Kenickie - At The Club

So it’s early 1997. Oasis are a matter of months away from strapping Britpop to their motorbike and heaving its tired carcass over the metaphorical shark. Blur have already evolved their way out of the scene by indulging their Pavement fantasies on their eponymous classic. And Kenickie, with characteristically disastrous timing are about to unleash their debut album At The Club.

But we’ll disregard the inopportune timing of Lauren Laverne’s merry gang for now and concentrate on one of the best guitar pop records of the ’90s. Like 1977, which was released a year previously, At The Club is an album that could only have been made by teenagers. From start to finish, it’s a blast of pure youthful energy. It kicks off with ‘In Your Car’, an explosive precursor of things to come. What follows is a mix of shouty harmonies, playful pop fun, and smart-arsed soundbites.

The album calls to mind a lot of the best bands of the ’90s. For example, the squelchy synths on ‘Robot Song’ are reminiscent of the first Mansun record. What’s kept At The Club fresh in the 12 years since it’s release is the fact that Kenickie weren’t just magpies; they took the classics and put their unique Northern punk stamp on them. I mean, look at ‘PVC’. It’s Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’ in pigtails (which kind of explains why Courtney Love had a soft spot for Kenickie).

And then there’s Lauren Laverne’s lyrics, which aren’t a million miles away from Suede’s romanticising of trash life: “We dress cheap, we dress tacky”, “We’re on our backs looking up at the stars”. All this, and we haven’t even mentioned ‘Punka’, Kenickie’s undoubted high point. In fact, screw it, it’s most bands’ high point. A joyous, glitzy three minutes of complete ecstasy on the subject of punk puritanism, it satirises and glamorises all at once.

The album finishes off on a downbeat note. The stripped down ‘Acetone’ dispenses with the power chords and attitude for a surprisingly gorgeous tale of trying to “dodge the sick stains on the street”. Well, I say the album finishes there, but it doesn’t quite. Where Ash chose to end their debut album with a revolting recording of them throwing up, Kenickie show they are clearly a far more demure bunch. They finish matters with the comic japery of ‘Montrose Gimps it up for Charity’. The song is basically just a load of kids larking about in the studio having a right old laugh at each other, and is about the most appropriate conclusion to the album really.

With At The Club, Kenickie gave us one of indie’s great under-rated albums. Predictably, they ended up burning out within 18 months of its release. They managed just one more record, Get In, which was a far more laid-back affair which sold far fewer copies than it deserved. In reality though, there probably was anything they could do to save them from an unsympathetic record-buying public which, lest we forget, was just about to embrace the horrors of nu-metal.

This was the way Kenickie was always going to end, and was a far more fitting way to finish that limping to an insipid third, fourth and fifth record like a lot of their contemporaries did.

Orbital II

Rave culture emerged with such a bang in 1988 that most of its vast following was left in an ecstasy fuelled daze for the remainder of the decade. It wasn’t until the early nineties that some of the producers of the era’s finest tracks began to realise the artistic potential of the acid sound. After all, the warehouse parties weren’t about standing around watching men with long hair masturbate guitars. It wasn’t about image or attitude or ego. It was about the crowd, and it was about dancing.

The people responsible for so many of those classic records were faceless. Many of them recorded under multiple guises and were never featured on the cover. But after a few years the rave population was eager for times to move on. One of the first acts to unlock this potential, and realise the euphoria of a five minute anthem across an entire album, was Orbital.

Their debut album Orbital was mostly a collection of disparate tunes, including their epic masterpiece ‘Chime’, but mostly connected by the slightly tinny sound created by the era’s limited technology. The following year that technology had improved, and with it Orbital’s vision. Instead of lumping some tunes together, the brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll worked on Orbital II as an artistic whole. The songs segued into one another, taking the listener on a sophisticated rave journey. It never pandered to the build-climax-build-climax blueprint of so many of the more poppy dance acts of the era – the acts that took rave into the charts a year or so later. It was dynamic, layered material which planted the roots of techno, progressive house, and breakbeat. Moreover, it never compromised its strictly underground sound. After all, Orbital was named after the ring road around London where most of the capital’s illegal warehouse parties secretly emerged.

‘Lush 3-1′ chimes into life after the broody opener ‘Planet of the Shapes’. ‘Lush 3-2′ then picks up the tempo, descending into the dark euphoria of ‘Impact’ and ‘Remind’. The unrelenting surge of ‘Walk Now’, with its ominous didgeridoo, eventually make way for the funk piano and helicopter rhythms of ‘Monday’. With the strength of these epics it is easy to forget sometimes what comes next – the album’s final track and coup de grace – the peerless ‘Halcyon’. It is the quintessential dance tune; all delicate piano, floaty atmospherics, and beautiful female harmonies. And that bassline.

