Pulp
It

THE REVIEW

The first LP of the Pulp (that is this one) is dated 1983, thus contemporaneous with the first singles of the Smiths, but unfortunately, this record hasn't aged as well as "This Charming Man" might have. Nonetheless, it remains a fairly complete and interesting work, (not so much for the material, but for the future developments) it is a distinctly acoustic work but exquisitely pop, and indeed with adequate promotional advertising, they could have been the Smiths before the Smiths, but let's get to the tracks.

The album opens with "My Lighthouse", a perfect pop song mixing folk arrangements and melody, which was released at the time as a single in '82 with very little success; the second song is "Wishful Thinking", placid and graceful like a summer morning dawn, but essentially it is useless. "Jocking Aside", with its poignant violin introduction, might evoke some Fairport Convention suggestions, while "Blue Girls" stays on the pleasant pop-folk line but becomes insipid in the long run (highlight the ending: a gunshot, the height of decadence!), some positions recall "Love Love" with an arrangement of trumpets, violins, and a beautiful melody (perhaps the best song on the album). The album closes with "Looking for Life" featuring an antique organ and many melancholy and twilight suggestions, like lost loves, gone adolescence, and more in Jarvis Cocker's typical theatrical style.

What to say?? Definitely a good record and, like every debut, it has interesting insights and many ideas but perhaps not very focused. Pulp will soon abandon the pop-folk path, and already the subsequent album "Freaks" can be considered their masterpiece. Nonetheless, a record to listen to for beginners, perhaps on a beach at sunset.