Latest CD releases reviewed

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
VH1 Storytellers Sony/BMG ****

Springsteen? Storyteller? Frankly, folks, it's the perfect match. It's also a simple idea executed with efficiency and no small level of intimacy. VH1's Storytellers concept pitches an artist in front of a small audience. The artist performs a short set, the betweensong patter not patter at all but rather an explanation of the song they have just sang. Springsteen is ideal for such a series; his songs are stories, anyway, and he's articulate and genuine enough to want to analyse them even more than he has already. Here he performs and discusses eight songs, from early work such as Blinded by the Light right up to the title track of this year's Devils and Dust. It all sounds rather dry, but in actual fact it's warm, cheery, home-and-hearth stuff. Extras include an audience Q&A session. www.brucespringsteen.net Tony Clayton-Lea

Pulp
Ultimate Live Island/Universal ***

Always a bit squeezed out by the hand- bags between Blur and Oasis, Pulp were in many ways The Kinks (as opposed to The Beatles or Stones) of Britpop. It doesn't matter that they spent years on the indie margins before hitting big with the Ray Davies-influenced Common People - there was always something very appealing about Jarvis Cocker's Oxfam Shop Morrissey persona. This collects together two boisterous live gigs, one from Brixton Academy (the better one) in 1995 and the other from Finsbury Park in 1998. For a band were never that renowned for their live shows, Pulp give it plenty of welly here, even if you can't help feeling that it's all a bit Jarvis plus the others. No matter, he was a great frontman, a stick insect Alan Bennett type who patented the geek-chic look. Most everything is here, from His 'n' Hers to Different Class, and there's a neat bonus feature of a video jukebox. Brian Boyd