Despite ‘Halcyon’, Orbital II doesn’t feature many of Orbital’s big hits, but it is the key long-player in their career much in the same way Technique is for New Order. Regardless, because at the time dance fans hadn’t heard anything like it. The Hartnoll brothers had proved that the genre had legs beyond the 12″. You could argue Altern-8 or Acen were the first to pioneer an artist album of rave, but who remembers them? Orbital, despite a much publicised final career performance at 2005’s Glastonbury festival, are already being lined up for headline shows this summer. Think of a world without The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, or Royksopp. They all owe it to Orbital for opening the doors of possibility, and to Orbital II – rave culture’s crown jewel.

The Bluetones - Expecting To Fly

There’s a heavy weight bearing down on bands when it comes to naming début albums.

It could make people pick up or turn away – it could make the difference between a lasting career or a brief day basking in the warming sun of musical success.

The Bluetones’ 1996 début was named Expecting To Fly, which spoke more volumes about the band than they could have with their music.

It was a record that tied up their fearful ‘dare to hope’ attitude with a small amount of self-assurance, well-placed in their understanding that they had talent, dammit, and people would see that.

And they did, for a time. Expecting To Fly fired Oasis’ (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? from the number one spot, which was a grand measure of popularity indeed.

Now, 13 years later, The Bluetones are out on the road again and a new revamped version of this Britpop classic has been unleashed.  So, is it a must-have for the diehards, a might-have for the newbies? Or essential listening straight outta Hounslow?

From the initial bass rumble, opener ‘Talking To Clarry’ is a leader. giving way to confidently crashing indie guitars, it was clear that The Bluetones were going to be smarter than the average indie band.

And smart they were, nodding to Brit poet Adrian Mitchell and his poem Celia, Celia with the memorable lyric from single ‘Bluetonic’ – “When I am sad and weary/When all my hope has gone/I walk around my house and think of you with nothing on”.

A lovely dark slice of infatuation, it retains its uniquely minor-key misery even now, perhaps thanks to singer Mark Morriss‘ easily-recognisable, uniquely tremulous vocal.

In the old days, ‘Carnt Be Trusted’ was the first track on the second side of the Expecting To Fly cassette.

Now, it still forms a change of pace in the record. A lovely, melodic ode to the pitfalls of relationships, it boasts delicious harmonies that would make Brian Wilson blush, and does the business in under four minutes. That’s proper songwriting.

Closing on ‘Time And Again’, it stays with the band long enough to exhibit a darkly sweet menace that says, “We could never really hurt you – but we might shake our fists a bit”.

The new material which adds to this expanded edition includes a whole other disc of Bluetones paraphernalia like previously unreleased live tracks and BBC archive material.

Aside from the inclusion of the undisputed single of 1995, (’Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?’, in case you’ve forgotten), it doesn’t do a terrible amount of new stuff, more augmenting the glory of the original album release, but that’s worth it just to get Expecting To Fly back on the shelves again.

Ejaculated by a genre which had already sounded its death rattle with the likes of Menswe@r and Heavy Stereo, The Bluetones were unfortunately timed. Were Expecting To Fly released anew in 2009, there is no doubt that its vast landscapes of melodious melancholy would rocket, and Mark Morriss would be smiling his ever-enigmatic smirk across the music channels.

As it is, this LP signifies a fantastically well-presented selection of incredibly intelligent, heartfelt songs for which 1996 should always be remembered – that ‘daring to hope’ frozen in time.

Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible

Scathing lyrics, a sinister marriage between guitar and bass, militaristic drumming and a heavy reliance on semitones, minor thirds and clash-clash-clash dissonance. It’s THE album by the Manic Street Preachers – it’s The Holy Bible, of course.

Conceived in August 1994, this is the Manic Street Preachers‘ third studio album, after debut Generation Terrorists (more of an early singles collection – too many tracks, more filler than killer) and Gold Against The Soul (a friendlier and altogether poppier affair which boasts some of the band’s best singles). Famously, this is the final Manics album to be recorded with the now presumed-dead former guitarist, Richey Edwards. The lyrical content has been pulled apart by commentators looking for clues that could pinpoint Edwards’ sudden disappearance; his poetic, cutting and often disturbing ramblings shaped into songs by James Dean Bradfield.

