SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: PULP – LIVE!

PULP
LIVE!
ROUGH TRADE RECORDS

When Pulp and Jarvis Cocker (the band’s soul and brain) appeared back in the 90s, quite a few critics, even with all the praise, didn’t expect either to last long on the music scene, tying Pulp and Cocker to the Britpop “fad.”

Well, that “fad” is still around, and so are Pulp and Cocker. Yet they didn’t succeed because they remained strictly connected to Britpop, as both had wider aspirations, which they were able to reach with some, simply put, brilliant music and lyrics, being one of the rare artists that were able to bring their cross of British/European song trends (and Cocker himself is a sort of an encyclopedia in that respect) worldwide.

So it is no wonder that Pulp is getting their own live documentary – Pulp: What Do You Do For an Encore? (MUBI, September 2026), of which Live! is the album representation. And as Cocker himself puts it, “A concert is an event where songs come back to life. That’s why this album is called Live!”

And yes, it is as good as Pulp music itself.

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