Pulp on their full circle moment with the Mercury Prize and Brian Eno nearly throwing their prize money away

Pulp conversou com a NME sobre o momento de completar o ciclo ao celebrar War Child no Mercury Prize, e relembrou que Brian Eno quase jogou fora o dinheiro do prêmio quando ganharam em 1996.

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The indie veterans were in attendance at the ceremony in Newcastle on Thursday (October 22) to perform their track ‘Begging For Change’ to represent the shortlisted charity album ‘Help(2)‘ in aid of War Child.

The compilation LP was a follow-up to and was inspired by the landmark 1995 ‘Help’ record. The original and legendary Brian Eno-led compilation featured the likes of Oasis, Blur, Radiohead, Orbital, Portishead, Massive Attack, Suede, Sinéad O’Connor, and Manic Street Preachers.

O aclamado sucessor de 2026 contou com contribuições de Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines D. C., Wet Leg, Young Fathers, English Teacher, Damon Albarn, Cameron Winter, líder da Geese, Olivia Rodrigo e muitos mais.

While their comeback album ‘More‘ was nominated for last year’s prize, Pulp’s last Mercury win was in 1996 for their iconic ‘Different Class’, beating ‘Help’ but with the band still giving the £25,000 prize money to the cause.

Check out our full but brief and vibey interview with the band below, where they look back on ’96, working on ‘Help(2)’, Jarvis Cocker’s life as a paperboy, and what makes a truly great album.

NME: Olá Pulp. Você venceu o Mercury Prize pela última vez em 1996. Quais são as suas memórias dessa noite.

Jarvis Cocker: “Terrible, I have no memories at all. I was pissed out my…”.

Nick Banks: “Pouca memória, embora haja filmagens de mim pulverizando champanhe sobre todos.”.

Cocker: “Stereotypical drummer behaviour, Nick.”.

Banks: “Absolutamente, é parte do manual. Se você ganhar algo e tiver champanhe…”.

Candida Doyle: “I remember we decided to give the cheque to the first War Child LP. I had the cheque in an envelope with the award, and I gave it to Brian Eno. He just took it and thought he was just getting the award.

I spoke to him later and he said, ‘I nearly threw that envelope away’. He didn’t realise I’d given him £25,000. That was the first time I spoke to Brian Eno, which was very exciting.”.

Cocker: “You’ve been on the phone to him every week ever since.”.

Doyle: “Eu descobri que o pai dele era carteiro. Eu lembro muito bem disso.”.

It must be a nice full circle moment to be back here on behalf of War Child again.

Cocker: “Sim, é e eu gosto de círculos. Dá uma sensação boa. Estamos representando esse álbum. Há 20 outras pessoas nele, e é um bom álbum. É uma honra ser convidado a fazer isso.”.

What are your memories of the first ‘Help’ album from 1995 and the impact that had.

Cocker: “We were probably slightly jealous that we didn’t get asked to be on it. The first one was at Abbey Road and they did it all in one day. Paul McCartney was involved, I remember that.”.

Como foi estar entre este novo elenco de personagens para “Help 2”? Como era a magia na sala.

Doyle: “Can I just say it’s nice to be interviewed by the NME, because we all grew up reading it. It was a very important newspaper when we were young. It’s nice to do an interview with the NME.”.

Cocker: “My paper round, one of the few jobs I’ve had in my life, was an afternoon one delivering The Sheffield Star…”.

Banks: “I can’t imagine you doing an early morning one!”.

Cocker: “Exatamente. O primeiro dinheiro que recebi com isso, eu não sabia em que gastar, então comprei o NME. Nunca olhei para trás.”.

We’re here today to celebrate the art of the album. What do you think makes a great album.

Banks: “Bem, é difícil quando se trata de um álbum de compilação. Obviamente você vai encontrar muitos gêneros diferentes, ideias distintas se juntando. James Ford [produtor] conseguiu extrair o melhor dos artistas no álbum ‘Help’ e transformou isso em uma obra realmente interessante.”.

Cocker: “Which isn’t an easy thing to do. Albums, I think they’re coming back. Vinyl sales are up, CDs are kind of scheduled to disappear, and no one buys an album digitally.

I always thought that a vinyl album was where records worked best. You’ve got a side that’s only 20 minutes long, you can listen to it, go and make a cup of tea or whatever, and it’s a good thing.

Albums are coming back, that’s what I’m saying. They’re back!”.

The Mercury Prize 2026 was won by Raye with ‘This Music May Contain Hope‘, beating off competition from other shortlisted records by the likes of Paul McCartney, JADE, Nia Archives, Dave, Suede, Florence + The Machine, Olivia Dean, Knats, RAYE, Dove Ellis, and Kojey Radical.

Falando com a NME no início deste verão sobre o que vem a seguir para a Pulp depois de finalmente lançar seu primeiro álbum em 24 anos, Cocker disse: “Quero dizer, acho que há um futuro.”.

The thing is, I don’t like to make pronouncements on the future because the whole thing about the future is you just don’t know what’s going to happen. We did the album ‘More’, and making it was quite a pleasant experience; playing it has been good, so that’s an inspiration, but obviously it came after a 24 year gap.

Pulp’s new Garth Jennings-directed live film What Do You Do For An Encore? is out now on MUBI.

A voz definidora do mundo em música e cultura pop: revelando o que há de novo e o que vem por aí desde 1952.

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