Pulp and the longest-ever gaps between albums

The peerless Sheffield band Pulp have just released their eighth studio album, More, to appropriately laudatory reviews. They have been fortunate in that their lead singer and songwriter, Jarvis Cocker, has remained one of the best-known figures in Britain’s pop firmament ever since the band first emerged into the mainstream with 1994’s His ‘n’ Hers—but, nevertheless, there is a faintly staggering 24-year period between their last album, 2001’s underrated, Scott Walker-produced We Love Life, and their return with this latest. Leaving a quarter-century between records does seem a bold move.

However, a quick glance at most of their Britpop peers reveals that such significant hiatuses are nothing particularly surprising. Blur paused for 12 years between 2003’s Think Tank and 2015’s The Magic Whip, then another eight years passed before their most recent release, 2023’s The Ballad of Darren. Oasis may be reforming this summer in suitably cash-grabbing fashion, but in the unlikely event that they release an album this year or next, it was 2008 when they last bothered the charts, with Dig Out Your Soul. Radiohead have been dormant since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. And even the relatively prolific Suede took a decade off between the dire A New Morning and the considerably more accomplished Bloodsports.

Still, these absences are nothing compared to so-called heritage acts. The Rolling Stones had 18 years between their last studio albums of original material, 2005’s A Bigger Bang and 2023’s surprisingly good Hackney Diamonds, with only a collection of covers, 2016’s Blue & Lonesome, shoehorned in to keep the faithful happy. The Who had 24 years between 1982’s profoundly underwhelming It’s Hard and the more accomplished Endless Wire in 2006. Abba took a staggering 41 years between 1980’s The Vistors and 2021’s Voyage; the latter, naturally, designed to promote the wildly successful Abba Voyage virtual concert, which promises to be one of those ongoing delights that will be with us until the ravens leave the Tower of London.

All this, of course, is a far cry from the days of how prolific bands could be in their heyday. The Beatles managed to write, record and release their first six studio albums—from the charming naivete of their 1963 debut, Please Please Me, to the far greater sophistication of 1965’s Rubber Soul—in less than three years. Their entire career, which spanned 12 LPs, was done and dusted in just over seven years and managed to change the face of recorded music in the process.

Yet even they have not been immune to the lure of the long-delayed release. 2023’s slightly underwhelming single “Now And Then”, taken from an unreleased John Lennon demo, came out 27 years after their last offering, 1996’s “Real Love”, and a full 53 years after their final official single, “The Long and Winding Road”.

What is it, then, with bands deciding after lengthy hiatuses to return with new music? The obvious reason is that the only way acts make any money these days is through touring. In many cases, the release of a new album or single is simply intended as justification for a lucrative worldwide campaign that relies on fans prepared to shell out ever-increasing sums to see their ever-more-aged idols in the flesh. Cocker is now 61; hardly elderly, but also a long way from the stick-thin whippersnapper who scandalised and delighted 1990s Britain in equal measure. And the venerable Paul McCartney, still playing to sell-out audiences at the O2 last year, is 82, the same age as Joe Biden.

Nobody has questioned McCartney’s mental or physical health, but there will inevitably come a time in the not-too-distant when he will have to think about reducing what is presumably an exhausting schedule of recording and touring—or perhaps even retire outright. After all, the billionaire Beatle scarcely needs the money, unlike many of his younger, poorer peers.

Yet McCartney’s Stakhanovite work ethic, which did his band so well in the early 1960s, has persisted throughout his career. (The longest gap between solo albums for him has been a shade under five years, and this ignores his many side projects.) In an age when it is almost fashionable to take these lengthy periods away from the recording studio, “to pursue other interests”, perhaps other acts should take a leaf out of Macca’s impressive songbook and get back into Abbey Road, or similar environments, pronto. That way, success–or at least recognition—lies.