Good Pop, Bad Pop: The Sunday Times bestselling hit from Jarvis Cocker

Product Information

I have written a book called Good Pop, Bad Pop, which is based around the objects I found in the loft of a house I used to live in. Objects I collected over the course of a lifetime & then left to gather dust in the dark. Why? Am I a hoarder? Or did I think I was laying things away “for a rainy day”? The Top 5 Art Exhibitions to see in London in early November Arms, stone, domestic workers, new spaces and whispers. Jarvis and I have worked together several times. He is one of the greats and a lover of all unusual At the same time, he was formulating what he called The Pulp Master Plan. A school exercise book (keep) contains the blueprint for the band he wanted to form. They would wear Oxfam blazers and “rancid ties”, the music would be “fairly conventional but slightly off-beat pop songs”, and they would “[learn] about the world by looking at what it threw away. By what it deemed ‘worthless’”.

What is in part a trip down the memory lane of another is also the much needed gutting of a loft owned by a procrastinating musician. Consistently entertaining. Jarvis uses the device of sorting through objects he has stored in his loft space to reflect on his childhood and his development as an artist. The book ends before Pulp find fame so I'm looking forward to the next installment. Taking us through the contents of his attic, the Pulp frontman shows there was always more to him than ironic posturing. Punk happened at such an important time for me: I was just hitting adolescence. I’d wanted to be in a band since the age of seven but I had no clue about how to go about it.”What started as a furious nighttime read beginning got swiftly ruined by a consecutive run of painfully early work shifts and a week full of birthday dinners and drinks. Starting Pulp was a way too of alchemically transforming everyday existence into a more fantastic version. Several times in our conversation he touches on his persistent desire to live inside the TV, a zone of adventure populated by dinosaurs, Daleks and the Monkees. “I realise that image doesn’t work so much now because TVs are just flat screens. But when they were boxes you kind of thought – what’s in it? You could almost imagine fitting inside it.” Visitors are also invited to rifle through a carefully selected assembly of artworks, objects and bric-a-brac for sale, curated by the gallery in response to the artist’s own hoarding. Also for sale are prints of sketches and drawings editioned by Jarvis, a set of modern colour prints of original photographs by Hugh Hoyland, and a poster of Jarvis’ Periodic Table of Influences.

Members get the first chance to book our entire programme of events, including go-down-in-history gigs, concerts with world-class orchestras, and talks from cultural icons and political giants. Blue Badge holders and those with access requirements can be dropped off on the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road off Belvedere Road (the road between the Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery). By the time Common People — a kitchen-sink novel wrapped in a five-minute banger — dropped, he was a celebrity, a disco Dr Who who seemed like he’d been around forever.

"I know it's a cliche, but it really did feel like I'd died and gone to heaven"

Any sized item can be left in our cloakroom, including fold-away bicycles. We don’t accept non-folding bicycles. Items must be collected on the same day they are stored. From time to time, the cloakroom may not be available. You won’t be able to bring any bags over 40 x 25 x 25cm into the auditorium of the Royal Festival Hall or the Queen Elizabeth Hall, or into the Hayward Gallery, so please leave large bags at home.