1. Pulp | Common People

"Common People" by Pulp from the album Different Class (1995)

"And then dance, and drink and screw - because there's nothing else to do," coos Pulp's stick-figure-mod frontman Jarvis Cocker in Britpop's apex. A rallying cry for the disenfranchised, a call to class warfare, and an innocent tale of a wealthy art-school bird seeking the glamour of slumming it, this sleek, deceptively synth-pop number defined the divide between the haves and have-nots and stood tall as the zenith on Britpop's only perfect record, Different Class. While Blur and Oasis slugged it out in the UK lad mags and pop charts in the summer of '95, Pulp were in the back room shagging both their fan bases, taking stock of 15 years as art-rock post-disco outsiders from Sheffield and casting Cocker as the us-versus-them spokesman for a generation growing bored with simply smoking fags and playing pool. In all, a masterpiece.

_Michael Marotta