desperation of being poor and young and stuck.

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