Jarvis Vs Jacko - The Brit Awards 1996
Britpop's Most Outrageous Moment
Nostalgia does strange things to memory. It smooths the edges.Makes everything look bigger, brighter, sillier. Britpop gets boiled down to Blur, Oasis, lager, parkas, and Union Jacks waving like it was one never-ending party. But not everything from that time ties up so neatly.
Earth Song, Arse Out
Take the 1996 BRIT Awards. Michael Jackson’s on stage performing Earth Song. Peak messianic Jacko: choirs, smoke machines, arms out like he’s about to float away. Then Jarvis Cocker walks on. Not part of the act. Not in the script. Charity shop chic, like he wandered in from the car park. Lifts his shirt. Waves his arse at the King of Pop.
The tabloids went wild. “Pulp frontman disrupts MJ’s big moment.” “Jarvis mooned Michael Jackson.” They made it sound petty. Childish. Maybe it was. But if you were there, you felt it. Jackson’s performance wasn’t just overblown, it was off. Playing saviour. Surrounded by kids. Hands outstretched like a second coming. Something snapped. Jarvis stepped in.
Protest? Piss-take? Both? He never really explained it. Just wandered on, flapped his shirt, and buggered off again. You watch it now and it still feels like a jolt. Like someone popped the balloon before it burst. No speech. No manifesto. Just instinct.
The State of Play: 19 February 1996
The BRIT Awards. Oasis expected to sweep the place. Blur, still licking wounds from "Roll With It," smiling through gritted teeth. And Pulp? Pulp weren’t supposed to win anything. They weren’t that kind of band. They'd done their time. Climbed out of the indie sinkhole. Headlined Glastonbury when The Stone Roses bailed. Dropped Different Class, which actually earned the phrase. But they were survivors, not favourites.
Still, the night didn’t belong to Oasis. Or Blur. Or Jackson, for all the organisers’ efforts.
He was the BRITs’ big prize. Dragged over off the back of HIStory and a Christmas number one. They invented a trophy for him: “Artist of a Generation.” His performance had it all. Video screens full of starving children. Lights bright enough to burn through your retinas. Jackson glowing in white, perched on a cherry-picker like a celestial forklift driver. Extras crawling at his feet. One of them kissed his boot. By the time his arms were outstretched, it wasn’t a performance anymore. It was a sermon. From Olympus. By committee.
The Walk-On
Then Jarvis Cocker wandered on.
No rehearsal. No heads-up. No one plans to interrupt Michael Jackson mid-resurrection. But something in Jarvis gave way. He saw the hollow grandeur. The industry on its knees. So he walked up, lifted his shirt, and gave it the waft. A small act. But it said what needed saying.
Security dragged him off like a terrorist. Jackson’s lot accused him of injuring children. Total bollocks, but the papers ran it anyway. Jarvis barely apologised. Why would he? He’d done the thing nobody else would. Called it what it was. Not music. Not art. Just theatre for a man who’d run out of truth.
Five Seconds to Live Forever
At 4 minutes and 41 seconds, Cocker strolled in from stage left. Past the fake beggars. Past the angels. Straight through the fog. Turned. Bent. Wafted. Not quite bare-arsed, but enough. Didn’t run. Just walked off. One final wiggle. Like it was the most natural thing ever.
It didn’t stop the show. But it nearly did. For a second, the whole place froze. Earls Court, thick with ego and dry ice, suddenly cut through. You didn’t know whether to laugh or cheer. But everyone felt it. That shift.
Halos, Handcuffs, and Headlines
He thought it was over. Bit of daft theatre. A break in the nonsense. But he ended the night in handcuffs.
They said he assaulted children. Three of them. You couldn’t make it up. Bob Mortimer (yes, that Bob Mortimer) ended up defending him. Meanwhile, the Jackson PR machine went biblical.
And then came the tape. Bowie’s camera crew, of all people, caught the whole thing. There he is: arse out, but miles from the kids. Case closed.
The police dropped it. But the media storm had legs. It wanted blood. This wasn’t about pop music. This was about a skinny man from Sheffield spoiling a billionaire’s circus.
Public Enemy. Folk Hero.
The press went full tilt. The Sun: “He’s Off His Cocker.” The Express: “Jacko’s Pulp Friction.” Jackson said he was sickened and saddened. His team called it a sacrilege.
But outside the press pit, the reaction was different. Noel Gallagher said Jarvis should get a knighthood. The NME knocked out “Jarvis is Innocent” T-shirts overnight. Fans stopped him in the street. Even The Mirror turned.
For years, Jarvis had been Britpop’s outsider. Bedsits, bad sex, Bacofoil shirts. But in that moment (dodging dancers dressed as angels) he became something else. The bloke who couldn’t let it slide. Who stood up. Walked onstage. And didn’t blink.
Somehow, his humanity survived the fallout.
Britpop’s Crown, Jarvis’s Cross
It wasn’t neat. It wasn’t glorious. Jarvis would probably tell you it was a bit daft. He’d wanted fame. Just not the kind that turns your life into a tabloid stakeout.
It stuck. Every interview. Every photo. Every half-arsed opinion piece. All tracing back to ten seconds onstage.
There was no agenda. Just a moment. Misread as a mission statement.
By the time Pulp made This Is Hardcore, you could hear it. Not defeat exactly, but fatigue. Shadows round the edges. Guilt. Pressure. A record that flinches. Not celebrates.
Jarvis kept his head down. The album went to number one. More warning than win.
Years later, asked about it, he shrugged. "I did it. I can’t complain."
And he probably can’t.
But you get the sense he still does.
