Twenty-five years ago, Cocker found global notoriety after his 1996 Brit award protest went viral: but what actually happened?
No one has entered the realm of international celebrity in quite the same way as Jarvis Cocker. The frontman of Pulp, Cocker made a string of era-defining indie-rock hits in the mid-1990s, but they aren’t what propelled him to global fame and made him a subject of discussion on Good Morning America. No, 25 years ago this week, Cocker did it differently, unleashing a slice of classic
British slapstick that’s now written into
music folklore: he invaded Michael Jackson’s performance at the Brit awards in 1996 and wiggled his bum for a bit.
Jackson was mid-song when Cocker bowled on to the stage, surveyed the scene for a moment and then bent over, arse-to-crowd, and made a wafting gesture around his backside. It was followed by a thrilling finale in which he exited the stage chased by Jacko’s dancers-cum-bodyguards, running off in a manner that can only be described as “geography teacher cutting through the assembly hall”.