Appropriate album title is appropriate, because this album really is different class. By far and large the best album the Britpop era produced. How Blur and Oasis were seen as the big two, I'll never know because Different Class truly is the best Britpop album, I can't think of anything that comes close to this. Well, I know why they were seen as the big two because they were the most commercially successful, but Pulp were the best.
All Britpop is steeped in a certain degree of English culture, but nothing quite like this. This oozes Englishness from top to toe. Jarvis' sharp and witty lyrics about every day working class northern British life are brilliant, he gives the characters he speaks about a strong sense of identity and he paints a very vivid picture of these characters surroundings and mundane lives. From supermarkets, to discos, to bars, to bedrooms, to bedsits this album has it all. Because of how English it is, it's easily relatable.
I think it's a British thing but when you refer to something as different class, you're saying it's in a class of its own. Jarvis had a friend who used to use the phrase, and he liked the double meaning - as it alludes the British social class system. Pulp had a long career before Different Class they'd released 4 albums and had been together since 1978 - with their first album being released in 1983. Different Class was the album that propelled Pulp to the mainstream, and deservedly so because it's full of catchy and memorable songs. Even though there's so many classics, I think 'Common People' is one of THE decade defining songs. Jarvis Cocker really did have a nack for songwriting, the guitars and synthesizers were a match made in heaven and Pulp definitely had the best lyrics of any Britpop band - "My favourite parks are carparks, grass is something you smoke - birds are something you shag", "If fashion is your trade, then when you're naked I guess you must be unemployed", "If they knocked down this place, this place, it'd still look much better than you."
The lyrics are unbelievably witty and quotable, and the songwriting is fantastic. It's kind of seedy, sordid and voyeuristic yet strangely sexy and romantic.
By: TheCunningStunt.