Another Form of Relief

Way Back Whensday is a weekly fortnightly feature looking back at great songs from the 90s that I was too musically ignorant of to appreciate at the time.

I was never into the whole ‘Britpop’ thing when it was at it’s height in the mid-90s. I couldn’t care less who won the Blur vs Oasis war, nor did I really listen to any of the other bands that came out of the movement at the time. To be honest, I still don’t like a lot of them, but I’ve come to appreciate the place of a lot of them, and I even enjoy a few.

One band that I do remember reasonably well from this period is Pulp. I remember the release of ‘Common People’ in the summer of 1995 and how it quickly went to number two in the charts. I remember thinking the whole thing is a little silly at the time, although I rather like it now. Granted it’s not as good as the wonderous William Shatner version, but it’s a good song. It was the song that Pulp released a few months later though that stuck with me.

When ‘Disco 2000′ was first released twelve years ago, the year 2000 actually seemed a fair way away. Seeing as it’s now 2007, it should really make the song feel dated. It doesn’t at all though, thanks largely to the fact that Pulp always seemed dated in the first place. Given that they always seemed like they had just stumbled in from the 70s when they first appeared, the fact that the song sings about 2000 in a future sense really doesn’t matter even seven years later.

The song itself, for all it’s ‘oo-ooh’s and upbeat exterior, is a pretty sad tale, as Jarvis gets all nostalgic about a girl he always loved but never managed to be with. By the time the song reaches it’s end, he seems to have accepted that this is how things are and they aren’t going to change, which while realistic, hardly makes the most cheerful end for a song. Don’t pay any attention to the words themselves though and the whole thing is delightfully jolly.

MP3 Pulp - Disco 2000 (expired)

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