Pulp vinyl reissues: This Is Hardcore

On the day This Is Hardcore was released I headed off to get my copy from Rockaboom Records in Leicester. At the time I had a bee in my bonnet about the seemingly declining quality of vinyl records. Taking no chances I deliberately bought two copies so that I could make one good set if there were any jumps, scratches or other flaws. Sure enough both copies had a jump towards the end of Side C. Back to Leicester again.

The guy behind the counter at Rockaboom was very patient, if a little quizzical, and he let me look through the rest of his stock until I was happy I’d got a pristine copy. Against the odds Rockaboom still exists – albeit in different premises – and even today I can’t visit the shop without remembering when I had five copies of This Is Hardcore spread across the counter.

The things this band makes us do.

Anyway, 18 years later and there are three separate pressings of This Is Hardcore available: the 1998 original and two reissues from 2009 and 2016.

Original pressing, Island, 1998

The original 140g double LP was pressed by MPO and packaged in a spectacular high-gloss gatefold sleeve. The album tracks cover sides A, B and C. Side D contains four bonus tracks: both the b-sides from the Help The Aged single and two of the b-sides from the This Is Hardcore singles. It also came with a Pulp mailing list postcard which was identical to that included in CD copies of the album.

There are two notable and quirky features of this pressing, and I adore them both. The first is that the last five seconds of Bar Italia play before The Fear begins. This is similar to the CD release except on the CD you have to rewind track 1 to -0:05. The second feature is the locked groove at the end of The Day After The Revolution which plays the audio of Candida’s synths for as long as you leave the tone arm down. They’re both nice touches. The sound quality is perfectly good too.

Finding a copy today is difficult but not impossible with prices for those in excellent condition starting around the £80 mark. If you’re after a pristine copy then keep an eye out for any scuffs to the outer sleeve since the gloss finish shows up imperfections more easily.

First reissue, Plain Recordings, 2009

By surprise the first reissue emerged from an obscure US label called Plain Recordings. There was clearly a demand for This Is Hardcore on vinyl and for a period of time they sold really well before falling off the radar.

It comes with a glossy gatefold sleeve that’s so sturdy and tight that it clamps the burly 180g records tightly in their paper-thin printed inner sleeves. If you manage to track one down, then don’t be squeamish about a bit of modest ringwear.

The artwork reproduction is acceptable but clearly inferior to the original both in terms of definition and colouration (vibrant blood-reds appear as passive light-browns). Oddly the labels have been completely redesigned – out with the pink and in with the dark grey – which makes me wonder if the folks at Plain had ever set eyes on the original pressing.

Like the original you can hear the end of Bar Italia before The Fear starts. However, there’s no audio in the locked groove at the end of The Day After The Revolution; instead the song fades out after 58 seconds of Candida’s synth drone. It’s surely not a coincidence that both these features are identical to the US CD release meaning that the audio is highly likely to have been sourced directly from CD.

The sound is acceptable but inferior to the original, my main complaint is that the dynamic range is compressed so that there’s less variation between the quiet bits and the loud bits. However, it’s not a noticeably louder cut.

They originally sold for around £25 in the UK but more recently the asking prices have rocketed. However, I expect they’ll begin to fall again following the Universal reissue.

Second reissue, Universal Music, 2016

And so to 2016. This issue was mastered by Greg Moore at Finyl Tweek and pressed by MPO in France. Sadly, you don’t get to hear Bar Italia at the beginning of side A and there’s no audio in the locked groove at the end of side C.

The gatefold sleeve has a matt rather than gloss finish which comes as a bit of a disappointment. The labels are near identical to the Plain Recordings reissue which (again) makes me think that no-one responsible for manufacturing the reissue has seen the original. They’ve clearly copied the labels that were designed for the Plain reissue.  A comparison of the Side A label is shown below with the 1998 original on the left.

Yet again, the artwork reproduction underwhelms and is worse than both the original and the Plain reissue. The images were purposely designed to have a painterly effect with Horst Diekgerdes’ photographs manipulated by Photoshop’s Smart Blur function. Speaking about the effect, Peter Saville [responsible for Hardcore’s art direction] said: “We don’t quite know digitally what it does but fascinating things happen between A and B that are not aesthetics-based.”

