Tracks
AIR f/ Jarvis Cocker: "One Hell Of A Party"
(2007)
By Joel Elliott | 31 January 2008
In the world of Jarvis Cocker the greatest punishment is to fade into irrelevancy. This was embodied on Pulp's This is Hardcore (1998) where Cocker took on themes of aging and burning out via the most explicit and provocative storytelling in the band's catalogue. What sold me on that album was not that Cocker seemed so laid to waste but that he fought death with everything he had; belting out anthemic choruses, he allowed his protagonists to wallow in their own self-deluded conviction that somehow they would always be young. This conviction is, of course, a hollow façade; the greatest strength of the album is the way it mirrors humanity's refusal to accept death. Incidentally, it's also one of the great works of contemporary gender politics, detailing the need to control our own bodies -- and manipulate the bodies of others -- as a way of avoiding this great fear.
But what made those songs relevant and enjoyable was the extent to which Cocker was willing to get into the skin of his characters, to fight off the ghost with them. Remember how great Pulp was? Because, unfortunately, I've got to deal with this exercise in tedium. Luckily, it's first and foremost an Air track, even if the voice and song writing is unmistakably Cocker's. I'm not going to bother figuring out whether the layers of irony, when peeled away, will somehow find Cocker completely aware of what he's doing here; when it comes down to it this song is boring as hell and there's no excuse for that. The washed-up nature of the lyrics, which compare the breaking off of a relationship with a bad hangover, are nothing new but for the first time Cocker sounds like he's actually given up. In some ways it makes the track more personal; still, his sense of malaise is contagious and when he sings "I've got nothing more to say" I get the same throbbing headache that he must have.
I don't really mind having to empathize with a character to the point of discomfort but this song is noticeably absent of the actual party that would make a hangover worth it; at least when I'm hungover I have the consolation of being able to reflect on the night before. And if the song were nestled among the more hedonistic pleasures of a Pulp record it might have more of an effect, but on Pocket Symphony it's just one of many slow, inoffensive, and sterile tracks, with Air casually strumming harps and doing their usual unassuming thing. For all its suggestion of desolation and regret the song should feel like a bombed-out bachelor pad with condom wrappers and empty bottles strewn about; instead it conveys the bright lights, lace curtains, and Japanese throw-pillows of an upscale loft. And to think Cocker was once the voice of the "common people."
But what made those songs relevant and enjoyable was the extent to which Cocker was willing to get into the skin of his characters, to fight off the ghost with them. Remember how great Pulp was? Because, unfortunately, I've got to deal with this exercise in tedium. Luckily, it's first and foremost an Air track, even if the voice and song writing is unmistakably Cocker's. I'm not going to bother figuring out whether the layers of irony, when peeled away, will somehow find Cocker completely aware of what he's doing here; when it comes down to it this song is boring as hell and there's no excuse for that. The washed-up nature of the lyrics, which compare the breaking off of a relationship with a bad hangover, are nothing new but for the first time Cocker sounds like he's actually given up. In some ways it makes the track more personal; still, his sense of malaise is contagious and when he sings "I've got nothing more to say" I get the same throbbing headache that he must have.
I don't really mind having to empathize with a character to the point of discomfort but this song is noticeably absent of the actual party that would make a hangover worth it; at least when I'm hungover I have the consolation of being able to reflect on the night before. And if the song were nestled among the more hedonistic pleasures of a Pulp record it might have more of an effect, but on Pocket Symphony it's just one of many slow, inoffensive, and sterile tracks, with Air casually strumming harps and doing their usual unassuming thing. For all its suggestion of desolation and regret the song should feel like a bombed-out bachelor pad with condom wrappers and empty bottles strewn about; instead it conveys the bright lights, lace curtains, and Japanese throw-pillows of an upscale loft. And to think Cocker was once the voice of the "common people."