The Joy Division song Jarvis Cocker couldn’t live without
Jarvis Cocker has always been a fascinating character, so trying to make sense of how he turned out the way he did is easiest when he explains it himself.
The Sheffield native is best known as the eccentric singer of Pulp, through which he interpreted pop in a whole new light to give it an entirely new identity during the 1990s. There’s still no one quite like him, although it is quite obvious from listening to a lot of modern acts who were all inspired by him. Now, who Cocker took from is an entirely different story, and nowhere near as predictable.
In 2023, the Britpop icon joined BBC’s Island Desert Discs to discuss the music that nudged him to become the coolest nerd of his era. During his conversation with host Sue Lawley, the veteran vocalist went through a list of songs that absolutely moulded his entire identity. This included tunes by Johnny Cash, Ronald Binge, Engelbert Humperdinck and more. One of the picks that made the most sense, it is worth noting, was the debut single by Joy Division.
Whereas the post-punk outfit is best remembered for their first album, a lot of the work surrounding it has been somewhat obscured. That, of course, doesn’t mean that the rest of their music wasn’t just as amazing, and Cocker made it a point to emphasise that.
“I consciously wanted to write pop songs that had the messy bits in, he told the interviewer about his approach to songwriting and pop. “The kind of awkward, fumbling bits.”
Hence, he chose ‘Transmissions’ by Joy Division as one of the most important songs of his life because it played a deeply important role in reshaping his confidence and overall self-worth, which any Pulp fan knows is central to his identity.
He proceeded to explain: “It’s kind of post-punk. It’s from a couple years after punk, but punk was a very important event for me because I was about 13 and I was very kind of conscious that I didn’t look normal and stuff, and then punk came along and said, ‘Hey, it’s alright to be different.’ So, suddenly, all these gawky, messy bits became fashion features and plus-points, so I kind of grabbed it with both hands and really got into, and this record reminds me of that time.”
Sure, Pulp sounds nothing like Joy Division literally, but there are similarities between the two in spirit. For one, both redefined what was considered pretty and beautiful to look at or listen to by simply doing their own thing unapologetically. As Cocker explained, Ian Curtis and co taught him that being different wasn’t bad or wrong, and in fact just as valid as the conventionally acceptable people and art that he felt so distant from.
Being decidedly messy while insisting on making pop music was a bold choice on his part, because commercially viable music is typically quite sanitised and uncontroversial. To his credit, he found a way to make marketable music for those who perhaps couldn’t relate to the unattainable perfectionism of mainstream culture in the 1990s. Joy Division is a product of the cultural pushback that punk normalised, whereas Pulp took that very attitude and fused it with the same standards that the generation before them was so fed up with.
With that, they found a way to enjoy a little bit of both while comfortably being themselves.
