Pulp's announcement of a reunion and return to touring in late 2010 told two lies: first, that it was the original lineup reuniting, and second that they'd be playing songs from every era of the band's career. The current sextet is nowhere close to the original lineup-- 22 other people had to come and go before that group solidified. The setlists from the reunion shows haven't dipped back before 1992. This version of events sets up a narrative that has Pulp arriving fully formed with their last single for Fire Records, 1992's "Countdown", and conquering the charts in short order. It glosses over the longer, much more interesting story of the band's origins and lurching path to fame.
I'm not saying Pulp ought to be playing songs from their early days in their current shows, and I'm definitely not saying they should have gotten the real original lineup back together, but it seems odd to position the reunion as they have-- it has the effect of disowning the fits and starts of their awkward stage. Perhaps that's their intention, but the band's ignored history won't exactly be buried, because Fire's reissued all of it. The music Pulp made from 1983 to 1992 is in no way on the level of the music they made after that, but you can hear all the seeds of His 'N' Hers and Different Class dropping into place, even as the band digresses and fails.
Pulp were formed by Jarvis Cocker and his friend Peter Dalton at the City School in Sheffield in 1978, when the two were in their teens. Dalton was still in the group three years later, when they cut their first Peel Session, a four-song set that shows them torn between hard-edged post-punk and New Wave. Dalton's father forced him to leave the band (he threw a plate of food at him and told him he had to go to university), and by the time Cocker got them signed to Red Rhino and back in the studio, it was 1983 and the band had completely turned over, apart from its gawky front man and drummer Wayne Furniss. The album this version of Pulp recorded, It, almost completely abandons the sound of that first Peel Session in favor of a folkier setup and a generally cheerful disposition.
The first thing anyone familiar with classic, 90s Pulp will probably notice while listening to It is that Cocker hadn't yet developed his stage persona. There's no hint of the lasciviousness, class awareness, or cultural appetite that defined his best-known work. As a vocalist, he's adequate but not yet himself as we know him-- basically, he sounds like he listened to the Chameleons a lot. That in mind, It is a nice indie pop record, but the songwriting seams show. For instance, the waltzing "Joking Aside" finds him stretching out certain words awkwardly to make the melody more interesting-- it just sounds odd. "My Lighthouse", on the other hand, is pretty accomplished, and its turns of phrase point toward what lay ahead. On release, It sank without a trace, but Cocker soldiered on, getting the band signed to Fire Records. Keyboardist Candida Doyle and guitarist/violinist Russell Senior both joined, putting in place part of the classic 90s lineup of the band.
On the recordings from 1985 to 1988, you can hear Pulp figuring out the kind of band it wants to be. Freaks, the album they released in 1987, is a 180-degree turn from the happy pastoralism of It, and the pair of EPs and two non-album B-sides gathered on the reissue's bonus disc (which has almost the same track selection as the mid-90s compilation Masters of the Universe) move similarly into the dark. In some ways Cocker seems less certain of the kind of singer he'd like to be than on It. Senior takes lead vocals twice on Freaks and once on a B-side, while Cocker wavers between developing his own identity, imitating Ian Curtis, and trying to beat Mark E. Smith at his own game. He sometimes does this a bit tunelessly.
Still, though most of these directions were best abandoned, this is an immensely interesting period for the band, and often an entertaining one. Senior's lead on Freaks opener "Fairground" is hilariously demonic, and the band builds a carnival atmosphere around his maniacal laughing. Cocker's unsteady grip on the key of "Being Followed Home" is actually an asset, as his flat singing intensifies the paranoia of the lyrics. Getting in key a little more strongly could have made "I Want You" Pulp's first big pop moment-- I'd love to hear him sing it today. His Ian Curtis impression on "Master of the Universe" is a little painful, but Cocker and the band very nearly equal the Fall at their own game on the eight-minute B-side "Tunnel". This material may be uneven, but it points to a band growing more confident and willing to take risks.
The failure of Freaks and its satellite singles prompted Cocker to move to London to study film and very nearly ended the band, but he connected with bassist and fan Steve Mackey in London, and Pulp reconvened with the lineup that would finally put them over the top. Mackey's interest in house music rubbed off on Cocker and proved decisive to the sound of their next LP. Separations was recorded between 1989 and 1991 but not released until 1992. In the meantime, two of its songs, "My Legendary Girlfriend" and "Countdown", had been released as singles, and these afforded them their first significant critical and commercial traction.
The first half of Separations frankly sounds like songs the band would have placed on B-sides just two years later-- the sound and feel are there but the tunes largely aren't. Side two, though, is Pulp's long-awaited artistic breakthrough. It begins with "Countdown", the band's first full-on foray into disco (or something like it) and also the first prolonged glimpse we get of Cocker at his sexed-up and observational best. "My Legendary Girlfriend", which NME made its Single of the Week in early 1991, is even better, foreshadowing the acidic whispered monologues of "I Spy" in its icy verses. In four songs (and a couple of bonus B-sides), we hear Pulp reinventing themselves as the band that made His 'N' Hers and Different Class. In spite of its lack of consistency, the LP is worth hearing by fans for that alone.
Given that the band is almost entirely ignoring these records in its current reunion, now is as good a time as any to revisit them (or visit them for the first time, as the case may be). They are each flawed in different ways, but at the very end of the chronology the classic Pulp-- the Pulp the band prefers to remember-- emerges, glistening.
