silence kit #1

Jarvis Cocker: Jarvis [Rough Trade, 2006]

So I have been coming back to this very good and rather underrated Jarvis Cocker record for quite a long while now, and the more I begin to feel like Jarvis would probably be best enjoyed by folks like me who never cared much for Pulp in the first place, really. What draws me into Cocker's solo debut is the plainspoken elegance inherent in the songs that perhaps only someone like Leonard Cohen or that sort can pull off effectively, though Jarvis' turf is more quintessentially British than anything else. First, the stellar popcraft in the two songs he originally wrote for Nancy Sinatra, "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" and "Baby's Coming Back To Me", rendered more wonderfully in his own hands, I feel, especially the becalmed air of "Baby's Coming Back". Then there is the unguarded cynicism he gives free reins on his trademark misanthropic numbers like "From Auschwitz To Ipswich" and "I Will Kill Again". The "cunts are still running the world" protest of the album's hidden track (and single "Running The World") may conflict with the overall feel, but what an incredible tragicomic popsong achievement it is still – one of the essential tracks of this decade, I’d say. What needs to be said about Jarvis is also that this is one intimate showcase of this formerly Michael-Jackson-taunting songwriter's leap in maturity; throughout the record, clearly the older and wiser Jarvis Cocker is in his elements here and I think one can't truly appreciate the songs' truest revelations without muddling through enough of life's assless disappointments first.