In the early days of Pulp, Jarvis Cocker had to play some shows in a wheelchair after he fell out of a third-story window while doing a Spider-Man impression; an ill-fated attempt to impress a girl. It’s a story that perhaps provides some context as to why it took the Sheffield indie darlings 16 years to find the fame and fortune they so dearly craved. They simply weren’t ready.
So synonymous are Pulp with the heyday of 1990s Britpop, it’s almost jarring to think that they were at the coalface for so much longer than their apparent overnight success would suggest. Long before he was escorted offstage for heroically mooning the pomposity of Michael Jackson’s 1996 BRITs performance, Jarvis just couldn’t get arrested. It meant that when they did arrive however, they were fully formed, and in their uniquely sardonic frontman a most unlikely star was born. At the height of that success came the spoils of Glastonbury headline slots, chart-topping hits, Mercury Prizes, and even the slings and arrows of tabloid scrutiny.
With seven studio albums to their name across a long and illustrious career, theirs is a story of slow-burn evolution. To sort through it, we’ve ranked the records from worst to best.
