May 16 - Common People

This week I am going searching... I am searching for the perfect recording. I know I won't find it, but I have several songs in mind that really goes very far in that general direction.

The first song I am picking is by britpop band Pulp. In the 90s, the britpop scene was divided between Blur and Oasis with ridiculously high rivalries that were parallel to the good old Stones-Beatles rivalries of the 60s. I think both bands are pretty solid - but I am not so sure either one of them was my favorite britpop band. To me, that was Pulp.

I have this memory of driving in to downtown Trondheim, passing the Ni Muser building (Nine Muses), home of one of the artsier cafes in Trondheim in the 90s, and having Common People come through on the radio, and the visual of studying at St. Martin's College for me took place in Ni Muser rather than the more prestigious London Institution.

The recording of Common People is from Pulp's 1995 album Different Class, which is master class in pop/rock music. It's got everything: great arrangements, great music, great lyrics, just great stuff. And it is all distilled into one song: Common People. And that is really what I see when I see perfection in a recording. It is a song that somehow distills the essence of everything it is trying to convey. Does that make what I am looking for clearer? I hope so. Here is Pulp with Common People.