This Is Hardcore is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Pulp, released on 30 March 1998. Following the success of Different Class (1995), friction grew in the band, culminating in the departure of the guitarist and violinist Russell Senior. Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker left for New York alone to decompress and write in isolation. These new songs took a much more art rock approach and glam rock influence. and the images were further digitally manipulated by Howard Wakefield, who also designed the album. Currin was also the art director for the "Help the Aged" video, based on his painting "The Never Ending Story". Advertising posters showing the album's cover that appeared on the London Underground system were defaced by graffiti artists with slogans like "This Offends Women" and "This is Sexist" or "This is Demeaning".

The music video for the title track was directed by Doug Nichol and was listed as the No. 47 best video of all time by NME. A bonus live CD entitled "This Is Glastonbury" was added to the album later in 1998.

Commercial performance

The album had first-week sales of just over 50,000, 62% fewer than Different Class first-week sales of 133,000. The album was certified gold by the BPI April 1998 for sales of 100,000.

Reception and legacy

Nick Hornby, writing in Spin, proclaimed that on the album "England's unofficial poet laureate Jarvis Cocker perfects his poetry of the prosaic". The Tribune hailed it as "a smashing album about midlife crisis" and found that "[the] music is sumptuous lounge-lizard rock augmented by strings and noisy disruptions – a clever, catchy '90s take on the Bowie/Mott/Roxy glam rock of the '70s." He concluded, "It's an end, a hard-wrought epitaph to a band's jaunt in the limelight and a suitable jump-off point for what had been a rare old few years – for us, at least." Another review found the song "A Little Soul" to be "Cocker's most disconsolately beautiful", drawing "from the musical blueprint of Smokey Robinson's 'Tracks of My Tears.'"

This is Hardcore was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2013, NME ranked it at number 166 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2014, US LGBT magazine Metro Weekly placed the album at number 46 in its list of the "50 Best Alternative Albums of the '90s". In 2017, Pitchfork ranked it seventh in "The 50 Best Britpop Albums".

Track listing

Personnel

Pulp

  • Jarvis Cocker
  • Nick Banks
  • Candida Doyle
  • Steve Mackey
  • Mark Webber

Production

  • Chris Thomas – production
  • Pete Lewis – engineering
  • Lorraine Francis – assistant engineering
  • Jay Reynolds – assistant engineering
  • Olle Romo – programming
  • Matthew Vaughan – programming
  • Magnus Fiennes – programming
  • Mark Haley – programming
  • Anne Dudley – string arrangement
  • Pulp – string arrangement
  • Nicholas Dodd – orchestration

Additional musicians

  • Anne Dudley – piano
  • Chris Thomas – piano
  • Neneh Cherry – featured vocals
  • Mandy Bell – backing vocals
  • Carol Kenyon – backing vocals
  • Jackie Rawe – backing vocals

Artwork

  • John Currin – direction
  • Peter Saville – direction
  • Horst Diekgerdes – photography
  • Howard Wakefield – design
  • Paul Hetherington – design

Charts

Weekly charts

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"

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! Chart (1998)

! Peak<br/>position

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!scope="row"|Estonian Albums (Eesti Top 10)

|align="center"|8

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!scope="row"|European Albums Chart

|style="text-align:center;"|6

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! scope="row"|Icelandic Albums (Tonlist)

| style="text-align:center;"|2

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Year-end charts

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|-

! Chart (1998)

! Position

|-

! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)

| 75

|}

Certifications

References

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  • This Is Hardcore at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)