Customer Reviews

Different Class

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.)

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.

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

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.

How did I miss this CD for seven years until an internet radio station streamed "Common People" to me recently? On the strength of that song alone, this would be a four star CD even if everything else was along the lines of Freddy Fender singing the Best of Barbra. It's not of course, but let's begin with "Common People," one of those rare songs that in its lyrics, its music and the vocals of Jarvis Cocker recaptures the anger, revolt, sex and danger that rock promised back in the borning days of Elvis and Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran. Pulp may never again do a song as good as "Common People." Most bands labor for years and never come close. But it doesn't matter if Pulp does not approach the pinnacle of "Common People" a second time; what matters is once they did.

Think of Different Class as an aural Gosford Park, stuffed full of sensuality and muted class conflict, told from the perspective of the "downstairs" class. Once you get beyond "Common People" (and that can take some doing -- on any number of occasions I've played it a dozen or more consecutive times), Mis-shapes (they've got everything, but we've got our minds), Disco 2000 (boy never gets girl), Something Changes (boy gets girl), Underwear (how DID you wind up naked with this person in this room), and Bar Italia (if we can only get home alive...) boost Different Class comfortably into five star status.

Bowie's here, Clash is here, Cure is here, but most of all Pulp -- funny, mad and brittle -- is here. This is a great CD. Nuff said.

I had never heard Pulp before and was introduced to them by the song "Disco 2000" at a britpop dance club. I bought the album and have listened to it hundreds of times and since bought most of their albums. I have found that Pulp reaches deep inside me and Different Class reaches the furthest. It is clever & witty, sarcastic and humorous. I know everyone says it, but Jarvis Cocker is amazing. His voice I never get tired of, it is extremely passionate and soulful. I listen to this album more than any other and I never get tired of it. I find Mr. Cocker's voice is so embedded in my head now, listening to him is comforting and cozy. All the songs are so different and clever, I keep discovering new things in the lyrics and it becomes more brilliant everytime I hear it. I also like the pop, sometimes campy-keyboard music that serves as the backdrop for the lyrics. I have heard some people rip on the music, but I find it deliberately simple and quirky, perfect to showoff the lyrics.

I hate to say, this album is not for everyone. I think truly great albums don't reach mainstream audiences and Different Class is a perfect example of this; many people won't understand this album. But personally, I think the album is brilliant, it is my absolute favorite album. This would be my first choice if stranded on a deserted island. I highly recommend it if you are considering it for your collection.

Well, best of the '90s anyway.

I was a bartender in London in 1995, when NME and Melody Maker were all about "Oasis vs. Blur", and I couldn't understand it. Radiohead, Elastica, and Supergrass came out with much better albums and singles that year than either Oasis or Blur, and Pulp's "Different Class" was the best of them all.

If you like smart, witty, catchy pop music, buy this album now.

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.

It is almost impossible for any album on Amazon to receive nearly a hundred reviews and still get an overall 5 star rating, yet DIFFERENT CLASS has managed to do just that. Although Pulp has several really good albums, this is their best in my opinion. It isn't just that the songs are musically compelling; lyrically the songs are frequently and unexpectedly complex. When this album was first released in England it was one of the rare times when an album achieved simultaneously intense critical and popular acclamation. Critics declared it a masterpiece, and fans bought it in astonishing numbers. The album also is deceptively political, in that it features class difference in a large number of songs.

There are many musical highlights on the album, but what I find most remarkable is that there are several songs so good it makes the other songs seem bad in comparison, while one song in particular makes even the other great songs suffer in contrast. Fans will always differ on their favorites, but few will question that the album starts off strongly with "Mis-Shapes." "I Spy" is one of my favorites on the album along with "Disco 2000," which follows it. "Sorted for E's and Wizz" is another stunner. But seriously, all the songs on the disc are at least good, most are very good, and two or three are great. But the best of the bunch is unquestionably "Common People."

"Common People" is simply a great song on multiple levels. Musically it is incredibly compelling, one of those tunes that once you hear it you can't get it out of your head, with an upbeat tempo that makes you want to get up and dance around. But this would merely make it a good song; what makes it great is the story the song tells. An art school student is noticed by a fellow student, a rich girl from Greece, who declares to him that she wants to learn about what it is like to live as one of the common people. There is a definite sexual come on, as she says that she wants "to sleep with common people, like you." At this point you think you know where the song is going, to a nice if somewhat standard narrative of two people from different classes who have a romance despite it all. But the song instantly takes you in a different tangent. What follows is as extraordinary as it is unexpected. Our hero takes the girl to a supermarket and asks her to imagine being there with no money, a notion she laughs at. At this point the song turns very serious and dark, as he tears into her for her calloused desire to slum and make a game out of taking on a mode of life that is for others a fairly desperate affair. He tells her that if she is laying in a bed watching roaches on the wall she can just call her dad and her problems would be over, but to truly find out what it would be like to live like "common people" would mean learning what it means to have no choices, no outs, no control. He sings:

You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control

So instead of the song of romance and love that we think we are getting at the beginning, we get an impassioned condemnation of anyone who would make light of the struggles of those who are less well off. I know of no other song like it. Pulp has done a number of really fine albums and a host of great songs, but this song has to go down as one of my all time favorites. It definitely goes onto my all time Top 40.

There are four Pulp albums that I think any serious music fan should own: HIS 'N' HERS, DIFFERENT CLASS, THIS IS HARDCORE, and WE LOVE LIFE. If one were bound and determined to own only one Pulp album, one might go with HITS, but this DIFFERENT CLASS is so good that I just can't imagine anyone not wanting this and others as well. Trust me: if you don't own this album you need to get it today. Your ears will thank you.

Life changing?

When I was 13 I had a rather bizarre, misplaced obsession with Oasis; I bought every publication that contained their mere name, including outrageously expensive import British music magazines which also conatined the name of the now ever-blessed Pulp. While I still have a fondness for Definately Maybe, Oasis is pretty much out of my system; ten years later, Pulp is not.

For me, Pulp's Different Class was Life Changing. Prior to Plup I had only listened to mainsteam, regular sound; this album was a smack to my head, a concussion really, a concussion from which I have never recovered. No album, not even albums' I like better, have had more influence over the way I have come to think about music, and, believe it or not, life. Pulp single-handedly widened my aural, lyrical, and analytical spectrums and made me a appreciate the many facets of serious music.

Most of you reading this review are neither thirteen nor impressionable. Pulp is a band that carries a great deal of personal meaning for me, and that will clearly not be the case for every listener. Pulp, however, is great, original music unto itself, and Different Class is a prime example of their uniformly superb albums.

Buy this album and you will laugh and mourn with Jarvis Cocker. And hey, you may ever change you life; amid the crazy Pop you will Cry.