After Dinner Speakers: Pulp, The Village People, Egon Ronay

This UK indie-pop troupe is headed up by the inimitable Jarvis Cocker (b 19 September 1963, Intake, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England). Cocker's mocking humour and cantankerous nature helped establish Pulp as one of the most interesting and original UK bands to break into the charts during the 90s. Based in Sheffield, England, Cocker actually put the first version of Pulp together while still at school, recording a sole John Peel radio session in November 1981. That line-up comprised Cocker (vocals/guitar), Peter Dalton (keyboards), Jamie Pinchbeck (bass) and Wayne Furniss (drums). Bullied as a child for his angular, National Health-bespectacled looks, Cocker went on to work in a nursery for deaf children. Certainly his Pulp project could hardly be described as an overnight success. After the mini-album It, the first real evidence of Cocker's abilities as a lyricist arrived with "Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)" ("There's a hole in your heart and one between your legs, you'll never have to wonder which one he's going to fill despite what he says"). Though singles like this and the subsequent "Dogs Are Everywhere" and "They Suffocate At Night" should have broken the band, it took a third chapter in their history, and a new line-up, to provide the impetus. Cocker's desire for success was always explicit: "Until I've been on Top Of The Pops I will always consider myself a failure" (in fact, by 1994 he was to be seen presenting an edition). By 1993, the band had coalesced to a steady line-up, featuring Russell Senior (guitar/violin), Candida Doyle (keyboards), Stephen Mackey (bass) and Nicholas Banks (drums) and signed a contract with Island Records. The band's early 1994 single, "Do You Remember The First Time?", was accompanied by a short film in which famous celebrities were quizzed on this very subject (the loss of their virginity). The Sunday Times described such songs as being like "Mike Leigh set to music", which was ironic, given that the mother of Pulp member Doyle had previously appeared in two Leigh films. She had also, more famously, played posh employer to Hilda Ogden's cleaning lady in Coronation Street. The song appeared on their major-label debut, His 'N' Hers. The album, which also contained minor hits in "Lipgloss" and "Babies", was later nominated for the 1994 Mercury Music Prize. Different Class, with production supervised by Ed Buller, offered a supreme evocation of the "behind the net curtains" sexual mores of working class Britons. Island offered the record with a choice of 12 different covers; fortunately the music within was better than the hype, with the sardonic hit single "Common People" becoming one of the anthems of the year. Cocker became the darling of the music press in 1995, and, at the height of Britpop, successfully managed to detach himself from the Blur versus Oasis media hype. During the BRIT Awards in February 1996, Cocker found the stage display by Michael Jackson sickening, and during Jackson's heavily choreographed act, was seen mocking the superstar onstage. Cocker was arrested and later there was a spurious charge of actual bodily harm; it was claimed that he had deliberately hit one of the small children surrounding the godlike Jackson. Both camps were incensed, and a war of words ensued between Epic and Island. All charges were eventually dropped when sense prevailed and the accusers realized that Cocker was not a child-beater. Russell Senior left the band in February 1997 (later forming Venini), and in November of that year, Pulp returned with a new single, "Help The Aged". It was followed by the sexually-charged This Is Hardcore, a difficult album that alienated some of the band's new fans and suffered commercially as a result. A long hiatus ensued during which Cocker indulged his other artistic interests, including a series of UK television documentaries on "outsider artists". The band returned to the studio in the new millennium, with the reclusive American singer Scott Walker acting as producer. The first fruits of these sessions were heard on the single "Sunrise", released in September 2001, which was followed by the excellent new album We Love Life.