The simply titled ‘Yes’ kicks off proceedings with its emphatic chorus: “I eat and I dress and I wash and I can still say thank you, puking, shaking, sinking, I still stand for old ladies, can’t shout, can’t scream, I hurt myself to get pain out”. Wow. You can’t say that they didn’t warn you about what you’re getting into when you sit down with this record. Like Radiohead, politics weigh heavily on the minds of the Manics, who sacked off their white jeans and spray-painted tops for militaristic attire during this period. Political commentary is littered liberally through all of their albums, but is perhaps at its most explicit here. Second track ‘Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart’ – the garbled title in stark contrast to that of’Yes’ – is an anti-American diatribe, as if the title didn’t tell you that already. You could never accuse the Manics of beating around the bush, that’s for sure.

‘Of Walking Abortion’ is utterly terrifying in tone and subject, in keeping with much of this album. Historical figures – Mussolini, Hitler – are scattered amongst the lyrics in the album sleeve, amidst quotations from Octave Mirbeau’s The Torture Garden. This song ends with the piercing reprise of “Who’s responsible? You fucking are”, with the incessant beat of the toms and the synchronsed refrain of the guitars burning into your ears. ‘She is Suffering’ nods to the Gold Against The Soul style, more classic-rock than faux-Soviet prog. With a textbook JDB solo, and the focus temporarily pulled away from political and social horrors, this sort of feels like a step back.

The heavy fuzz of Nicky Wire’s bass on ‘Archives Of Pain’ could have been recorded dozens of feet below the earth, and heralds the return of the incessant vitriol, coalescing with Bradfield’s guitar riff and melody line to form the biggest headfuck of your worst nightmares. Yes folks, by track five, we’re onto serial killers. Probably the most popular single from this album, ‘Faster’, is preceded by its younger, sprightlier brother in ‘Revol’, with its trade held in super-catchy chorus and infectious fuzz-riffs. ‘4st 7lb’ showcases beautiful-but-haunting thoughts on the subject of anorexia. The broken chords that punctuate this track are present throughout the album, but stop dead for a heartbreaking coda: “such beautiful dignity in self abuse”. This record hammers, presses, squeezes your mind and inflicts unexpected little heart attacks.

If The Holy Bible was a colour, it would be charcoal grey. It can’t be black, because rare bright-white glints slash through the block colour and cast a faded shadow across the album as a whole. ‘Mausoleum’ does not let up the darkness, with its charred text and not-from-this-lifetime eerie feedback opening up into ‘Faster’, which is famed for its speed-of-light guitar solo.

‘This Is Yesterday’ is, to many, the record’s misnomer. It’s a bit out of place – a bit too flimsy, maybe, with a lazy hi-hat – almost like the LP runs out of steam and limps to a standstill. The song reawakens with another bit of signature JDB noodling, and then we’re back into more minor key riffing and straight-from-my-brain-onto-the-paper parlance. ‘Die In The Summertime’ is one of the stand-out tunes on The Holy Bible, proferring more images of nature and the intricacies of modern living. After listening to this, you wouldn’t feel at all intrusive peering into Richey Edward’s diaries – this is so raw and pure. The final lyric “I wanna die…” is left hanging in mid-air before a petrifying death-march squeaks into ‘The Intense Humming Of Evil’. More laconic than what’s gone before, but not for one second casting away the darkness.

After a lengthy and painful trek, we stumble, gasping, into the last track, live favourite ‘PCP’ pitching post-modern conversational wordplay with a shout-along chorus. Then that’s sort of it, and you can breathe again. The US mix takes the record to a whole new level of clarity; like you’ve listened to the original version underwater and have come up for air. The production on the UK version is cloudy, murky, and dark as hell, which definitely lends itself to the intended ambience, but the US mix is preferable if you’re after a “yeah, this is the ’90s rock guitar in action” album.

Someone I used to know once said that he listened to this album during dark and depressing days. Then times changed and he sold this album on eBay, saying he just can’t listen to it anymore. On some levels, this album is way too much to bear. On the surface, constantly, and to the core, often, it’s still fascinating me. This is the Manics at their most primal, like a hummingbird that you can’t flick away, buzzing around your brain, turning all the answers you know into questions.

Mark Morriss - Sick

Remember when Britannia ruled

and everyone wanted to be photographed in 10 Downing Street?

When the Prime Minister had a history of being in bands and there was a reason to be cheerful in our green and pleasant land? Mark Morriss does.  

