‘This Is Hardcore’: The Pulp song inspired by porn
The Pulp albums His ‘n’ Hers and Different Class are often the most talked about records from the band’s catalogue. Although they marked the Sheffield outfit’s breakthrough and subsequent solidification of staying power, the album that followed should also be uttered in the same breath.
This Is Hardcore was released in 1998, three years after Different Class brought Pulp alongside the likes of Oasis and Blur in the battle to top the charts. The record sold fewer copies than the previous two efforts but still charted at number one in the UK. One of the most interesting inspirations on the album comes from its title track.
The truth is that ‘This is Hardcore’ had actually been inspired by Jarvis Cocker watching porn. In 2012, he told Q (via Songfacts): “‘This Is Hardcore’ is a bit about fame, actually… I ended up watching a lot of porn – hah! – on tour. If you get back to the hotel and you’ve got nothing to do, you put the adult channel on and have a look… It’s the way that people get used up in it.”
Only someone with Cocker’s sincerity could admit to being influenced in his songwriting by watching too much porn, but equally, only he could find the poetry within it. “You’d see the same people in films, and they’d seem to be quite alive, and then you’d see a film from a year later, and there’s something gone in their eyes,” he continued. “You can see that they’ve done it all, and there’s nowhere else to go.”
Indeed, the biggest tragedy in the porn industry is the way that its performers are used and discarded just as easily. Interestingly, for Cocker, he felt there was an analogy with the way people are often treated in music. “There seemed to be something really poignant about that to me,” he added. “It seemed to be very similar to the way people get used in the entertainment business.”
Back in 2001, Cocker told Mojo that This is Hardcore’s main basic theme was “dealing with something superficially attractive which when you get closer to is actually quite repulsive”. In that light, it’s clear his concern with porn rang true throughout the title track because, naturally, people are attracted to pornography and yet often simultaneously find it repulsive.
Most of all, Cocker remains proud of the themes on the record and particularly on the title track. “I’m proud of it because it gets that across,” he added. “If you’re serious about what you do, how you’re feeling has to come out in your music, so I’m pleased that we didn’t try and gloss over it and carry on as if everything was fine.”
