This Is Hardcore

Product Information

On the label: «This Is Hardcore» embodies a sample of «Bolero On The Rocks» by the Peter Thomas Sound Orchester [sic. In England right now, the declension goes like this: I love Jarvis, you love Jarvis, he/she/it loves Jarvis, we love Jarvis, they love Jarvis. It's got the same tirelessly sprinting pace, the same euphoric sense of hope and glory and the same sense of sullied justice as Jarvis sneers: "We were brought up on the space race / Now they expect you to clean toilets". It is the panoramic widescreen director's cut with not one parp on the Stylophone cheese-o-meter or the crackling static from an orgy of Crimplene bedwear, or anything like it.

Pulp - This Is Hardcore - Double LP Pulp - This Is Hardcore - Double LP

Pulp used to run a franchise dealing in longing and daydream, in a wish for escape, even - or especially - when Cocker dissected a grubby past and present. In a retrospective assessment of the album's impact, Matthew Horton wrote in NME that "in its sense of surrender, regret and flashes of panic, it captured the time to a tee. Recorded at Hive Mind Studios in Brooklyn, NY, with the help of producer/arrangers Mike Buckley and Vincent Chiarito (both members of Charles Bradley's Extraordinaires) and crack team of a-list musicians, his upcoming album blends heavy arrangements and introspective lyrics with sophistication, leaving the listener in a blissful wash of wonderment.But it seems more likely that while 'This Is Hardcore' should be praised as a brilliant, unprecedented lyrical statement, it's not actually one you'll want to play that much. Track D1 is listed on the sleeve and disc labels as 'Tomorrow Never Lies'; the track on the record is 'Tomorrow Never Dies (Rough Mix)'. As with the Manics' 'La Tristessa Durera', it turns the youth-fixated world of the pop song on its head by using it to frame the plight of the OAP. On This Is Hardcore, Pulp make it clear they have outgrown Britpop and belong right up there with Ray Davies and Costello and Morrissey, those who look at England with a satirist's eye and a balladeer's heart.

Pulp – This Is Hardcore (1998, Gatefold, Vinyl) - Discogs

There's always the implied wisdom, that, yes, here I am pointlessly wrecked in another small-hours drinking den, but it could be worse - I could be working behind the bar.

By manually rewinding the original UK CD by 10 seconds at the very start then letting it play, you can hear the last few seconds of Bar Italia before The Fear starts.