Different ClassE

The Artist

Pulp formed in Sheffield in the late 1970s around frontman Jarvis Cocker, a lanky, bespectacled outsider who would spend well over a decade on the fringes before the band finally broke through. Their sound blends glam theatrics, disco pulse, cheap synths, and kitchen-sink storytelling, all delivered through Cocker's arch, conversational sing-speak. Where their Britpop peers chased mod revivalism or lad swagger, Pulp built songs around class resentment, suburban desire, and the awkward specifics of British life. By the mid-90s, after years of cult status, the band had refined their lineup and their vision, with Cocker joined by longtime collaborators including Candida Doyle on keys, Russell Senior on guitar and violin, Nick Banks on drums, Steve Mackey on bass, and Mark Webber on guitar. Different Class is the record where everything clicked, arriving at the exact cultural moment ready to receive it.

The Album

Different Class was recorded in 1995 and released that October on Island Records, with production largely handled by Chris Thomas, a veteran whose credits stretch from Roxy Music to the Sex Pistols. The album arrived at the peak of Britpop's cultural saturation, following Pulp's legendary last-minute headline slot at Glastonbury that summer after The Stone Roses pulled out. Thomas's production keeps things bright, punchy, and radio-ready, letting Candida Doyle's keyboards and Cocker's every syllable sit forward in the mix. Thematically, the record is obsessed with class, sex, and the small humiliations and thrills of ordinary life, told from the perspective of someone who has watched from the outside for a long time. It is both a pop record and a social document, sneering and sympathetic in the same breath.

Listen For

Candida Doyle's keyboards. Her analog synth sounds are the connective tissue of the album, giving even the angriest songs a strange sweetness. Listen to how they push "Disco 2000" and shimmer under "Something Changed".

Jarvis Cocker's delivery. He rarely sings in a conventional sense, favoring a half-spoken purr that lets him land jokes, sneers, and confessions with equal precision. "I Spy" is a masterclass in menace delivered as monologue.

Dynamics and build. Many tracks start restrained and detonate, most famously the slow-burn ascent of "Common People". Notice how the band uses simple repetition and gradual layering rather than complex arrangements.

The specificity of the lyrics. Cocker names brands, streets, and body parts with novelistic detail. The whispered opening of "Pencil Skirt" and the panicked comedown of "Sorted For Es & Wizz" both live or die on his eye for the telling detail.

Class as the album's obsession. From the opening call to arms of "Mis-Shapes" through the closing intimacy of "Bar Italia", the record keeps returning to who has what, who wants what, and what people do to each other because of it.