Please donate to help save PopMatters. We are moving to WordPress in January out of necessity and need your help.

Comedy Crime 'Pulp' Is a Woozy, Disorienting Movie

Pulp functions less as a pulpy mystery or gangster tale than as a spoof of same, albeit a spoof that retains a noirish sense of fate and power.

                                      
Film
    
        Smudge and Jury: The Punk-Noir Pulp of 'I, The Jury'
    
Imran Khan

        27 Apr 2017
    
Music
    
        The 100 Greatest Alternative Singles of the '90s - Part 4 (40 - 21)
    
Chris Gerard

        24 Jul 2016
    
Music
    
        Pulp - "Common People" (Singles Going Steady Classic)
    
PopMatters Staff

        28 Jun 2016

Recent

Film

Fantom Menace: The Films of Fantômas

One can't help but feel as though the movements of the Fantômas romantic and dreamlike world are the work of some whimsical puppet-mastery.

Music

Counterbalance No. 156: Pulp's 'Different Class'

You'll never live like common people. You'll never do what common people do. You'll never fail like common people. You'll never watch your life slide out of view and then dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do. You can listen to the 156th most acclaimed album of all time.

Comics

Garden State Greaser Noir in 'Iron Bound'

Most of the action in Brendan Leach's graphic novel, 'Iron Bound, boils over with smashed car fenders and swollen knuckles in Newark, New Jersey.

Books

Bill's Beatdown: 'Donnybrook'

Frank Bill’s stories are as rough as they come, hard packages of violence and sadness, tales of lives ripped apart by poverty and shame.

Reviews

Pulp: 10 April 2012 - New York

Two hours of idiosyncratic joy and blissful pop gold from Jarvis Cocker and company.

Music

Coachella 2012: Pulp + M83 + Frank Ocean

Coachella is streaming live all weekend and here you can catch entire sets from perennial Britpop faves Pulp, as well as M83 and Frank Ocean.

Reviews

Pulp: 1 September 2011 - London

Jarvis Cocker, getting to half a century of his cool existence, rocks and twists like no one else in British Pop.

Anna Siemiaczko

Reviews

'Shock Corridor': The Enemy Within

Sam Fuller’s lurid 1963 potboiler about an egomaniacal journalist going undercover in an asylum strips bare the schizophrenia of postwar America with vicious hyperbole.

Music

A.R.E Weapons: Darker Blue

With a smidgen less cockiness and a little more skill under their belts, NYC electro-punks are still kind of awesome.

Music

Funny How It All Falls Away: Pulp at Their Most Life-Affirming on 'This Is Hardcore'

On its release, Pulp's This Is Hardcore was derided as a commercial and artistic disappointment. Not so ten years later. Was the music ahead of its time, or did critics just have to reach their 30s to appreciate it?

Music

Jarvis Cocker: Further Complications

Jarvis Cocker turns it up to 11 for his best album this decade.

Books

The Hardest Work Imaginable: Bukowski's Wine-Stained Notebook

Fear, one must understand, is the lubricant that keeps the wheels of human progress greased. Charles Bukowski understood this concept all too well.

Music

Pulp: The Peel Sessions

This collection of Pulp's Peel Sessions serves as a poignant reminder not only of how great a band Pulp were, but of how important John Peel was to the development and evolution of British music.

Music

Pulp: Different Class

Along with Blur's Parklife, it remains the high point of the Britpop era; music, lyrics, production, artwork, it's as perfect as it gets, one that I, personally, will never, ever tire of hearing.

Music

Pulp: Hits

Pulp have a greatest hits record, and it's about goddamned time. The enigmatic group, fronted by the inimitable Jarvis Cocker, are by far the oldest and wisest of the Britpop behemoths.

Devon Powers

Music

Pulp: Hits

Few British bands have come close to matching the remarkable string of excellent albums that Pulp has put together over the past 10 years.

Features

20 Jazz Albums You Might Have Missed in 2020

Collapse Expand Features

BROWSE ALL ALBUM REVIEWS

Reviews

Collapse Expand Reviews

PM Picks

Collapse Expand Pm Picks

Pulp functions less as a pulpy mystery or gangster tale than as a spoof of same, albeit a spoof that retains a noirish sense of fate and power.

One can't help but feel as though the movements of the Fantômas romantic and dreamlike world are the work of some whimsical puppet-mastery.

You'll never live like common people. You'll never do what common people do. You'll never fail like common people. You'll never watch your life slide out of view and then dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do. You can listen to the 156th most acclaimed album of all time.

Most of the action in Brendan Leach's graphic novel, 'Iron Bound, boils over with smashed car fenders and swollen knuckles in Newark, New Jersey.

Frank Bill’s stories are as rough as they come, hard packages of violence and sadness, tales of lives ripped apart by poverty and shame.

Two hours of idiosyncratic joy and blissful pop gold from Jarvis Cocker and company.

Coachella is streaming live all weekend and here you can catch entire sets from perennial Britpop faves Pulp, as well as M83 and Frank Ocean.

Jarvis Cocker, getting to half a century of his cool existence, rocks and twists like no one else in British Pop.

Sam Fuller’s lurid 1963 potboiler about an egomaniacal journalist going undercover in an asylum strips bare the schizophrenia of postwar America with vicious hyperbole.

With a smidgen less cockiness and a little more skill under their belts, NYC electro-punks are still kind of awesome.

On its release, Pulp's This Is Hardcore was derided as a commercial and artistic disappointment. Not so ten years later. Was the music ahead of its time, or did critics just have to reach their 30s to appreciate it?

Jarvis Cocker turns it up to 11 for his best album this decade.

Like a mad prophet peering into the future, Charles Bukowski railed against the credit-driven economy and the deadening effects of the nine-to-five lifestyle.

Fear, one must understand, is the lubricant that keeps the wheels of human progress greased. Charles Bukowski understood this concept all too well.

This collection of Pulp's Peel Sessions serves as a poignant reminder not only of how great a band Pulp were, but of how important John Peel was to the development and evolution of British music.

Along with Blur's Parklife, it remains the high point of the Britpop era; music, lyrics, production, artwork, it's as perfect as it gets, one that I, personally, will never, ever tire of hearing.

Pulp have a greatest hits record, and it's about goddamned time. The enigmatic group, fronted by the inimitable Jarvis Cocker, are by far the oldest and wisest of the Britpop behemoths.

Few British bands have come close to matching the remarkable string of excellent albums that Pulp has put together over the past 10 years.