These songs - along with the cheerfully vulgar and inspired protest song "Running the World," buried at the end of the album - stand out among the meditative numbers here, songs that recall the measured craft of We Love Life but lack both the epic scale and pervading sense of hope that characterized that album. That's one of only a couple of moments that are straight-up pop, the other notable ones being the wonderful opener "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time," which glides back and forth on an irresistible elastic hook, and the mean, pummeling "Fat Children," quite possibly the hardest Cocker has ever rocked.
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This is exquisite craft, the kind that a pop singer/songwriter who has been working at this for a quarter-of-a-century should have: Cocker knows how to structure a song, he knows how to write a lyric with momentum and wit, he knows how to construct a pop record as thrilling as "Black Magic," built around an inspired "Crimson and Clover" sample. That word can seem pejorative to some, since it implies that emotion has been sacrificed for mechanized musicianship, but that's hardly true in regard to this album. Cocker may well tackle topics close to his heart as a life-long misshape now facing his forties with a new wife and baby, but there's little sense of confession on Jarvis: instead, the music is unmistakably the work of a craftsman. Whether it was the impassioned, sex-obsessed His 'n' Hers, the bracing, biting social commentary of Different Class or the weary trawl through the heart of darkness on This Is Hardcore, Cocker's writing was as twitchy and revealing as an exposed nerve: he may have trussed up his thoughts in metaphors and filtered his feelings through narratives, but it's impossible to hear "Babies," "Common People" or "The Fear" without imagining Cocker himself as the protagonist, the central figure in each song.
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Given the hushed atmosphere of much of the record, it'd be easy to call this introspective, but the curious thing about Jarvis is that it never feels as personal as any of Pulp's '90s albums. Always a sharp student of pop, Jarvis Cocker's solo debut - simply, cleanly titled Jarvis on the cover, not so simply called The Jarvis Cocker Album in the liner notes - unmistakably hearkens back to '70s solo debuts from singers who have just stepped away from their bands, whether it's in the terrific washed-out artwork or in its moody contemplative feel.