The well-known wedding photo that graces the front cover of Pulp’s 1995 album ‘Different Class’ has a backstory. Billy Reeves, one of the band’s BBC local radio journalists, was the matchmaker behind the photo. Reeves, a mutual friend, brought the soon-to-be-wed couple, Dom and Sharon O’Connor, together. The idea of putting them on the cover came later. The album artwork was the brainchild of designer Peter Saville, but the band intervened, insisting on using the couple’s wedding photo.
Reeves lost his opportunity to witness the couple’s wedding due to an unfortunate case of shingles. According to Reeves, the photo was a spontaneous occurrence. The designers drove around the pair’s wedding with cardboard cutouts of the band members. However, Reeves acknowledged that O’Connor had contacted him to clear up two aspects of the tale. The wedding took place in East Molesey, Surrey, not Teddington, and the photo was more methodically thought out than previously realized. It was taken by a photographer O’Connor’s brother had attended university with.
Regarded as their best album, ‘Different Class’ sold over a million copies in the UK alone and went on to win the Mercury Music Prize in 1996. The album and its associated songs, such as ‘Common People,’ ‘Disco 2000,’ and ‘Sorted for E’s & Wizz,’ helped cement Pulp’s place in the Britpop Hall of Fame. ‘Different Class’ has been described by NME as the sixth greatest album of all time. Pulp has recently announced a North American tour, their first live shows in over ten years, and although drummer Nick Banks teased the possibility of new music, the chances for another Pulp album are not certain.
The story behind the iconic album cover is an interesting antidote to the album’s upbeat and catchy tracks. The seemingly spur-of-the-moment photo of a happy wedding couple became understood as a result of Reeves’ intervention. The sumptuous album art and music helped to make Pulp the embodiment of the musical zeitgeist of the mid-90s. The album has been credited as a defining moment of Britpop and helped to put Pulp at the top of the charts and win critical acclaim
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