Because of the poor artwork reproduction, the impact the images had, along with their luminescent qualities are lost. The images are now just plain blurred as Webbo brilliantly demonstrates below (original on the left, reissue on the right):

But all’s not lost. The audio quality was a nice surprise and I think my copy of Hardcore is easily the best sounding of all the 2016 reissues. The cut is slightly louder than the original and background noise is kept to a minimum. At £19 for a double vinyl with bonus tracks, you can’t really go wrong.

Verdict

This one’s easy to sum up. If you care about the sound quality then I’d opt for either the original or the 2016 reissue. The Plain reissue doesn’t sound bad, just less good than the others. If you care about artwork then you have to find the original and should avoid the 2016 reissue at all costs. If you’re on a budget then your only option is to go for the 2016 reissue.

Pulp vinyl reissues: Different Class

There’s quite a lot to cover in this post as there are five vinyl pressings of Different Class across seven distinct releases. If you just want to know whether the 2016 reissue is worth buying then skip to the verdict below (spoiler: it isn’t!)

If you prefer to take the scenic route, then read on…

Original pressing, Island, 1995.

The original 140g LP was pressed by SNA in France. It’s a notoriously poor pressing with even good copies suffering from a steam of crackles and pops. Cramming over 25 minutes of audio per side doesn’t help either and while that wasn’t abnormal at the time, it makes for an imperfect listen. Even when John Peel’s personal copy was played on high-end hifi equipment last year the limitations of the pressing were painfully clear.

This initial pressing was packaged in three different ways:

• The limited edition interchangeable covers – “choose your own front cover”.
  The very first copies came with an impressive die-cut sleeve that contained six double-sided inserts. When placed into the sleeve the inserts would appear through the die-cut and complete the cover artwork. It was a brilliant idea that allowed you to choose any one of the 12 different covers to display. For added pizazz the sleeve was embossed with silver foil which perfectly encapsulated Pulp’s everyday-glamour ethos.

• The regular wedding picture
  Once the copies with the interchangeable covers sold out (fairly quickly and before Christmas ’95 if memory serves me right) the records were packaged in the now-standard sleeve featuring the picture of Sharron & Dominic’s wedding. The foil embossing was replaced and the six inserts condensed into a single insert.

• The presskit (below)
  This one is ridiculously rare, so much so that I’ve seen only two copies for sale in the past 20 years. The outer sleeve is identical to the one used for the interchangeable covers. Inside are six inserts that each feature a press clipping of a Different Class album review. It also includes the same photo and lyric insert from the regular edition with the wedding picture.

Unsurprisingly the edition with the interchangeable covers remains massively sought after thanks to the innovative packaging overseen by Cally Colomon who headed up Island’s art department. One of Cally’s former colleagues told me they had to go to great lengths to find the right sort of card that on the same side could both be black and accept the foil embossing. Eventually they located a printing firm in Birmingham that could do the job.

These days it’s hard to find a copy in pristine condition, a frequent problem being tears and creases around the front of the sleeve. Those copies that were preserved in their original cellophane wrapper (which have now become more brittle with age) can suffer from slightly warped sleeves caused by the cellophane contracting gradually over the years.

Throughout the late 90s and early 2000’s it was reasonably easy to pick up a good second-hand copy of the interchangeable covers for between £15 to £25. In 2016 you’re lucky to find one for less than £100. A copy that was still sealed in its original cellophane sold on eBay in 2015 for £300. That’s over 30 times the original retail price of £9.50! If you’re lucky enough to have one then cherish it because they’re easy to damage.

First reissue, Simply Vinyl, 2000

The first reissue came in 2000 and was released by Simply Vinyl. The 180g record was pressed by Record Industry in Haarlem, Netherlands. SV’s releases all came in an outer PVC sleeve and they did a good job of replicating the standard packaging featuring the wedding picture. Apart from the superior pressing the main difference to the 1995 original is that the labels are blue rather than white. The reissue was widely available for a number of years, particularly so in 2003 when they were made available for a lower price  of  £12.99.

Second reissue, Universal, 2004

By surprise, and without any fanfare, Universal released a new pressing in 2004. It’s notable because they attempted to replicate the interchangeable covers sleeve on the cheap. It doesn’t look half as good as the original as there’s no foil embossing. The die-cut sleeve has a slightly different shaped cut-out and the six inserts have square (right angle) edges rather than curved ones.

Strangely this release was aimed at the European rather than the UK market. I saw new copies sold in France and Spain but never in the UK where the Simply Vinyl edition was still available. I never bought a copy so can’t comment on the quality of the pressing. The Universal sticker on the cellophane wrapper proudly describes the record as being “mastered from the original tapes”.

