The double-disc, deluxe edition of Pulp’s masterpiece Different Class drops next week, and the album is just as smart, brooding and horny as it was in 1995.
Frontman Jarvis Cocker’s breathy vocals drip with dark sexuality, tinged with bitter jabs and subversive asides. Cocker’s cynical love songs vividly describe unrequited childhood love, spiteful trysts born of revenge, lustful imaginations of awkward foreplay. There’s a recurring theme here of bedding naïve debutantes to spurn the upper class. (Bonus points if they’re engaged.)
DIFFERENT CLASS
Pulp
PolyGram/Island
The bonus disc of this new edition comes with a few live versions and some fantastic B-sides: most awesomely, a version of “Disco 2000” featuring Nick Cave on vocals.
Though the extras and “deluxeness” may not justify shelling out 30 bucks, Different Class remains one of the finest and sexiest albums to be released in the last couple of decades. Just don’t let Mr. Cocker anywhere near your girlfriend.
DOWNLOAD: “Common People”