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We Love Life

album by Pulp

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ1934974 ↗
Source-derived summary

We Love Life is the seventh studio album by English rock band Pulp, released on 22 October 2001 by Island Records. It is the band's final studio album to feature bass guitarist Steve Mackey, who died in 2023.

Written and recorded after the tumultuous sessions for This Is Hardcore, We Love Life saw the band move toward a more relaxed and natural sound, shepherded by producer and singer-songwriter Scott Walker. Walker had replaced original producer Chris Thomas, whom the band had worked with on the band's two previous albums. It was the band's last album for over two decades until More (2025).

The album reached number six on the UK Albums Chart, with a total chart stay of three weeks.

Background

We Love Life was intended to be a departure from the disillusionment of the band's previous album, This Is Hardcore, in that it featured a more organic sound and an emphasis on nature, which Cocker found interest in "because it is dangerous in some ways". Cocker explained, "I never took any notice of nature when I was a kid. I thought we'd all be living on space stations or floating metropolises by now. But after This Is Hardcore, which was a very alienated record, it was time to go back to simpler things, like this, the natural world." At the same time, Cocker stated, "This isn't Pulp's pastoral album.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “We Love Life” as album by Pulp. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2001, 2023, 2025—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2001-10-22. The account is most persuasive where Love, Life and album can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as album by Pulp. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1934974. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2001, 2023 and 2025.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “We Love Life”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow We Love Life primary sources, We Love Life archive and Love research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “We Love Life”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “We Love Life” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.