Sadly this edition often gets passed off as the 1995 original, particularly on eBay. Sometimes this is by accident as they have identical catalogue numbers, but I often suspect it’s anything but an accident as it means they sell for higher amounts. Provided you look out for the differences described above then they’re easy to tell apart.

Third reissue, Music On Vinyl, 2011

With the late-2000s ‘vinyl revival’ it was only a matter of time before the third reissue was released with this one by Music On Vinyl in 2011. As with the Simply Vinyl pressing, this was pressed by Record Industry in Haarlem, Netherlands. Visually it’s very similar to the Simply Vinyl pressing too. Packaging wise they made a good effort but it’s not as close to the original as Simply Vinyl achieved. It’s still available though not as widely as it once was and typically sells for around £25.

I don’t have this copy (yet!) but when I get one I’ll edit this post with my thoughts on the audio quality.

Fourth reissue, Plain Recordings, 2015

Sooner or later there had to be a misfire. In 2015 Plain Recordings released a 180g edition aimed at the North American market but which was widely available elsewhere. You can tell this pressing a mile off as the artwork is completely mangled: the wedding image has a wider crop, the title is positioned adjacent to the Pulp logo rather than beneath it and – unforgivably – the typeface is vertically stretched. It practically screams ‘cheap’ at you.

The artwork alone was enough to put me off: if they can mess this up then the audio quality isn’t going to be up to scratch either. Online reviews about this label’s mastering practices bear this out. Granted I haven’t listened to it, but my advice would be to avoid this one.

Fifth reissue, Universal Music, 2016

I honestly don’t know where to start with this reissue. To be blunt, it’s a trough of dross.

Take the artwork reproduction, shown below. The Simply Vinyl cover is on the left and Universal’s 2016 cover on the right. Look at them. Now, tell me if you think this is an acceptable effort. It’s not, is it?

Maybe they rushed the cover so they could take longer to get the inner sleeve just right. But what’s this? Two brand new song titles…

Live Bed Show Doyle. Just take a moment to let that one sink in.

Do you think they were in a hurry?

Up next is Somethings Changed.

At least Wizz doesn’t possess an ‘h’. As someone whose had his name spelt incorrectly more than a few times on Pulp’s releases, Streeve Makey Sleeve Mackie Steve Mackey was lucky to come out unscathed.

They’ve not even bothered to include the album credits on the inner sleeve. Producer Chris Thomas? Not important. He only helped to define the sound of the album of 1995. Engineer Pete Lewis? Forget him. He only put together the order of the songs, creating one of the most beautiful transitions between tracks 2 and 3 on an album anywhere (listen to it – it’s perfect). Anne Dudley? Irrelevant. She only arranged the strings that transformed I Spy into the epic revenge-drama we love today. We might not see these people in Pulp’s videos or see them perform on stage, but their skill, creativity and vision was responsible for bringing Different Class into the world. For that, they deserve to be credited in the same way they are on other copies of the album.

As for the technical stuff, this is a 180g MPO pressing. Like the other reissues it suffers from relatively high levels of background noise. The label on my copy has circular suction marks which suggests a lack of quality control on the manufacturing side.

Verdict

Steer well clear of the 2016 reissue. It’s a poor effort on all fronts and undermines the very reason why people like ourselves go out to buy our favourite music on vinyl. If you want the best quality audio and artwork reproduction then I’d go for the Simply Vinyl reissue or failing that the one by Music On Vinyl. For its conceptual brilliance then there’s no substitute for finding the original pressing with the interchangeable covers. Holding the album with the cover of your choice still gives me a little kick 21 years later. Sadly, the cost of owning one will give your wallet a big kick.

Sixth reissue?

Now more than ever Different Class deserves to be released as part of a proper deluxe edition box set. We have to accept that it will only sound good on vinyl if it’s split across four rather than two sides. Carefully recreating the original interchangeable covers would be massively popular and make up for the shortcuts in the 2004 reissue. There’s plenty of extra audio and video that could be included across multiple CDs and DVDs. Finally, there’s a wealth of material to fill a book about the making of the album and the success that it and the band enjoyed. With the 25th anniversary due in 2020 I really hope that Universal have a big plan for something along these lines. It needs to be well prepared and well executed. If ever there was a dream job for me, this would be it.

Next week: This Is Hardcore