MILAN, Italy -- It's pretty obvious that Jarvis Cocker doesn't belong to the common people.

Not anymore.

Take for example some highlights in his meteoric rise to stardom: He jumps on stage when Michael Jackson is performing and causes a major scene. He's been recruited to act in a film. He even has a replica of himself in a wax museum.

Oh, yes. He also sings in an English band called Pulp.

When Cocker arrived at Milan's local offices of Mercury/Polygram recently to talk about Pulp's upcoming album, This Is Hardcore (April 7) -- an eclectic collection of orchestrated pop with a lounge-club feel -- he seemed unfazed at having become such a big deal.

Since the huge success in England of Pulp's hit single "Common People" from the band's 1995 album, Different Class, Cocker has been in the public eye at almost every step of the way. One of the stranger manifestations of this sudden success is a wax figure of the rocker displayed in London's Rock Circus that stands alongside some of rock's biggest stars. But Cocker doesn't take any of this too seriously.

"I agreed to have [the wax figure] done," he said, speaking slowly and softly, "just because I thought it would be funny. I have been there and it's quite a kitschy place. I thought that was my public figure. You just go there. You pay money and you see me. I just told them not to put me alongside Michael Jackson," he joked, referring to the much-talked about 1996 incident when Cocker busted onto the stage at The Brit Awards and displayed his rear end to the crowd during Jacko's big performance.

And while he's still keenly attuned to his more outrageous and zany side, the 34-year-old Cocker has taken a more personal approach to his art these days. Even his lyrics on new songs such as "This is Hardcore" (RealAudio excerpt) seem to take a more introspective feel, as Cocker turns his microscope inward rather than, once again, play the part of the voyeur in his storylines.

This Is Hardcore sends the band's music into a darker territory than the

ironic pop of the previous album, Different Class.

"Because the last album did pretty well, I didn't want to repeat something. Different Class was based on observations of different situations. So now I wanted to change my perspective, and instead of observing situations, I observed inside. I think it's more an internal record. I hope it's not self-indulgent. It's an interior landscape, rather than an exterior landscape, but it's still a landscape," he explained.

Wearing a Liam Gallagher-like Oasis moptop haircut -- which framed a big pair of shadowed glasses -- and a brown velvet jacket with a psychedelic design, Cocker is obviously in touch with his rock persona and his general retro aura. Even his car-shaped, yellow plastic watch could have been timed to the '70s. Or he could have been a character starring in the Oscar-nominated movie "Boogie Nights," for that matter.

Even the title of Pulp's new album, This Is Hardcore, seems oddly related to the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed movie, which is set in the '70s and deals with the porn film biz. But the music is not so much sexually as it is conceptually hardcore. "The title has to do with all the atmosphere of the record," he said. "It's hardcore in terms of explicit, and as trying to get the center and the core of something. And it's hardcore like rave music: The hard-core people are the ones who still stand while everybody else is lying on the floor. It's a combination of all these things and probably a few more," Cocker explained.

And while the new work includes some orchestral arrangements, it manages to create a lounge-music-style atmosphere for Cocker's latest musings. "The song 'This Is Hardcore' has a more easy-listening feel, because it was written around an orchestra sample. But I don't think that the album sounds too orchestrated. We tried to avoid that," he said.

"Anyway, on easy-listening records there are quite nice arrangements. Sometimes the texture of things is very interesting," Cocker added as he swigged a drink like he was sitting in a bar.

The near future will see Cocker and Pulp contributing the Stooges-like, early era punk song "We Are The Boys" to the much-anticipated "Velvet Goldmine" soundtrack -- produced by R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe -- for the movie directed by Todd Haynes about the '70s English glam-rock scene; the film is slated for a September release.

Even here Cocker found himself fending off the glare of the spotlight.

"Originally I was approached to be in the film, but I can't act," he said.