"Disco 2000" is a hit single by British band Pulp, released in 1995. The song tells the story of a narrator falling for a childhood friend called Deborah, who is more popular than he is and wondering what it would be like to meet again when they are older. Deborah was based on a real-life childhood friend of Cocker's, Deborah Bone, who moved away from Sheffield to Letchworth when she was 10. As the lyrics suggest, she did marry and have children. Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker said "the only bit that isn't true is the woodchip wallpaper." It is believed that the fountain referred to as the meeting place was Goodwin Fountain, formerly located on Fargate, in Sheffield city centre. "Disco 2000" took inspiration from disco music; drummer Nick Banks said of this influence, "We are very much influenced by disco, yeah. And of course in the late '80s we got into raves a bit, and music did take on more of a disco thump in places. Yeah, I'm always going down the disco, I love it." The song's riff is said to be influenced by Umberto Tozzi's 1979 hit "Gloria". "Disco 2000" reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the third top 10 single from the albumDifferent Class, following "Common People" and the double A-side "Mis-Shapes"/"Sorted for E's & Wizz", both of which reached number two. The song also charted highly in Austria, Finland, Hungary, Iceland and Ireland, and it became Pulp's only top-fifty hit in Australia. Due to its millennial subject matter, Pulp removed the song's synchronisation licence, effectively banning the song from being used in TV and radio trailers throughout 1999 and 2000.
Music video
The music video for "Disco 2000", directed by Pedro Romhanyi, portrays the daily events for a girl and a boy as they prepare for the weekend. As they make their way across town the life-sized photographic cut outs from the band members used on the cover for Different Class appear in shops, in the bus, on an escalator and even in the disco where the boy and girl meet. The whole time this is going on, both the boy's and girl's thoughts are represented below the frame, set in Windsor Condensed Extra Bold. The video ends with two life-sized photographic cut outs of the boy and girl together in bed and them complaining about Jarvis being on television again. The boy and girl are played by models Patrick Skinny and Jo Skinny. The music video features the 7" mix, distinctive for its more orchestral instrumentation.
The song was covered by Nick Cave as a b-side for Pulp's single "Bad Cover Version", and again as a "pub rock" version on the deluxe edition of Different Class. Keane covered the song in 2008.
"Disco 2000" was featured in Episode 7 of the first series of Life on Mars, where DI Sam Tyler hears it come on the radio in 1973, and mentions to DCI Gene Hunt that he had seen Pulp play the Manchester Nynex in 1996, to Hunt's bemusement. The song also appeared in a party scene in the 2013 Seth Rogen film This Is the End, and again in "The End of the Tour" in 2015. In 1996, it featured on the UEFA Euro 1996 official album, The Beautiful Game. The budget airlineEasyJet used the song in a 2015 UK commercial celebrating their twenty years of revenue service.