With all the fervent desire of a smack addict, Morriss dearly clings to the Britpop scene of which his former band The Bluetones were shining lights, a musical landscape at the fag-end of the 1990s so innocuous in its presence that it gave us little more than lacklustre legend and rock apocrypha concerning Blur and Oasis.

 

More than 10 years on, Morriss is still at it with more musical offerings. Last year’s Memory Muscle album masterminded with old hand David Arnold yielded much in the way of nostalgia – any former Britpopper worth their salt will still be moved to near-tears when the Hounslow boy’s plaintive indie-bleat peals out of the speakers – but little in the way of musical clarity.

‘I’m Sick’ does have more than a whiff of The ‘Tones about it, but the indie strumming is soon eclipsed by a seemingly-incongruous mariachi trumpet.

It’s unclear as to what form the titular sickness is taking, but with the line, “I’m sick and I want to get well again… I’m adrift, I’m my own worst enemy” it would be naive not to question if the sickness here is an incredible hankering for past… ahem… ‘glories’.

This, sadly, is a very slight return.

Cast your mind back, if you will, to the summer of 1996. In the aftermath of The Battle of Britpop, a new band emerged in a haze of psychedelia and incense. But after two rampaging rock albums laced with sitars and Sanskrit, as we welcomed in the millennium we bid farewell to Kula Shaker.

Seven years on and Kula Shaker’s return is yet to make an impact on many. For the benefit of those whose reaction to this interview is, “They’re still around?”, I launch into my questions with:

Muso’s Guide: So you’ve been away for a while, how does it feel to be touring again? (unfortunately directed at new member Henry ‘Harry’ Broadbent who discreetly reminds me he’s never been away).

Alonza Bevan (bassist): It’s marvellous but we’ve been back together for a couple of years now.

Muso’s Guide: How, then, has the reformation of one of the biggest British bands of the nineties passed so many by?

Alonza Bevan: We’ve been building it up very gradually, we just wanted to play live and find our pockets again. So we’ve been doing that, trying to write new songs and playing them live in the last couple of years.

The band’s attempts to keep their return quiet included playing a small pub in Leighton Buzzard under the guise of The Garcons, although blackboards outside saying “Kula Shaker live tonight” may have given them away. However, I find staying under the radar for so long while perfecting the third album Strangefolk far more encouraging than churning out any old crap to cash in on a come-back.

Muso’s Guide: What do Kula Shaker think of today’s music scene, and is there still a place for you ten years on?

Alonza Bevan: It has changed, but we’ve still got loud guitars.

‘Harry’ Broadbent: Yes, guitars, drums, bass – we fit in perfectly. We never fitted in back then though, that’s the thing. We were never mad for it!

Muso’s Guide: Alonza, you don’t seem happy about being placed in the Britpop category back then – are you mad for it now?

Alonza Bevan: Maybe a little bit. Maybe we’re a bit more mad now.

Madness must pay off as Strangefolk is more than just a comeback album, it’s a masterpiece in its own right. It has the anthemic qualities of K, a bit less of the experimentalism of Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts but the added wisdom and experience of an older, more mature lyricist.

Muso’s Guide: The track that really intrigues me is ‘Song of Love/Narayana’, and I think to myself, have Kula Shaker covered The Prodigy?

Alonza Bevan: We did a collaboration with The Prodidgy and when Crispian originally sang and wrote those lyrics it was for another piece of music. Then cleverly, with their technology, they swapped it around so the voice was on another piece of music, so we swapped it back again and took the original music, and then he changed his vocal line on it!

Muso’s Guide: We’re confused!

Crispian Mills (frontman): Re-write mash up.

Alonza Bevan: It’s a good moment, big massive mantras, we love that.

That is, of course, what Kula Shaker are known best for, entire songs written in Sanskrit, combining traditional British rock with psychedelic visions and their use of Eastern mysticism and instrumentation. So I half expected them to want to explain hidden spiritual messages in their music, and was taken by surprise by their light-heartedness.

‘Harry’ Broadbent: I like the hippy second half of the album…’Fool That I Am’, that’s my current favourite.

This common misconception that Kula Shaker take themselves too seriously may have been the reason for the softly softly approach of their comeback. There is a more laid-back delivery of Mills’ political attacks in the new material, and with comic delights such as ‘Great Dictator’, there is also a real sense of fun. The live show is no exception, as Kula Shaker are preceded by Dr Joel, a south Indian vocal percussionist who must be seen to be believed, putting a packed Academy Two into incredibly high spirits (or is that just the incense?).

