Different Class

Pulp | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 27, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Island
• ASIN: B000001E8P
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,403 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Like the Boomtown Rats fronted by Martin Amis. Classic Britpop. --Jeff Bateman

Product Description

PULP DIFFERENT CLASS

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fan-TASTIC stuff! December 7, 1999

By "sarah_elizabeth"

Format:Audio CD

This album has everything you could want. A million listenings would not be enough to get all the humor and dirt and sex that is in "A Different Class." This makes you want to put on spangled shoes and be a rock star -- it is a huge, riotous, spooky, ambient, moody, loud CD. It has the size of great glam-era Bowie but the maudlin smarts of the Smiths. Highly recommended for dancing on tables, drinking vodka, and finding a too-young-for-you boyfriend. Also suitable for driving a convertible over flat, bare highways at night in a cowboy hat and sequined hot pants.

(I think this album defies adjectives, so I am trying to capture the big-ness of this fab album.)

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best album of the decade? Without a doubt. October 20, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Audio CD

Well, kids, what we have here is the absolute closest thing you can get to THE PERFECT ALBUM. Different Class has it all: gloriously constructed music that soars and swells, a perfect backdrop for Jarvis Cocker's incredibly witty and biting satire. This album, even after four years, just keeps getting better. it is the one CD out of my entire collection that I would never give up. Song after song, Different Class delivers: from the bouncy yet viscious Mis-shapes, the sultry eroticism of Pencil Skirt, the sheer grandiose bombast of Common People, the high drama of I Spy, the sweet sense of wistfulness in Disco 2000, the incredibly well-told story of social disintegration that is LIve Bed Show, the utter beauty and charm of Something Changed, the dead-on observation of Sorted For E's & Wizz, the way that falling in love is depicted as firghtening & dirty in FEELINGCALLEDLOVE, the sweeping Underwear, the rollicking MOnday MOrning, and the perfect morning-after scenario of Bar Italia, there is not a dud on this classic. I could go on forever, but just buy it and find out for yourself.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best of the Brit Pop Albums January 26, 2005

By Sirin

Format:Audio CD

The debate in the summer of 1995 centred around the Blur v Oasis debate. The correct answer was Pulp. Unlike Blur or Oasis, Pulp underwent a long gestation period before their instant classic 'Different Class', and their sound on this album reflects the development of a band who had gone through their probationary period and hit exactly the right tone at the right time.

The mid 1990s were marked by the 'St Martin's college' culture -posh kids pretending to slum it. The signature tune on 'Different Class' skewers this custom in a build up of bitterness and class confrontation, deliberately attacking the bourgeoise 'poor' - 'You'll never fail like common people/never watch your life slide out of view'. Puncturing the middle class attitudes of the time is a theme that runs throughout the album - wittily and acidicly too. Take the following lyric from 'I spy' - 'My favourite parks are car parks, grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag. Take your Year in Provence and shove it up your ass'. Cocker evidently does not suffer pretention gladly.

Elsewhere there is the quizzical look at the ecstacy culture 'Sorted fo E's and Whizz' - 'Is this the way they say the future's meant to feel?/Or just 20,000 people standing in a field'.

And the other main hit on the album, apart from 'Common People', Disco 2000 with its nostalgic remembrance of a childhood sweetheart who has grown up and become pregnant: 'Would you like to come and meet me maybe? you can even bring your baby'.

A star deducted, because there are some unmemorable songs on this album. But 'Different Class' is a Britpop classic

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars the defining album of the britpop era? maybe... September 23, 2005

By M. Lohrke VINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

three or four albums, in my opinion, stand out heads and shoulders above the rest of the britpop pack: suede's 'dog man star,' blur's 'parklife,' oasis' 'definitely maybe' and the verve's 'urban hymns. sure you could throw 'the bends' in there, maybe some supergrass. but 'different class' seemed so far ahead of its time, yet strangely captured 1990s working class/underdogs London ethos (not that i'm british or anything).

jarvis cocker was the perfect anti-hero: the nerdy recluse with the coke bottle glasses. the perfect antidote to liam's audacity and damon's pretty boy antics. after years of slugging it out in obscurity, and prefaced by a super-promising 'his 'n hers,' pulp hit music gold with 'different class' and perhaps *the* anthem of the 1990s -- 'common people.' it was everything right about a pop song -- driving rhythm section, clever lyrics, spot-on delivery, and a rallying cry to the common kid all the while skewering the pretension of the rich trying their hand at poverty. no wonder it was the huge hit is was.

thankfully pulp were no one-hit-wonders. top to bottom, 'different class' could pretty much be a collection of greatest hits and no one would be the wiser. the opener, 'mis-shapes,' signals the call: 'mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits...' as if jarvo himself personally dedicates the album to his loyal fanbase. tracks like 'something changed,' 'pencil skirt,' 'sorted for e's and wizz,' the CLASSIC 'disco 2000' (and it's laura branigan 'gloria' inspired riff) carved jarvis cocker's face on the mount rushmore of the britpop scene. and while jarvis cocker gets much of the credit, pulp was very much a collaborative group.... pulp was a group of extremely gifted musicians who pefected their craft over a 15 year period, climaxing with back-to-back classic albums: 'a different class,' 'this is hardcore,' and 'we love life.'

it's a shame they didn't reach the same level of popularity here in the states. perhaps they're just too good and too clever for average american listener to appreciate and understand. and it's too bad. pulp consistently put of the most refreshing, exciting, dangerous and infectiously good music of the era. check it out. Read more ›