Old Favorite and Style Icon: Jarvis Cocker
Jarvis Cocker. Swoon. I'm not really sure when my love for Pulp shifted into a love for frontman Jarvis Cocker, but he's been at the top of my celebrity crush list for years. What makes him so awesome? Well, his music, his lyrics, his stage presence, the fact that he snuck on stage with Michael Jackson a long time ago and fanned his bum at the audience with his coattails... the list goes on. Since the early days of Pulp, he's been singing songs that to me seem realer than most pop songs- songs about class struggle, songs about self-doubt, songs about love and loss of love and imitation of love. They're real in that they don't always or even often have happy endings, and he sings them with an air that makes them sound deceptively pleasant.
Post-Pulp, Cocker has released 2 solo albums, both of which took a bit for me to really sink into, but they contain some real gems and are worth a listen. Currently I've been rocking the unapologetic, self-deprecating ballad "I Never Said I Was Deep," and the comical plea for love known as "Leftovers."
He's also officially a style icon for me because I love how stylized he always is, first in Pulp wearing femme-y suits, then adding his oversized thick-framed glasses, and eventually transitioning to his current "disheveled professor" look.