Kula Shaker enter the stage, sharply dressed in tailored suits, to a series of clips from cult movies, which have also been a source of inspiration in their latest videos. And then psychedelic rock n roll fills the venue and old meets new as ‘Hey Dude’ slots in perfectly next to ‘Out on the Highway’. For anyone who had forgotten Kula Shaker it’s a real wake up call to how bloody good they were! In the middle of all the madness, Crispian strums the opening to ‘Shower Your Love’ for a truly spiritual hands in the air type moment, a chill out tune to rival ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.

Crispian commands the stage and works his magic not just as a performer, but a conductor, a great dictator and spiritual leader. For the final song, the band begin an eastern sounding build up and you know it could only be ‘Govinda’. As Crispian sings the Sanskrit lyrics, he conducts the audience with fascinating flowing arm movements until, as if by some miracle, everyone in the Academy is singing in a foreign tongue.

Welcome back to the cult of Kula Shaker.

Well, Morrissey is on the brink of releasing a greatest hits collection to celebrate twenty years plus of going it alone. This new single, one of two new songs to appear on that forthcoming album, possesses spikier riffs and a generally quicker pace for old Maudlin Morrissey’s vocals.

Therefore, the chance to compare this approach against the old one is afforded the perfect opportunity. Maturity is espoused and life perspective is proffered with assurance and wisdom. Is this the start of a new Morrissey?

http://www.truetoyou.net

For those of you unfamiliar with settlements in West Yorkshire, let me explain. Holmfirth is an idyllic place not very far from Huddersfield, and is widely-known as the place where Last Of The Summer Wine was filmed. Not too far from Sid’s Cafe, Hounslow’s The Bluetones were playing in a working, albeit antiquated, cinema.

The venue was unique enough for the band to comment on it; as they stood on the stage in front of the cinema screen, the audience squashed into a small standing space at the front, or sat in the worn old rows of cinema chairs. Mark Morriss and his band have been around so long that they barely raise an eyebrow in most circles, except for those who are surprised that they are still together.

The Bluetones suffer from a problem that is faced by many, many established bands: the need to get the new music across to an audience who have come to hear the old stuff. Morriss is almost apologetic in his cause, and promises to play some classics within the set. We are even treated to ‘Slight Return’, a song that the band vowed never to play again a few years back.

The songs from the new album sound like The Bluetones always have, and present songwriting qualities that show what has kept them in the business all these years. Their Britpop stylings are still obvious in new single ‘My Neighbour’s House’, which goes down well, as do the glut of old singles: ‘If’, ‘Solomon Bites The Worm’, ‘Keep The Home Fires Burning’ and encore closer ‘Bluetonic’.

Morriss coos “I don’t love you anymore” in the song of the same name, taken from their forthcoming self-titled album.

The question is, how can you fail to love The Bluetones?

Jarvis Cocker, that strangely-sexy gangly-geek who drove a Hillman Imp and mooned MJ at the Brits, is a popstar in every sense of the word. He was a Donny Osmond for the disaffected who sang about sex, drugs, angst and old people, all through the voice of a confused teenager (aren’t we all?).

The Pulp story began in a grey and rainy city in Yorkshire, namely Sheffield. Twenty-five miles away in a similarly wet and windy town, and I’m listening to Pulp on a Sunday afternoon. My computer’s broken and I don’t have a TV. Coursework isn’t an option on a lazy day like this, so I lay, rather gormlessly, on my bed and listen to Hits. When I had a car, there was no need for mix tapes and CDs with a collection as good as this. Jarvis is the student union president we all long for, the eccentric best mate we crave, the voice of the weirdos.

We kick-start with ‘Babies’, a tale of unashamed lust and gratification. Kooky keyboards, twiddly guitar, soaring faux-strings and Jarvis singing like he’s reciting from his diary – what more can a pop devotee ask for? With every sniff, sigh and wail, my recognition is cemented. ‘Razzmatazz’ is similarly unabashed (“The trouble with your brother/He’s always sleeping with your mother”) and honest (“Are you staying at home/eating boxes of Milk Tray?”). How does he know?!

‘Lipgloss’ is a sparkly reminder of the importance we place on silly things and the necessity of them going right for us. It’s a story of a girl, dumped because she lost her lipgloss, and the degradation of her physical appearance.

Jarvis is something of a special case – he knows how us ladies are feeling, down to the note. The strawberry bubblegum guitar lick in ‘Do You Remember The First Time?’ is simply delectable and another example of sublime lyrics (“I don’t care if you screw him/just as long as you save a piece for me”).

