Whilst Britpop brought out the rivalry between Oasis and Blur, Javis Cocker, together with his band, Pulp seemed to bring their own style to the 1990s. Surprisingly for me (and I am learning about music as I am writing this blog), Common People was their lead single from their 5th album, A Different Class. Now I went to university with someone who hated the commercial success of bands like The Verve as I think he thought the bands lost their edge, I wonder if he felt that way about this song.
I don't really have to explain that the song is about class tourism as the lyrics speak for themselves and Pulp captured the concept perfectly in their lyrics. Cocker came up with the original tune on a small MT 500 keyboard that he had and received mixed reviews from his band member when he played it them. However, Pulp's keyboardist Candida Doyle praised Cocker for the tune's simplicity and could see that there was potentially for the tune to make a powerful song, with the right lyrics, which were then written by Cocker afterwards. Debuting it at the Reading Festival in August 1994, Pulp started to realise that they had written something that could turn into an anthem.
With this knowledge they recorded the track in over a fortnight at The Town House in London, using all 48 tracks of the recording studio to try out different ideas with their song. It is amazing that they managed to kept the final single version down to 4 minutes. The single was released in May 1995 and peaked at number 2 in the UK charts and with its success, created one of the most iconic songs of the Britpop era.
It is said that Common People moved away from the rose-tinted glasses of the working class lifestyle that had been used by other Britpop bands and appeared on numerous compilation albums since its released. One of the most famous covers of the songs was by William Shanter in 2004. When Cocker heard that Captain Kirk was covering the song he was thrilled as he was a big Star Trek fan as a lad.
To hear Common People
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