Earlier this year, Common People was voted the top Britpop anthem by BBC 6 Music listeners, beating off all competition to land this predictable and ultimately meaningless title. It’s no surprise to see it top this chart, frankly - it’s more surprising that anyone bothered to vote for anything else. If you can’t see that this is clearly the finest Britpop moment that there ever was, you’re not listening right.

The rest of the Top 10 was rounded out by heavy hitters such as Blur, Suede and Oasis, with guest appearances from The Verve’s great stolen track Bittersweet Symphony, The Bluetones’ wonderful Slight Return and the wrong Ash song (Girl From Mars). Landing disappointingly outside the Top 10 was Something For The Weekend by The Divine Comedy, the song that you should have voted for if you had already taken it as read that Common People would win.

That Top 10 in full, by the way:

  1. Common People by Pulp
  2. Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve
  3. Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis
  4. Wonderwall by Oasis
  5. Parklife by Blur
  6. Animal Nitrate by Suede
  7. Girls & Boys by Blur
  8. Slight Return by The Bluetones
  9. Disco 2000 by Pulp
  10. Girl From Mars by Ash

I’m probably preaching to the converted here - you almost certainly know and love this song already (but if you know and hate this song, I would love to hear from you), and there’s a good chance you can mime along to every word of Jarvis Cocker’s witty lyric. Altogether now…

She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge

She studied sculpture at St Martin’s College

That’s where I Caught her eye.

She told me that her Dad was loaded…

And to think that Common People was kept off the number one spot in the Summer of 1995 by the legendary musical pairing of Robson Green and Jerome Flynn from ITV’s Soldier Soldier, and their version of Unchained Melody (double A-side with …White Cliffs of Dover, no less!).

Pulp - Common People” The cover art can be obtained from Polygram{.mw-redirect}.. Licensed under <a href=”//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pulp_-_Common_People.JPG” title=”Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Common People (song)“>Fair use</a> via Wikipedia.