Common People: The Britpop Anthem That Skewers Slumming It

By Dan Cohen · Published 2026-06-27

Common People, from Pulp’s 1995 album Different Class, is one of the sharpest pieces of social commentary ever to become a singalong. Jarvis Cocker has said it sprang from a real encounter: a wealthy art-school classmate who told him she wanted to move somewhere rough and “live like common people” — to experience poverty as a kind of adventure she could leave whenever she liked.

The rage under the dance beat

The song turns that single remark into a blistering critique of class tourism — the way privilege can treat working-class life as a costume, a thrill, a thing to slum in and then walk away from. Cocker’s contempt is precise and personal, and it builds and builds as the music accelerates, until the polite satire boils over into something genuinely furious.

Anger you can dance to

What makes it endure is that the fury is wrapped in an unstoppable pop-rock engine. It’s a song that lets a whole room shout along to a takedown of the very idea of slumming — political writing that never once feels like homework. That combination made it a defining anthem of its era.

What it measures like

On our scale it’s a driving build — starting controlled and mounting to a fast, intense, near-frantic climax as the contempt boils over. Full profile on its song page.

Common People appears on Pulp’s 1995 album Different Class. Jarvis Cocker’s account of the song’s real-life inspiration reflects his widely reported statements. No lyrics are reproduced.