Jarvis Cocker (born 19 September 1963) is an English musician. As the founder, frontman, lyricist and only consistent member of the band Pulp, he became a reluctant figurehead of the Britpop genre of the mid-1990s.
Cocker has also pursued a solo career, and for seven years he presented the BBC Radio 6 Music show Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service. The Sunday Service returned to Radio 6 in 2026, and the programme will run for a year.
Jarvis Cocker was born and grew up in Sheffield. He attended City School. His father, Mac Cocker, a DJ and actor, left the family and moved to Sydney, Australia, when Cocker was seven, and had no contact with his son or daughter, Saskia, until Jarvis was in his thirties. Following their father's departure, both children were brought up by their mother, Christine Connolly, who later became a Conservative councillor.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Mac Cocker was a radio DJ in Sydney with Double J (later renamed Triple J). Jarvis wrote a song ("A Little Soul" on This Is Hardcore) about being abandoned by his father and working briefly as a butler. In 1998, Cocker and his sister travelled to Australia to meet their father for the first time in nearly 30 years. Cocker later said he forgave his father (who died in 2016) for abandoning them, saying, "I don't feel any bitterness towards him at all. I feel sorry for him."
For much of the 1980s, Cocker lived on unemployment benefits in a derelict factory. In his twenties, Cocker squatted in London.
Cocker founded the band Pulp originally under the name Arabicus Pulp (named after a tradable commodity he learned about in an economics class) at the age of 15 while he was a pupil at City School. After numerous line-up changes, and shortening the name to "Pulp", the band eventually found fame in the 1990s with the success of the albums His 'n' Hers (1994) and Different Class (1995). Cocker was Pulp's frontman, and part of his trademark image was his glasses, which seemed to "stay magically on his face" no matter what antics he performed. This feat was achieved using "a huge rubber band round the back" of his glasses.
Pulp released two more albums (This Is Hardcore and We Love Life) to critical acclaim, though neither achieved the commercial success of Different Class. After releasing a greatest hits album, the band went on hiatus from 2003 to 2010, then returned to activity in 2011. Pulp returned in 2022, touring and eventually releasing a new studio album More. The latter was a critical and commercial success, becoming Pulp's first No. 1 album since This Is Hardcore.
Cocker was a frequent guest on TV shows in the 1990s, such as Later... With Jools Holland, and hosted an art series for Channel 4 – Journeys into the Outside.< In the series, he took a trip across the globe, meeting so-called "outsider artists", people who create wacky and wonderful works of art, trying to understand what compelled them to do so. In 1996 Cocker performed a parody of "Common People" ("Showbiz People") on the satirical comedy show Spitting Image.
While attending the 1996 Brit Awards, Cocker and Peter Mansell (a former Pulp member) invaded the stage in a spur-of-the-moment protest against Michael Jackson's performance. Jackson was performing his hit "Earth Song" while surrounded by children. Cocker was detained and interviewed by the police on suspicion of assault. He was accompanied by the comedian Bob Mortimer, who was attending the Brit Awards; Mortimer is a former solicitor and represented him in that capacity. Cocker was released without charge. Cocker later said, "My actions were a form of protest at the way Michael Jackson sees himself as some kind of Christ-like figure with the power of healing. I just ran on the stage. I didn't make any contact with anyone as far as I recall." He also clarified that his actions were nothing personal against Jackson and he was even a fan of his music.
Opinions in the press on Cocker's actions were mixed. Blur frontman Damon Albarn did not approve of Cocker's actions, saying he had found them "really disturbing". Melody Maker's edition of 2 March 1996 suggested Cocker should be knighted, and Noel Gallagher of Oasis said that "Jarvis Cocker is a star" and should be awarded an MBE. Though a number of people described Cocker's stunt as "mooning Jackson", Cocker denied it, saying that he merely waved his (clothed) bottom. Jackson said about the incident, "I'm sickened, saddened, shocked, upset, cheated and angry, but immensely proud that the cast remained professional and the show went on."
On 2 July 2009, soon after Jackson's death, Cocker appeared as a panellist on the BBC discussion program Question Time. He said that Jackson's death had been over-hyped by the media, saying that Jackson had not been making great records for the past 20 years. When asked what he objected to about Jackson at the time of the Brit Awards incident, he reiterated his earlier comments about Jackson and Christ. When asked, "Otherwise as a performer you thought he was a genius?" Cocker replied, "Yeah, he invented the moonwalk."
Cocker's debut solo album, Jarvis, was released in the UK on 13 November 2006. At the 2006 Reading festival, the video for "Running the World" was played on the main video screens of the main stage throughout the day, including just before the headline act, Muse, performed. This video contained a karaoke-like presentation of the song's lyrics to encourage the crowd to sing along.
In March 2008, Cocker made a short tour of Latin America (Mexico, Argentina and Chile), where he presented a new song called "Girls Like It Too".
Further Complications: 2008–2009
Cocker said that he had written "Girls Like It Too" and "The Usual", and hoped to have enough material to record the follow-up to his solo debut album. He said of the forthcoming studio album: "I've got vague ideas. I'd like to do another album before the end of the year."
Cocker debuted a new song, "Angela", on BBC2's "The Summer Exhibition: A Culture Show Special", on 13 June 2008. On 6 March 2009, Pitchfork revealed the cover art and album title for Further Complications, which was recorded by Steve Albini and released on 18 May 2009. Drowned in Sound stated that the album was "a huge leap forward" for Cocker.
In October 2011, Faber and Faber published a collection of his lyrics entitled Mother, Brother, Lover: Selected Lyrics.
In March 2017, he released Room 29, a collaboration with musician Chilly Gonzales. It was Cocker's first album in 8 years. Room 29 is a concept album about the Hollywood hotel the Chateau Marmont. Cocker stayed in room 29 at the hotel during a Pulp tour in 2012. The room contained a baby grand piano and inspired Cocker to wonder if the piano, possibly having been there for decades, could tell the stories of previous tenants. Each song on the album is a different story of a potential guest. The songs aren't all about the glamour of Hollywood, but the potential illusions and disappointments of the industry as well. It was performed as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2017.