Recording
Common People
Pulp
- Released
- 1995
- Label
- Island
- On one list
- Britpop
- Updated
- 2026-08-31
Ranked No. 1 in Britpop
Jarvis Cocker's account of a rich student who wanted to slum it, and by several distances the best lyric of the era. Class rage as a disco record.
Analysis
7 sections, no single moment the energy jumps to, 29% of it spent climbing.
- Tempo
- 143.6 BPM
- holds throughout
- Key
- C major
- estimated from the pitch content
- Dynamic range
- 4.1 dB
- compressed hard — very little between the quiet and the loud
- Length
- 4:05
- measured from the YouTube master
The record, end to end
Click the track to jump · ← → move between sections
- 0:00Aintro0
- 0:35Bbuildbar 22
- 1:17Bbuildbar 46
- 1:45Csteadybar 63
- 2:39Dpeakbar 95
- 3:05Cpeakbar 111
- 3:26Coutrobar 124
0:00 · A · intro
opens the record below its own average energy · sung
- Lasts
- 0:35
- Energy
- 0
- Brightness
- 45
- Density
- 92
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
energy and brightness climbing without a break · sung · one of 2 stretches of the same music (B)
- Lasts
- 0:42
- Energy
- 31
- Brightness
- 24
- Density
- 100
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
energy and brightness climbing without a break · sung · one of 2 stretches of the same music (B)
- Lasts
- 0:29
- Energy
- 58
- Brightness
- 30
- Density
- 92
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling · sung · one of 3 stretches of the same music (C)
- Lasts
- 0:53
- Energy
- 82
- Brightness
- 70
- Density
- 27
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:26
- Energy
- 99
- Brightness
- 68
- Density
- 17
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · sung · one of 3 stretches of the same music (C)
- Lasts
- 0:21
- Energy
- 100
- Brightness
- 100
- Density
- 10
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
the closing fall · sung · one of 3 stretches of the same music (C)
- Lasts
- 0:39
- Energy
- 32
- Brightness
- 0
- Density
- 0
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
Brightness and density are scored against this record's own sections, not against music in general — they say how its parts differ from each other, and nothing about how it compares to anything else.
- drums
- the drum kit, separated from the mix
- bass
- the bass part, separated from the mix
- vocals
- the voice, separated from the mix
- other
- everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings
Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.
- intro
- opens the record below its own average energy
- build
- energy and brightness climbing without a break
- steady
- holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling
- peak
- sits at the top of this record's range
- outro
- the closing fall
Measured from the YouTube master on . Section labels describe how the energy of the recording moves, not its musical form — a machine can see loudness climb and jump, it cannot hear a chorus arrive. Anything we were not confident enough to state is left out rather than shown with a caveat.