Monday, January 14, 2008

Ladies' Man

One of the band’s most seductive creations gets put through the Hardcore treatment. The beautiful mix of synths, electric piano and electronic drums and gracefully unfolding melody are supported by Jarvis singing the entire lyric through a vocoder. Such a device renders the lyric – filled with seemingly passionate come-ons – eerie and robotic. It may be an obvious trick, but damn does it work. It renders literal Jarvis’ fears about the pointlessness and banality of uttering such phrases again and again. “Ladies’ Man” is of a piece with other Pulp songs of the period that view the mating game with an increasingly caustic eye. It is also the second Pulp song (after “We Can Dance Again”) to quote a lyric from Blondie's "Atomic."

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