Jarvis Cocker

Jarvis Coсker is a celebrated English musician who reached the peak of prominence with his group Pulp, especially popular in the nineties. In the opening years of the new century, the artist got occupied with other projects and started a solo career. He released his first solo album in 2006 giving it his name. By that moment, Jarvis had been on the stage for almost thirty years already. It all started in 1978, when Coсker, a fifteen year-old student of a prestigious school, made up his mind to build a music band. Initially, it was called Arabacus Pulp, but before they became widely known they reduced the name to Pulp. This formation had a long way to go to reach recognition. The Pulp’s first album, It, hit the stores in 1983 and featured the indie-rock material that the audience was not prepared for yet, and had disappointing sales. Later, the group decided to change the genre and move to a different label. In 1986, Pulp issued the second long player under the title Freaks. In two years, Cocker and Steve Mackey, another participant of the group, left their home town of Sheffield to study at St. Martin’s College in London. Officially, Pulp maintained their music activities that, on the other hand, were extremely irregular and fruitless. The musicians changed their sounding once again, this time adding a considerable portion of rave and acid-house elements. The outfit’s third studio work, Separations, was prepared in 1989, yet released only in 1991.

In 1994, Pulp surfaced with the record that finally paved their way to glory and recognition. The His 'n' Hers album became the band’s trademark, a proficient blending of glam- and punk-rock that pleased the masses greatly. This long player was nominated for Mercury Award, which was just a beginning of the outfit’s new era. Pulp’s big time came along in 1995 after the release of the smashing single Common People. This composition granted the following long player, Different Class, excellent sales making it gold. All the attention was drawn to the main member of Pulp, Jarvis Cocker, featured on many magazine covers and in numerous TV shows, where he astonished the spectators with acid phrases and witticisms addressing big culture figures. The culmination of his outrageous acting in public was the attempt to undermine Michael Jackson’s performance at the 2006 Brit Awards ceremony. As a result, his personality earned even more interest, while Pulp’s subsequent works lost their attractiveness. In the end, creatively strong and nicely executed This Is Hardcore (1998) was did not perform well on the market, which stroke a hard blow on the band’s reputation. Three years later, the musicians made another attempt to regain the lost positions with one more album, We Love Life, yet it was soon followed by the group’s collapse.

After that, Cocker and his wife relocated to Paris. His son’s birthday kept him distracted from the music affairs for a while until 2003 when he returned with the brand new project called Relaxed Muscle. This initiative did not bring high results, which did stop Jarvis from carrying on. Cocker collaborated with a number of performers as a song-writer and created soundtracks for several movies. In 2006, the artist issued his debut self-titled effort to raise remarkable response among the listeners. In three years, Jarvis Cocker delivered the second chapter of his solo career, Further Complications.