Disco 2000 (song)

"Disco 2000" tells the story of a narrator falling for a childhood friend called Deborah, who is more popular than he is and wondering what it would be like to meet again when they are older. Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker based the lyrics on a girl he knew as a child and recalled, "the only bit that isn't true is the woodchip wallpaper."[1] He elaborated:

There was a girl called Deborah—she was born in the same hospital as me. Not within an hour—I think it was like three hours—but you can't fit three hours into the song without having to really rush the singing! ... But basically you know the whole thing was the same—I fancied her for ages and then she started to become a woman and her breasts began to sprout so then all the boys fancied her then. I didn't stand a 'cat-in-hell's chance'. But then I did use to sometimes hang around outside her house and stuff like that.[1]

Deborah was based on a real-life childhood friend of Cocker's, Deborah Bone, who moved away from Sheffield to Letchworth when she was 10. As the lyrics suggest, she did marry and have children.[2] Bone later reflected, "My claim to fame is growing up and sleeping with Jarvis Cocker, well someone had to do it, and it was all perfectly innocent! I have been told and like to believe that I am the Deborah in the Number 1 hit 'Disco 2000,' but we never did get to meet up by the fountain down the road."[2]

The fountain referred to as the meeting place was Goodwin Fountain, formerly located on Fargate, in Sheffield city centre.[3]

"Disco 2000" took inspiration from disco music. Martin Aston of Attitude described the song as "seventies à go-go: the stamp of Elton John's 'Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting', Marc Bolan's glittery guitar, ABBA's sweeping gait and a huge swipe from Laura Brannigan's Hi-NRG epic 'Gloria'."[4]

Drummer Nick Banks said of this influence, "We are very much influenced by disco, yeah. And of course in the late '80s we got into raves a bit, and music did take on more of a disco thump in places. Yeah, I'm always going down the disco, I love it."[5]

"Disco 2000" was released as the third single from Different Class in November 1995. The single reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the third top 10 single from Different Class, following "Common People" and the double A-side "Mis-Shapes"/"Sorted for E's & Wizz", both of which reached number two. The song also charted highly in Austria, Finland, Hungary, Iceland and Ireland, and it became Pulp's only top-fifty hit in Australia.[6]

Due to its millennial subject matter, Pulp removed the song's synchronisation licence, effectively banning the song from being used in TV and radio trailers throughout 1999 and 2000.[7]

The music video for "Disco 2000", directed by Pedro Romhanyi, adapted the story portrayed on the single's cover sleeve designed by Donald Milne. The video features a boy and a girl, played by models Patrick Skinny and Jo Skinny, respectively, meeting at a Saturday night disco and hooking up afterwards.[8] The video, which features the song's 7" mix, featured the members of Pulp represented on cardboard cutouts and on televisions throughout (for this reason, drummer Nick Banks called the song "the easiest video [they] ever did").[9] Romhanyi explains:

So, in the video we duplicate the photo shoot, changing the order in a couple of cases, and of course add a lot of new stuff - the track is over five minutes long. Donald Milne's work for the album and single is like an artificial version of the real world, where all its mundane features have been removed. So this is what we had to recreate - the Pulp world - without Pulp being in it. The idea for the cutouts came from an old copy of Nova owned by [bassist] Steve Mackey. Jarvis and Steve like things quite crafted and with a sense of structure. A lot of work and a lot of talk that goes on before a frame is shot.[10]

"Disco 2000" has seen critical acclaim and has been labeled as by many as one of Pulp's greatest songs. Barry Walters of Spin wrote, "This band has quoted disco riffs before, but the way it alludes here to Laura Branigan's 'Gloria' approaches genius."[11] David Fricke of Rolling Stone wrote, "As a singer and writer, Cocker specializes in hapless pining and geeky self-obsession, desperately holding on to a childhood crush in 'Disco 2000.'"[12] Adrien Begrand of PopMatters called the song a "fabulous single,"[13] while Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic praised the song's "glitzy, gaudy stomp."[14]

NME readers ranked the song as Pulp's third best in a fan vote,[15] while Stereogum's Ryan Leas ranked it as the band's second best, calling it "one of the ultimate Pulp songs" and concluding, "Tt's about youth and romanticism, but filtered through the perspective of a man already in his early 30s. That's what makes it a classic pop single by Pulp."[16] Orange County Weekly named the song as the number one Pulp song for beginners.[17]

• Jarvis Cocker: Vocals
• Russell Senior: Guitar
• Mark Webber: Guitar
• Candida Doyle: Keyboards
• Steve Mackey: Bass guitar
• Nick Banks: Drums

The song was covered by Nick Cave as a b-side for Pulp's single "Bad Cover Version" (2002), and again as a "pub rock" version on the deluxe edition of Different Class (2006).[31] Keane covered the song in 2008.

"Disco 2000" was featured in Episode 7 of the first series of Life on Mars, where DI Sam Tyler hears it come on the radio in 1973, and mentions to DCI Gene Hunt that he had seen Pulp play the Manchester Nynex in 1996, to Hunt's bemusement. The song also appeared in a party scene in the 2013 Seth Rogen film This Is the End, and again in "The End of the Tour" in 2015.

In 1996, it featured on the UEFA Euro 1996 official album, The Beautiful Game.

The budget airline EasyJet used the song in a 2015 UK commercial celebrating their twenty years of revenue service.[32]

• Disco 2000 at Discogs