Desperate Journalist Issue Lockdown Recorded Cover Of Pulp Track The Fear

Post-punk quartet Desperate Journalist have given a formal digital release to their cover of classic 1998 Pulp track The Fear.

Recorded during lockdown in late March and originally released to the band’s YouTube account in April, the cut has been made available to stream and download here

Desperate Journalist’s take on the song forms part of the Covid Version Sessions, where indie label Fierce Panda invited their artists to cover a track that provided a snapshot of the country in lockdown.

The cover art for The Fear features lead singer Jo Bevan recreating the iconic sleeve to Pulp’s 1998 LP This Is Hardcore, created by legendary Factory Records graphics designer Peter Saville.



“We are all fans of Pulp in the band, but my personal favourite album of theirs is This Is Hardcore” Jo explains. “It’s where Jarvis’s talent for the great observational lyric meets a cracking in his writerly facade, and the parallels between all the unusually personal angst in the songs and the death-of-the-Britpop-party cultural landscape of the UK at the time add up to a sublimely melancholic and relatable whole. It's my go-to hangover record so (as bassist Simon says) I know it like the back of my hand. Anyway our friend Kevin kept suggesting we do a cover of The Fear every now and again and it finally made sense in April what with the entire world slowly supernovaing into oblivion around us, all shut in our houses, so we had a go, because there was nothing else to do.”

Desperate Journalist are currently working (Covid restrictions permitting) on the follow up to their third album In Search of the Miraculous, released to huge acclaim last February.

The Fear is available now through Fierce Panda