We Love Life

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The second departure follows in downbeat fashion, “I used to hate the sun because it shone on everything I'd done”. The idea for ‘Sunrise’ came from one of those nights when you stay too long at a party and, in a state of disrepute, you curse yourself and the godforsaken onslaught of the morning. And then just when it seems to be slipping into despair, the song turns dramatically and bursts into what must be one of the most thrilling finales to any band’s existence. It feels like new territory, an ecstatic surge, closer to dance music than anything Britpop offered. This is life. It’s grim and doomed. And the choice to love it, against all the evidence to the contrary, is a magnificent exhilarating leap of faith. Jarvis wrestled his dark demons of fame so publicly on _Hardcore_, by which time it had become obvious that just to continue singing about life in Sheffield would seem fake, I wondered where they'd go next. The answer's quite peculiar: nature. Ironic songs about trees and love metaphors about gardens, while all the while old Pulp occasionally threaten to rear their head (lyrics about asylum seekers and _The Night That Minnie Ripperton Died_, which could almost be an outtake from _Different Class_). The band had initially begun recording with Chris Thomas, who had produced their past two albums. However, his more rigid style of recording conflicted with the band's desire for looser sessions, resulting in the recordings being shelved. [1] The final album was produced by Scott Walker. Keyboardist Candida Doyle recalled, "I certainly thought about leaving [after shelving the Thomas sessions] but I realised that I'd still feel shit even if I did. If Scott Walker hadn't come about, I don't think we'd have bothered to finish this LP." The band, who had met Walker at the 2000 Meltdown Festival run by Walker, had been longtime fans of Walker. [1]

went wildly off the rails on their last album – 1998’s ‘This Is Hardcore’. The problem with that record wasn’t just that it was drab and largely tuneless, but that it was such a wretched cliché. A whole record about how VIP parties really get you down was the last thing anyone wanted to hear. One sanctuary, offering the possibility of beauty or love, is nature. People leave cities for numerous reasons but self-preservation looms large. And if you can’t leave, you take refuge in the green spaces you can find, even if they only exist in parks or books; clinging to nature for fear of falling off the face of the earth. Which is to say Pulp never really changed. While the band’s characteristically barbed humour is less evident than before, it’s exemplified in the hilarious ‘Bad Cover Version’. “I heard an old girlfriend / has turned to the church” he sings with a deluded swagger, “she’s trying to replace me / but it’ll never work.” Aided by a Stars In Their Eyes-style video, the song compares a failed love affair with “all the sad imitations / That got it so wrong” like the “later Tom and Jerry, when the two of them could talk” and “the Stones since the eighties.” The only thing worse than life lived in delusion is life becoming counterfeit. Timos Papadopoulos at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, Southampton University under supervision of Professor Phil Nelson – birdsong (7)Winter, Jessica (October 2002). "Pulp: We Love Life". Spin. 18 (10): 116 . Retrieved 28 April 2016. You may have already heard ‘Sunrise’, the flipside of their ‘The Trees’ single, and if so, the way that mushrooms into a huge panorama of sound will give you some idea about what to expect. Walker only really does epic, and that suits Pulp The Trees" was released as a double-A side with " Sunrise" at the insistence of the record company. Island Records' Nigel Coxon explained, "We all thought ['Sunrise'] was brilliant and it should be a single... but the record company, being very timid possibly, thought, 'Sunrise', six minutes, two-minute outro, no chance. 'Trees', that's more obvious'." [2] As a compromise, the two songs were released as a double-A side, which meant, according to Coxon, that "that single got slightly diluted". The single reached number 23 in the UK, a relative disappointment for the band. [2] Reception [ edit ] The one song played straight, ‘The Night That Minnie Timperley Died’, stares into the abyss of a subject that two decades on is just as desperately relevant – sexual violence committed upon women and girls. It makes for uncomfortable listening, as it should. Like a lot of Pulp songs, it speaks of confinement, spatial and economic but also that conferred by gender. The options are bad no matter where the main character turns but there are always worse things lurking, in the form of dangerous debased men who fancy themselves as sharks, “paunchy but dangerous.” Again, it’s the little details that disturb (“And he only did what he did 'cause you looked like one of his kids”), and the contrast between the wistful glam-sparkled jangle of the music, the naive idealism (“there's a light that shines on everything & everyone…”), and the horror of what happens out of shot. In Die Technik des Dramas (1863), Gustav Freytag argued for an ideal five act structure in storytelling. The problem was Freytag, for all his talent and success, was a racist Prussian supremacist and had, to put it mildly, something of a questionable world-view. Another problem was that life, with all its messy tangents and inconvenient loose ends, does not necessarily unfold in five acts.

Offiziellecharts.de – Pulp – We Love Life" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved October 17, 2023. Pulp forged their brave new sound on We Love Life, their seventh LP, with the unlikely aid of reclusive singing legend Scott Walker as producer. That was after abandoning sessions with Chris Thomas, the producer of their previous two records, Different Class and This Is Hardcore. Yet, having taken those two titles to number one in the UK Album Chart, the Sheffield group soon found it wasn’t the kind of sound to win them new fans. They only managed a fleeting peak position of number six for We Love Life at the end of October 2001. Raftery, Brian M. (23 August 2002). " We Love Life". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 9 October 2016 . Retrieved 23 July 2010. Walters, Barry (22 August 2002). "Pulp: We Love Life". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 13 February 2007 . Retrieved 28 April 2016.Petridis, Alexis. "Pulp: We Love Life". Blender. Archived from the original on 20 August 2004 . Retrieved 19 August 2016. Ornamented types: a prospectus" (PDF). imimprimit. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 December 2015 . Retrieved 12 December 2015. Oldham, James (16 October 2001). "Pulp: We Love Life". NME. Archived from the original on 12 November 2012 . Retrieved 21 August 2017.