Pulp - Common People

What this video is

Released 22 May 1995, 'Common People' arrived at the precise apex of the Britpop movement, when British working-class identity had been paradoxically commodified as aspirational chic. The video's East End London nightclub setting — Stepney's on Commercial Road, with its unmodified 1970s interior — functions as a deliberately unglamorous counter-image to mainstream pop production values, reinforcing the song's…

Why it matters

A canonical text of the Britpop genre and one of the most critically lauded British music videos of the 1990s. Pitchfork ranked the song #2 in its Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s. BBC Radio 6 Music listeners voted it their favourite Britpop song. The video's restrained, location-based realism —…

The director

Pedro Romhanyi is a British music video and television director who began his career at London Records in 1987. He became a key figure in the Britpop video landscape, directing promos for Paul Weller, Pet Shop Boys, Manic Street Preachers, Blur (Parklife),…