You dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do

[venta]

It's Friday! It's about three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!

Friday afternoons need a little something. I think they need a Top Tune. Something to make you shuffle in your seat and, if possible, Boogie At Your Desk. I'll be endeavouring to fill this gap some Fridays this year.

I'm not claiming that any track provided to enable At-Desk Boogying is one of the world's best or most profound pieces of music. It will, however, be a tune which makes me smile, and which has at some stage made me surreptitiously Boogie At My Desk.

Desks are not compulsory, of course. Feel free to boogie through your office, in your bedroom, round your lab, across your classroom, on the train - wherever you find yourself on a Friday afternoon.

If you like the track, go out and buy the album it belongs to - I'll try and recommend a suitable CD to purchase for any BAYD track.

This link will expire at some point in the future.

Today you are invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:

Pulp - Razzmatazz

Yesterday I was hunting around for a link to my last BAYD post last year (which listed all the songs), and I was struck by a sudden dreadful omission: we never Boogyed to Pulp!

My introduction to Pulp was, like the rest of the world, Common People and Disco 2000, which are both fantastic songs. But you're all sensible people, you all own Different Class already. (You do, don't you ? I mean, really. "No, I don't like Pulp" will just about do as an excuse at this point, but everyone else should really get on the case.)

I didn't hear Razzmatazz until years later, after Different Class has left the charts and after Pulp had released the semi-intentionally career-destroying This Is Hardcore. I immediately took to its catchy chorus and sneery lyrics (Am I talking too fast, or are you just playing dumb?)

Razzmatazz comes from the earlier Pulp album Intro - The Gift Recordings which has since become probably my favourite Pulp CD. It's got your popstyle dancealongs like Razzmatazz and Babies, but it's also got weird urban soundscapes like Sheffield Sex City.

In other news, has anyone heard anything of the newly-relaunched "Jarvis", Mr Cocker's comeback persona ? Is it any cop ?

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Really ? Never mind, you seem like an otherwise sensible and discriminating chap so I'll consider it a minor foible.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

My introduction to Pulp was...

... in the Washington Pub in Sheffield.

I liked the Washington, it had a lot of tea-pots.

[metame.livejournal.com]

Probably fave Pulp song... you just can't beat the sarcastic tone, or the dead-end situation.

I think my very first introduction to Pulp was through an early college friend, who described his brother taunting him with the opening line of Razzmatazz - "The trouble with your brother, he's always sleeping with your mother" (No, it never made sense to us why he'd choose that line either). He lent me a copy of Intro soon after and I was hooked on Pulp.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

Jarvis is pretty mediocre by Mr Cocker's high standards. Unmemorable.

It's been described as a grower, but it's not working on me yet...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I've always been fond of Inside Susan. "There were some German exchange students there who were very mature - they all ended up jumping out of the bedroom window." Which I think was the B-side of Razzmatazz originally.

(And of course the brilliant Babies.)

Is there a decent compilation of even earlierer Pulp stuff, I wonder?

[martinv.livejournal.com]

Is there a decent compilation of even earlierer Pulp stuff, I wonder?

Countdown has nearly everything I'd regard as essential.

http://amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/026-8975665-6681201?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=countdown+pulp&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

All of the early albums have their merits though!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Excellent, ta.

[metame.livejournal.com]

There are 'Countdown' and 'Primal (The Best Of The Fire Years)' which I picked up a while back. In fact according to http://www.acrylicafternoons.com/disc-comp.html there are several....

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Bah, that's frankly too many compilations. Bewildering!

[martinv.livejournal.com]

None of them are perfect - Countdown seems the least bizarre selection and is probably the most widely available.

None of them seem to have 'There's No Emotion' on, either, which is odd.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Razzmatazz is my favourite Pulp song and therefore possibly my favourite ever song.

I really like the "Jarvis" album. It's got some songs which could be fairly described as filler, but nothing penned by the big C is ever completely a waste. And some of the songs are absolute delights.

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

It seems that I'm in distinguished company by saying that Razzmatazz is far and away my favourite Pulp song :-)

Jarvis has had fairly lukewarm reviews in the Oz music press but if you get a chance to hear Running the World (I think it's on his Myspace,) his response to the Live8 concert, you really should (although maybe not at work . . .)