Who is Jarvis Cocker?
Short Answer
The wiry poet laureate of the pervy and provincial. Fronted Pulp like a man narrating a nervous breakdown in a disco, and somehow made it sexy.
Long Answer
Jarvis Cocker is the man who made awkward cool. Not the curated kind you get on Instagram now. Real awkward. The kind where your shirt doesn’t fit, your hips don’t lie but they do apologise, and your thoughts are sharper than your haircut. He fronted Pulp for years before anyone noticed. Then delivered Different Class and suddenly everyone realised the geek had been taking notes the whole time.
He didn’t sing like a rock star. He observed like a playwright and panted like a stalker. Songs about council flats, crap sex, posh girls, boredom, and the small, seedy triumphs of being ignored. He turned the British class system into a soap opera and set it to synths and strings. Common People alone deserves a knighthood. Or at least a blue plaque in a grotty bedsit.
Where Damon played the art-school clever clogs and Liam played the yob with a halo, Jarvis just was. Tall. Gangly. Lurking at the back of the indie disco until his moment arrived. When it did, he didn’t take the spotlight. He seduced it. Half-pose. Half-parody. All performance.
Beyond Pulp, he’s wandered. Solo albums. DJ sets. Cultural commentary with the calm fury of a man who’s seen too many nonsense panel shows. He once waved his arse at Michael Jackson on live TV and came out of it looking like the only sane man in the room. Because he was.
Jarvis Cocker is the thinking person’s indie idol. A voyeur. A wit. A walking shrug in charity shop chic. If Britpop had a conscience. Or at least a conscience, it was him.
