Jarvis Cocker was asked by the BBC to create a map of home city Sheffield – warts and all – for the radio.

Right up Jarvis's street. And he pulls no punches about life on the streets of his home city.

"As an actual map," claims the 44-year-old, "it's useless! You'd get lost immediately.

"Basically, it's just me wittering on, with some music and archive stuff. But I hope my perspective gives a flavour of the place."

Jarvis Cocker's Musical Map of Sheffield is no rose-tinted journey, but instead you get plenty of the acute observations that distinguish his lyrics.

"Looking toward the city centre," he muses, "a muddle of concrete and brick – odd flats built in the '50s and '60s, and offices.

"From the station, you'll see the Parkhill monstrosity – a grey cliff of windows. Now deserted. Derelict.

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"No sheen or financial centre here."

The inspiration for the musical maps show came from BBC radio producer Kate Bland listening to Malcolm McLaren's conceptual album Paris one night.

She imagined, "a musical map," narrated by someone closely identified with the terrain; "to understand a city's variations through its music, with a soundtrack to someone's memories," she explains.

Now, having produced Malcolm McLaren's Musical Map of London and the Sony Gold-winning Malcolm McLaren's Life and Times in LA: a Radio Movie, Bland has given free rein to another brainy pop-culture commentator, Sheffield songwriter/raconteur Jarvis Cocker.

After Cocker formed Pulp at City Comprehensive School in 1978, there was no sheen or financial reward here either, with tiny audiences and music sales.

Sick of the dole, Cocker moved to London in 1988, aged 25, to study art.

"It was only when I left that I saw Sheffield more for what it was," he said.

"It's an introverted place compared to other northern cities like Manchester or Liverpool.

"You have to live there a while to unlock it.

"But I feel comfortable there. The place you had your first kiss, your first drink, your first concert, always has a special place inside of you."

But after teenage discovery, came adult reality. Cocker celebrates how Sheffield came to life after punk with fearlessly modern synth-pop bands (some hugely popular, like the Human League and ABC), which mirrored how the city was trying to re-generate after the collapse of the coal and steel industries in the 1970s and '80s.

But for guitar-pop bands like Pulp it wasn't an easy ride.

"There were only about two venues where we could play. And though we supported the miners during the strike you knew they'd beat you up for just wearing a plastic mac.

"Being in a band was really low down the social ladder, just above a tramp. But that's totally changed now – you can't move for bars now.

"Of course you can get nostalgic when some of a city's unique architectural features get pulled down and house prices move up, but places have to change.

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