(Credits: Far Out / Press)
Sat 13 December 2025 6:00, UK
Jarvis Cocker has played a major role in broadening the scope of music through his work with Pulp, so it’s quite fascinating to trace the origin of that sense of adventure, which leads us back to this one album from his childhood by easily the single most beloved group of all time.
Obsessing over The Beatles just never feels lazy because they really were that good, and like millions of others, Cocker agrees, since one of the Fab Four’s late-career records changed the way he viewed music forever.
During an interview with The Quietus, the Britpop singer talked about the albums that have had the most profound effect on him throughout his life. In addition to knockout bundles such as Sheepskin Vest by Bill Callahan, the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack by John Barry and The Dark Side of the Wall by The Stallion, he singled out one release by the Liverpool group that many would agree is their greatest.
Regarding his number one pick, Cocker explained that he didn’t grow up with a big record collection at home, although his mother had three albums by The Beatles: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Revolver and Abbey Road.
“Even though I was a kid, I could tell that Sgt Pepper’s and Revolver sounded like music that had happened a while ago, but Abbey Road sounded more modern,” he said, “It still does sound quite modern, because on [the] second side where all the songs run into each other, that’s quite a thing, not many people had done that since and not many have since.”
There is a lot of truth to Cocker’s take on the album, because it has certainly aged the best out of each LP in the Beatles’ catalogue. While many may argue that the White Album was audacious and experimental in ways that still feel exciting today, Abbey Road is the closest we’ve ever come to the perfect modern-rock record. What makes it great, of course, is that it has the same sense of thrill and exploration as the double LP from the year prior, except it is far more coherent.
“I was young at the time, 10, 11, 12, whatever, and the track that ends side one, ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, that was mind-blowing to me, the way it went on and on and on at the end, with this big synthy wooshy noise,” Cocker elaborated.
He also noted the transportive quality of the track, adding, “I’ve since found out it’s Ringo playing this machine that sounds like wind that you get in classical orchestras. It was a psychedelic experience in a living room in a normal part of Sheffield in the early ’70s, where, you know, psychedelic experiences weren’t that common. I’ll always remember it, that song in particular took me somewhere.”
Cocker also went on to use his fixation with ‘She’s So Heavy’ to emphasise the importance of Abbey Road as a vinyl package, explaining that having the whole tracklist play from start to finish takes away from the awe you’re left in at the intermission between side A and side B.
He concluded by marking an essential part of the listening experience, which he believes can’t be through a CD but has to be a vinyl listened to on repeat until it is worn out, in which case the impact of the ensuing silence when it suddenly stops is what makes for maxium impact, saying, “I started with this because it plays with what an album can be”.
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