1995 Hit Ranked Among ‘Best Songs of 1990s’ Remains an Iconic Rock Anthem
The 1990s are often cited as one of the strongest decades ever for rock music, with countless different subgenres emerging from different parts of the world. Whether it was Seattle grunge bands like Nirvana or Soundgarden, French techno groups like Daft Punk, or gritty Britpop collectives like Oasis and Blur—there was truly something for everybody.
Pulp fits neartly into the latter category; despite being around since the '80s, Jarvis Cocker's band erupted with the Britpop movement in the early '90s and found international success with their album Different Class in 1995.
"Common People" was the breakout single from the album, and it has since been ranked by Rolling Stone among the greatest songs of the 1990s.
The song explores the aesthetics of "class tourism"—the concept of wealthy people fantastising about ditching their privilege and living a simple, working-class life with the safety net of old money to fall back on. Cocker's biting, satirical lyrics transformed the song into one of the leading social anthems of the '90s in England.
The single peaked at No. 2 in the United Kingdom and pushed the band to a whole new level of fame—but failed to break into the charts across the Atlantic. "Common People" wasn't a Top 40 hit in the U.S. despite the immense critical acclaim that it received.
In the years since, "Common People" has became an international hit and remains one of the defining tracks of the Britpop era. Rolling Stone also ranked it at #1 on their list of the greatest Britpop singles. They labeled it a "masterpiece full of sex, sarcasm and despair. But mostly sex."
Frontman Jarvis Cocker explained the inspiration for the song in an interview with NME: "I'd met the girl from the song many years before, when I was at St Martin's College [...] I don't know her name. It would've been around 1988, so it was already ancient history when I wrote about her."
He remembers how the girl had told him she wanted to "move to Hackney and live like the common people", which gave him the inspiration for the song. With an extra helping of Cocker's own sardonic tone and social commentary, the track became a defining anthem of the era.