Steve Mackey’s five best basslines for Pulp
In the crowded world of Britpop, Pulp always held a unique standing. Throughout their time in the spotlight, Jarvis Cocker’s odes to British living always had a trace of northern irony, which was inestimably served up by the late Steve Mackey who brought a coolness to every one of their songs.
The bassist left behind a treasure trove of amazing moments, including some of the greatest basslines of the era. While Pulp might not have been known for their killer basslines on every song, Mackey’s way of holding down the low end was the glue that held every one of their classic songs together, and went under the radar.
Mackey joined the band in 1989 and didn’t play on their earlier work, but shortly after his arrival, the Yorkshire group finally exploded into the mainstream. Part of their success is down to Mackey always being aware of what was right for the song. Outside of Pulp, Mackey also lent his talents behind the scenes, writing songs with M.I.A. and Arcade Fire.
As legions of Pulp fans pay tribute to Mackey, this is a look at how he brought his stamp to Pulp’s greatest tunes. As his brethren in the band’s statement (via Instagram) read, “Safe travels, Steve. We hope to catch up with you one day”.
Steve Mackey’s five best basslines
‘Babies’
There has always been a seductive angle to every song that Pulp ever put out. Although ‘Babies’ was robbed from the vinyl pressings of His n Hers, the driving force behind it comes from Mackey’s bassline, bringing a subtle nudge into the groove as Jarvis Cocker talks about being fascinated by the opposite sex and hiding in a girl’s wardrobe to hear what’s going on behind closed doors.
Guitarist Russell Senior also takes a few cues from Mackey’s playbook, favouring the lower notes on the neck of the guitar to give the song an off-kilter mood. This was Pulp in their salad days, but listeners could already feel the air getting thicker when Cocker opened his mouth.
‘This is Hardcore’
Pulp warned their fans that the follow-up to Different Class would be alienating. From the first track on This is Hardcore, ‘The Fear’ set fans up for something that was a bit more caustic than what came before. Even though they were more disaffected this time, they hadn’t lost their sense of mojo as the title track shows.
Riding on a sample from ‘Bolero on the Moon Rocks’, this song is the culmination of Cocker’s filthy sexual desires, while Mackey’s bass slams away in the background. Although the tune features some gorgeous strings in the mix and a pretty guitar figure, Mackey’s bass is always in the back of your head, painting a grim picture of the lusty desires that lie just below the surface.
‘Do You Remember the First Time?’
Before the Britpop movement was in full swing, Jarvis Cocker seemed not to care where his band ended up but 1994’s His n Hers changed their entire trajectory. When talking about his first stabs at love on ‘Do You Remember The First Time’, Cocker’s brilliance was in full flow, and the universal appeal of the track captured the attention of the masses.
The tune at the heart of ‘Do You Remember the First Time’ might be catchy, but Cocker is savage in his delivery, talking to a lady friend who he had a fling with and asking her to throw caution to the wind since nothing can be worse than the first time. Mackey might take a bit of a back seat on this tune, but his slow pulse on this song serves as the heartbeat for Cocker’s character. In essence, this defines Mackey’s knack for playing into the surface of the song.
‘Disco 2000’
Pulp were never snobs about what genres they pulled from as the sample on ‘Disco 2000’ shows. While other Britpop artists like Oasis were looking back to the glory days of rock ‘n’ roll, Pulp had a further spectrum of influences to pull from which they proved on the stand-out track from 1995’s Different Class.
Framed as a club anthem to let loose to, Mackey is in his element as a bass player, filling out the low end as Cocker about one that got away after promising to meet up in the year of the millennium. That tinge of sadness can tear through anyone’s heart, but the slick groove from the low end almost makes everything go down easy.
‘Common People’
From day one, Pulp always held a strong disdain for toxic celebrity culture. Although Jarvis Cocker became one of the biggest names in British music in the late 1990s, he was never looking to become the leader of a generation. He would always be one of the common people, and Pulp’s definitive song delivers the same message told by a man on the street.
Framing the story around meeting a girl from Greece with a thirst for knowledge, this student walks around the English city streets wanting to know what the common people are up to. As the track builds in tension, the tempo keeps speeding up, with Mackey following right behind his bandmates to keep the same frenetic energy of the times. The girl in question might want to live and sleep with common people like Cocker, but when the curtain is peeled back, the life of a man on the street is much more manic than it appears.
