This Is Hardcore (single)

This Is Hardcore sleeve (CD1)
Click here to see more of the artwork

Details

Credits

Releases

Date

Formats and catalogue numbers

Notes

9 March 1998

CD1 - CID695

CD2 - CIDX695

Cassette - CIS695

Original UK release.

CD1:

  1. This Is Hardcore (6:27)
  2. Ladies' Man (4:44)
  3. The Professional (5:09)
  4. This Is Hardcore (End of the Line Remix) (3:02)

CD2:

  1. This Is Hardcore (6:27)
  2. This Is Hardcore (4 Hero Remix) (6:40)
  3. This Is Hardcore (Swedish Erotica Remix) (4:57)
  4. This Is Hardcore (Stock Hausen and Walkman Remix) (5:14)

Cassette:

  1. This Is Hardcore (6:27)
  2. Ladies' Man (4:44)

11 August 2023

Streaming and digital download

Newly uploaded to streaming services as "This Is Hardcore EP", with a scan of the CD1 artwork; the ninth of a series of Island Records-era EPs reissued to coincide with the 2023 tour.

Tracklisting:

  1. This Is Hardcore (6:27)
  2. Ladies' Man (4:44)
  3. The Professional (5:09)
  4. This Is Hardcore (End of the Line Remix) (3:02)
  5. This Is Hardcore (4 Hero Remix) (6:42)
  6. This Is Hardcore (Swedish Erotica Remix) (5:02)
  7. This Is Hardcore (Stock Hausen and Walkman Remix) (5:15)

Notes

The 2023 digital EP labels the End of the Line remix as "Single Version", to differentiate it from the shorter version included on This Is Hardcore's Deluxe Edition. It credits the Swedish Erotica Remix to "Swedish Erotica" rather than Tipsy.

Sleeve notes

Taking it all the way down the marrowbone. Hold tight.

Now is the time of the quickening. By the way - that goes in there.

Commentary

The release of the digital EP in 2023 was heralded by the following commentary from Pulp's social media accounts, believed to have been written by Mark Webber:

“Taking it all the way down the marrowbone. Hold tight.”

If any song exemplifyies the ambition and majesty of Pulp in the late 1990s, it is “This is Hardcore”. Maybe it wasn’t the best commercial decision to release a 6 1/2 minute long single 3 weeks before your new album, but it felt like the right thing to do at the time & after all these years it still sounds extraordinary and unique.

The song is propelled by a loop created from “Bolero on the Moon Rocks” by the Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra (originally recorded for the soundtrack to the German TV sci-fi series “Raumpatrouille”). It was the first, but not last, time that Pulp based a song on a loop that sampled the work of another artist.

Mark has always played the lead piano part at concerts but in the studio, just about everyone had a go at it without being able to get it right - Jarvis, Mark, Candida, producer Chris Thomas - and in the end we had to call in @anne.j_dudley to play it. Anne’s sweeping string arrangement also took the song to another level. (The outro can be heard in isolation on the “End of the Line Remix” that was recently embellished on the 2023 tour by @elysiancollectivemusic.)

Two tracks based on demos that didn’t make the cut for the LP sessions, plus not 1, 2, 3, but 4 remixes of “This is Hardcore” filled out the two original CD single releases and now appear on streaming services for the first time.

The video (now available on YouTube in Kids and Adults versions) was directed by Doug Nichol and filmed on a grand scale at Pinewood Studios. It was inspired by classic Hollywood melodrama & Busby Berkeley dance sequences, with many scenes based on images from the wonderful book “Still Life” by @diane_keaton and Marvin Heiferman.

“Now is the time of the quickening.”

Promotional video

Details here.

Charts and sales

UK Singles Chart

Week

Date

Position

1

28 March '98

12

2

4 April '98

31

3

11 April '98

50

4

18 April '98

72

Page last modified on April 20, 2024, at 06:55 PM