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.