Pulp: Jarvis Cocker, Mark Webber, Russell Senior, Candida Doyle, Steve Mackey, Nick Banks.

Additional personnel: Anne Dudley (arranger).

Producers include: Ed Buller, Phil Vinall, Chris Thomas, Scott Walker,

Peter Walsh.

Recorded between 1992 & 2002. Includes liner notes by Harland Miller.

Although Pulp was formed in the 1980s, the Sheffield, England band didn't hit its real stride until the mid-'90s, when it became one of the preeminent acts of the Britpop boom. Although HITS is an unlikely title in a Stateside light, since Pulp never broke through commercially in America, the collection does compile the ensemble's finest singles from the '90s to the early 2000s, when the group disbanded.

Fronted by the cheeky, charismatic Jarvis Cocker, Pulp made its name with techno-tinged pop (the middle-class anthem "Common People" and the surging, Laura Branigan-pilfering "Disco 2000"), but also turned its sights on fierce glam-rock ("Party Hard") and elegant chamber-pop ("The Trees"). Expertly channeling quirky yet sophisticated rock crooners Bryan Ferry and Scott Walker (who produced Pulp's last album), Cocker imbued the sextet's guitar- and keyboard-driven songs with a droll, literate aesthetic that remains its legacy. Though Pulp might have been better served by a lengthier compilation (classics such as 'Mis-Shapes" and "Mile End" are missed here), HITS, which includes the previously unreleased "Last Day of the Miners' Strike," is a concise sampler that works as a perfect introduction to this unmistakably British band.