It was a dark day in early December 2025. I was about to make a long tram trip to the other side of the city—about an hour long—so I needed to spend my time somehow, and usually, I would listen to music. I needed to discover something new. Lately, I had been gravitating towards music from the sixties, but I was longing to find something that would merge this sensibility with post-punk, which I had been engulfed in for the past couple of years. Also, I was looking for something from the turn of the '80s and '90s, as I was interested in this period as well.

I had heard about Pulp and Jarvis Cocker many times before. The first time was in the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where Jarvis played the leader of a wizard band, The Weird Sisters. I was absolutely mesmerized by the songs written for that film, especially "Magic Works". I was captivated by the singer's ability to interpret the lyrics, and as I was playing guitar and trying to sing myself, I gave it a go with that song. I read in a film magazine that the singer was in a band called Pulp, but they were on hiatus at the moment, so I didn't explore them further then. Also, Pulp was never really popular in my country.

In late 2025, I was struggling with my health, not really knowing what was wrong with me. My music algorithm had been suggesting Pulp's new album for some time, but I had been very suspicious about new music lately, so I didn't want to explore it. I wasn't really keen on the term "britpop" either. But then, while exploring Rate Your Music, I checked earlier albums by Pulp and, to my surprise, I found genres like post-punk and gothic rock next to their album Freaks. I decided to try it during that tram trip.

The first sounds of "Fairground" bought me over completely. It was exactly the mood I was in, and I was completely blown away by it. Then I resonated with "Master of the Universe", "Life Must Be So Wonderful" and especially "They Suffering at Night". I knew I had found a new favourite band to explore. I loved the whimsical, but very "everyday life" feel of the lyrics, the vocal delivery, and the sparseness of the music. In the next couple of months, I was listening to their whole discography and fell in love with almost all of it. Finally, I was listening to a band that was active and currently touring. I dreamed they would play in my country; so far they had done it only once, but there was a chance.

Then in February, just as I was watching a documentary about Pulp, they announced a concert in Berlin. One thing led to another and, in two days, I will be attending my first Pulp concert, which will also be my first concert abroad. I am thrilled to see the band live and Jarvis performing. I read they had "Love is Blind" as an option to vote for at one of their recent concerts in Chile. This is one of my favourite songs of theirs; it would be something unreal if they played it at this concert, over 30 years after they performed it for the last time.