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Good Pop, Bad Pop

The Sunday Times bestselling hit music memoir

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Good Pop, Bad Pop

By: Jarvis Cocker
Narrated by: Jarvis Cocker
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Brought to you by Penguin.

What if the things we keep hidden say more about us than those we put on display?

We all have a random collection of the things that made us - photos, tickets, clothes, souvenirs, stuffed in a box, packed in a suitcase, crammed into a drawer. When Jarvis Cocker starts clearing out his loft, he finds a jumble of objects that catalogue his story and ask him some awkward questions:

Who do you think you are?

Are clothes important?

Why are there so many pairs of broken glasses up here?

From a Gold Star polycotton shirt to a pack of Wrigley's Extra, from his teenage attempts to write songs to the Sexy Laughs Fantastic Dirty Joke Book, this is the hard evidence of Jarvis's unique life, Pulp, 20th century pop culture, the good times and the mistakes he'd rather forget. And this accumulated debris of a lifetime reveals his creative process - writing and musicianship, performance and ambition, style and stagecraft.

This is not a life story. It's a loft story.

Recorded on location with the author and featuring archival material, Good Pop, Bad Pop, is an intimate and immersive listening experience with an icon of British culture.

© Jarvis Cocker 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

 Music Social Sciences Entertainment
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Critic Reviews

Brilliant... accessible, pithy, lurid, entertaining, even laugh-out-loud funny... we can only hope that Cocker has enough tat for a second volume.
Poignant in a subtle, understated way; Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time for the age of the Ford Cortina... This book is about a very normal childhood and the everyday detritus it left behind. Common people indeed.
Incredibly entertaining...a trip through the things that have made him who he is.
Rummage through its pages - through the plastic and nylon, the tin and vinyl - and it's real gold, its shirts second-hand, of course, but its storytelling first class.
Brilliant... Good Pop, Bad Pop is more than anyone dared hope for
Absolutely fabulous: at once very witty, self-depreciating and moving.
Thoughtful and very funny... terrific
Engaging and evocative. He [Cocker] paints a vividly drab picture of the north of England under Thatcherism. And his book is beautiful to look at, too, set out like pop art.
Like a pop culture Proust... a testament to just how rich this junk is that Cocker can weave such a compelling take.
Insightful and delightful.
All stars
Most relevant
Jarvis has done a creative weave of a story on how he became a figurehead for British Indie Scene. I love the way he knows who he is and shows the listener.

I tried to stay objective

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Love it. Upbeat but soothing. Funny, honest, and genuine account of days that has past and what inspired and led him to be the musician he is today. I'd love to hear more of his stories.

Unexpected gem, he's a wonderful narrator

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"Good Pop, Bad Pop" could just as easily have been called 'A History of Jarvis in 100 Objects', and it would’ve been spot on. Cocker’s first memoir meanders through his first quarter-century, tracing how his worldview took shape in Sheffield’s backstreets and front rooms, all through the medium of whatever he’s dragged out of his loft.

It starts in the present, with him wading into the strata of his London storage space. The place is rammed, every box and bag crammed with relics – knackered soap remnants, brittle carrier bags, the odd Velvet Underground LP sleeve. His self-appointed task is to decide what stays and what gets “cobbed” – chucked out, basically – but the real pleasure is in watching him riff on each item until it morphs into a small, perfectly formed essay on life, pop culture or the indignities of growing up.

The beauty here is in the mundane. You get the house run by women, his absolute hatred of change, the years of signing on while writing songs and nursing obsessions over everyday objects. There’s the 1985 pratfall out of a window in a bid to impress a girl, which left him hospitalised for six weeks and, more importantly, convinced him he’d been surrounded by inspiration all along. From that point, the music changed – so did he.

By his early twenties, Pulp’s mission statement was locked in. “Pop was empowerment,” he writes. “Pop was made to satisfy primal desires.” And in his hands, even a hoard of obsolete toiletries can feel like part of that manifesto.

Cocker’s gift with words is exactly what you’d hope from a man who’s smuggled poetry into pop songs for decades – lyrical, metaphorical, often very funny. The book jumps around in time and tone, one minute unpacking a childhood memory, the next musing on the existential significance of a supermarket bag. It’s digressive in the best way, like a long pub conversation with someone whose tangents are never dull.

"Good Pop, Bad Pop" is essentially a British history museum between two covers, filtered through one of the country’s most singular pop voices. It’s warm, witty and self-deprecating, but never lapses into self-mythology. Four stars then – not because it’s flawless, but because it’s exactly what you’d want from Jarvis: clever, odd, a bit scruffy round the edges, and completely his own thing.

Classic Cocker!

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Loved the premise of sorting through piles of hoarded tat to spark memories of Jarvis’s life and the “becoming Jarvis Cocker the pop legend” story. It’s also a story of working class Sheffield and youth in the 80s and 90s. Very enjoyable.

Great coming of age story

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The story is like a 6 hour pulp song that I just couldn’t stop listening to. Draws you in and hearing names and places and stories draws you back to so many songs that I loved then and still do now. Can not wait for the next part. Ended perfectly and was very inspiring.

Absolutely loved it

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