We Love Life

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Offiziellecharts.de – Pulp – We Love Life" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved October 17, 2023. Walters, Barry (22 August 2002). "Pulp: We Love Life". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 13 February 2007 . Retrieved 28 April 2016.

Oldham, James (16 October 2001). "Pulp: We Love Life". NME. Archived from the original on 12 November 2012 . Retrieved 21 August 2017. Pulp forged their brave new sound on We Love Life, their seventh LP, with the unlikely aid of reclusive singing legend Scott Walker as producer. That was after abandoning sessions with Chris Thomas, the producer of their previous two records, Different Class and This Is Hardcore. Yet, having taken those two titles to number one in the UK Album Chart, the Sheffield group soon found it wasn’t the kind of sound to win them new fans. They only managed a fleeting peak position of number six for We Love Life at the end of October 2001. went wildly off the rails on their last album – 1998’s ‘This Is Hardcore’. The problem with that record wasn’t just that it was drab and largely tuneless, but that it was such a wretched cliché. A whole record about how VIP parties really get you down was the last thing anyone wanted to hear.It had been three and a half years since Pulp released an album, and everything had changed. The band’s whole existence had already been a long, strange trip — from youthful iterations mostly existing in obscurity in the ‘80s, to beginning to incorporate more dance influences, to the massive breakthroughs during Britpop’s mid-‘90s heyday. After all of that, there was the crash landing of 1998’s This Is Hardcore — the fallout from fame and partying, the ugly and bleak late nights on the other side of everything. That, in a way, could’ve already been Pulp’s conclusion. It was an endpoint from the stories they told on His ’N’ Hers and Different Class, and it arrived in the 1997/1998 moment when Britpop was undergoing its great collective comedown, as the albums sprawled and egos frayed and the whole heady moment had gone about as far as it could go. Ornamented types: a prospectus" (PDF). imimprimit. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 December 2015 . Retrieved 12 December 2015. If _Different Class_ was the big night out and _This Is Hardcore_ was the end of the night when things started to go a bit messy, the very under-rated _We Love Life_ is the sound of the band waking the morning after the very heavy night before - and wondering what happened.

The second departure follows in downbeat fashion, “I used to hate the sun because it shone on everything I'd done”. The idea for ‘Sunrise’ came from one of those nights when you stay too long at a party and, in a state of disrepute, you curse yourself and the godforsaken onslaught of the morning. And then just when it seems to be slipping into despair, the song turns dramatically and bursts into what must be one of the most thrilling finales to any band’s existence. It feels like new territory, an ecstatic surge, closer to dance music than anything Britpop offered. This is life. It’s grim and doomed. And the choice to love it, against all the evidence to the contrary, is a magnificent exhilarating leap of faith.Pitchfork staff (28 September 2009). "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 200-151". Pitchfork . Retrieved 1 October 2009. One sanctuary, offering the possibility of beauty or love, is nature. People leave cities for numerous reasons but self-preservation looms large. And if you can’t leave, you take refuge in the green spaces you can find, even if they only exist in parks or books; clinging to nature for fear of falling off the face of the earth. Which is to say Pulp never really changed. The band had initially begun recording with Chris Thomas, who had produced their past two albums. However, his more rigid style of recording conflicted with the band's desire for looser sessions, resulting in the recordings being shelved. [1] The final album was produced by Scott Walker. Keyboardist Candida Doyle recalled, "I certainly thought about leaving [after shelving the Thomas sessions] but I realised that I'd still feel shit even if I did. If Scott Walker hadn't come about, I don't think we'd have bothered to finish this LP." The band, who had met Walker at the 2000 Meltdown Festival run by Walker, had been longtime fans of Walker. [1] Raftery, Brian M. (23 August 2002). " We Love Life". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 9 October 2016 . Retrieved 23 July 2010.