And then there’s ‘Common People’. We all remember what we were doing when this was released, at the height of Britpop. I was a quirky ten-year-old, having my hair braided with tacky thread and playing pool at the youth club. All the kids loved this song, even though they didn’t understand it. I like to think that I did; I had a Jarvis sticker from Smash Hits on my pencil case.

‘Common People’ has stayed with me my whole teenage life, from looking at boys in ‘the youthy’ to drinking underage pints at a cheesy Britpop night at my local. It still gets regular airing now, as I form ranks with thousands of other horrible students who want to be cool, get drunk and get laid.

‘Underwear’ is my favourite song from Hits at the moment. It’s raunchy, sizzling and undeniably sexy. Jarvis thrusts and sighs with the song’s curves, and let me tell you, it’s enough to win this girl over. I’d definitely marry him if Nicky Wire was absolutely unobtainable. I’d have this song playing on the wedding night, anyway.

‘Sorted For E’s & Wizz’ holds sentiment in my heart as being the first song I ever played in my first car. It was an old Peugeot 309 – what Jarvis would have wanted – and this tune went down a treat with my passengers. That fuzzy haziness you get when waking up after a night’s heavy guzzling is encapsulated in this painkiller of a tune.

If you haven’t realised yet, Pulp is music for occasion and memories – life to soundtrack the music, if you like. ‘Disco 2000′ is possibly the foremost example of a nostalgia-inducing piece, a lament to unrequited childhood love. Jarvis shows yet again that romance is his weakness, and most of us can take something from the “Won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown?” refrain.

The album takes on a suitably downbeat façade from here on in, beginning with the somewhat cheesy ‘Something Changed’. It’s still sweet and the sentiment is there but you feel it’s a bit over the top on Jarvis’ part. You’re constantly expecting him to slag off her clothes or the way she eats, but he never does.

Not to worry, though, as ‘Help The Aged’ is up next. Jarvis reads the human condition with devilish accuracy – “You can dye your hair but it’s the one thing you can change”. I can’t think of any other bands who have written a song about the difficulties of being a pensioner (and not hurriedly demoted it to b-side status).

‘This Is Hardcore’ is every bit as dirty – nay, pornographic (“I wanna make a movie so let’s star in it together”) – as its little sister ‘Underwear’. This steamy epic is Pulp’s real showpiece, combining dangerous, smouldering strings with a complex episodic structure. Muted trumpets and swirling keys give a fifties feel but Jarvis – suited and booted in my head – brings it bang up to date. It’s a completely different feel to the lacklustre plod of ‘A Little Soul’ – the sorry story of a Dad who’s messed his life up, telling his son not to follow the same path.

‘Party Hard’ is a great dalliance in electro-dance-pop, kind of in the style of Blur’s ‘Girls and Boys’ but with an endearing vocoded vocal in the chorus. I know for a fact that this song regularly features on the playlist of an ultra-cool club in my hometown, and I also know that 95% of the people in there will dance along thinking, “Who the hell is this?”

The final handful of tracks on Hits are, unfortunately, of much less merit than their predecessors. I reckon that’s the downside of single collections – the dwindling last gasps of a band, the worst songs that they love the most – are always included. I’m not too bothered, mind – as soon as I hear the openings of most Pulp songs, I’m itching to go and have a rummage in the charity shop. Hits is a must for those who are even vaguely interested in indie-pop, the style of the nineties or good honest story-telling.

http://www.pulp.co.uk

His ‘N’ Hers is bristling with confusion, teenage assignations, pervery, hopes, dreams, mistakes and tiny, tiny but overwhelming sadnesses. Catchy as a rash pop gems such as Babies, Lip Gloss, Do You Remember The First Time? rub up along danker sexual soirées from Acrylic Afternoons and She’s A Lady. Finger pointing and lofty superiority are executed deftly within that millimetre turning circle between arrogance and worthiness on Joyriders.

At times Jarvis is singing the sounds of sex, at times the sounds of brutal pity. Quotable and infinitely singalongable His ‘N’ Hers fills a whole in any lonesome night, reassures that while, yeah, your weirdest thoughts might not be strictly normal, they can at least be exciting.

Of course it was with the era-defining Different Class that Pulp cemented themselves in the intelligent, estate dwelling, commentating-and-shaping troubadour role, but like Bowie’s Hunky Dory sometimes the journey to the pinnacle is as exciting to watch as the main event itself.