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Has he changed or have I changed?
I saw the South Bank Show about Jarvis Cocker recently, and I was already in a bit of mood with him for making stupid "pop is dead" comments that revealed he hasn't actually paid attention to what's in the charts for some time, but won't let that stop him from giving exactly the kind of grumpy old man opinions that always go down well with the media. And of course the nature of the SBS is that it consists of Lord Bragg smugly fawning and making anyone they cover who happens to be interesting seem tedious and worthily dull.
What surprised me, however, was the extent to which Jarvis' new material does not need any help to do so. I was particularly appalled by concert footage showing him performing 'From Auschwitz to Ipswich' (oooh, provocative!). Musically it sounded bland and uninspiring, much like a b-side as someone observed, had Pulp's b-sides not historically been pretty great. Lyrically it is, as you will see if you follow that link, striving for profundity whilst not saying a lot. What disturbed me most was the way he delivered it - the old jerking arms and gloriously random handsigns seem to have devolved into a sort of finger-wagging, "now look here, I've got some critically acclaimed social observations to pass on..."
The Jarvis of old would have penned 'Fat Children' as a sarcastic ode to media scare-mongering, but on the above documentary he said this was inspired by getting off the Eurostar while deigning to bless us with a return visit, and perceiving - ah, here we are - "a searing, amazing insight... that kids in the U.K. were fatter than the ones in France". Well. Goodness. Cocker admits that this 'insight' is dependent on his living in Paris, but doesn't seem to see that another reading of that distance is that he has now become just another out-of-date, out-of-the-country rock star. To go back to that Guardian article:
Elsewhere in the interview Cocker confesses he regrets the publicity surrounding his infamous Michael Jackson stage-invasion at the 1996 Brit awards and lays into the obsession with celebrity in this country, saying: "I would rather people remember me for what I create."
It's all about the music, man, I'm a serious artist? Oh dear. |
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