Pulp

Sheffield

Pulp began in 1978 at The City School in Sheffield, started by Jarvis Cocker, then 15, and Peter Dalton, then 14. They played their first public gig at Rotherham Arts Centre in July 1980, and in October 1981 gave a demo tape to John Peel, who granted them a Peel Session. Their first album, It, came out on Red Rhino in April 1983.

A new band formed around Cocker and Russell Senior, with Candida Doyle on keyboards from 1984, and signed to Fire Records. Freaks (1987) was recorded in one week on a budget of 600 pounds. In 1988 Cocker told Senior he was leaving for London to study film at Central Saint Martins, but Senior urged him not to disband, and Steve Mackey, a Sheffield fan studying in London, was asked to join on bass. Fire sat on the next album, Separations, until 1992. In 1991 NME made the My Legendary Girlfriend 12-inch its single of the week, and in October 1992 the Gift label released Babies.

Island and the breakthrough

Island took over the releasing, and His 'n' Hers, produced by Ed Buller, came out on 18 April 1994. It reached number nine on the UK Albums Chart and was nominated for that year's Mercury Music Prize. Pulp supported Blur on a US tour that year. Common People followed in May 1995 and reached number two, and in June the band played Glastonbury, standing in at the last minute for The Stone Roses.

Different Class was recorded with Chris Thomas at the Townhouse in London between January and July 1995 and released on 30 October. It went straight to number one, produced four top-ten singles, among them Mis-Shapes and Disco 2000, and won the 1996 Mercury Music Prize. It was the first album with Mark Webber as a permanent member, and the UK has certified it four times platinum. Cocker said the title came from a friend's phrase for something in a class of its own, and that he liked the double meaning with the British class system.

Dorian Lynskey wrote in the Guardian that Common People remains the band's, and Britpop's, crowning achievement. Simon Reynolds, in Pitchfork, argued that Pulp never again commanded pop's centre stage as they did in 1995.

The hangover

Senior left, saying it was no longer creatively rewarding to be in Pulp. When work on the next record began in November 1996 the band had one song, Help the Aged, and the sessions ran until January 1998. This Is Hardcore was again made with Chris Thomas, at the Townhouse and Olympic in London, and came out on 30 March 1998. Cocker's disillusionment with the fame he had long wanted supplied much of its subject matter, and the title track used pornography as a way to talk about fame. It went in at number one but sold just over 50,000 copies in its first week, against 133,000 for Different Class, and earned a third successive Mercury nomination. Writing in NME, Matthew Horton called it a rejection of the Britpop monster and a hard-wrought epitaph.

Pulp returned in 2001 with We Love Life, produced by Scott Walker after the sessions with Thomas were shelved. It reached number six. Cocker said that after the alienated This Is Hardcore it was time to go back to simpler things, like the natural world. A greatest-hits collection followed in 2002, and a show at the Auto festival at the Magna centre in Rotherham was their last gig before a nine-year break.

Return

In November 2010 the Different Class line-up was announced for Wireless in London and the Isle of Wight Festival the following year. A new song, After You, came out in January 2013, their first in 12 years. A second reunion was confirmed in October 2022. Mackey did not take part, and in March 2023 the band announced that he had died at the age of 56.

Pulp signed to Rough Trade in December 2024, and More, produced by James Ford, came out on 6 June 2025. It reached number one, their first since This Is Hardcore, and was named among the 2025 Mercury Prize nominees. They also played a surprise Glastonbury set that year, thirty years after their first appearance there.