From a Leeds squat in 1984, to royalty cheques for adverts using
\na now-signature song, Chumbawamba have sparked many a pub argument
\nover the concept of “selling out.” The jovial “Tubthumping” single
\nwas pretty far removed from the explicit childbirth photograph
\nadorning the cover of 1994’s
\nAnarchy<\/i>, but it can’t be disputed that this force now known
\nworld-wide have truly matured with age, and gotten even better,
\ndespite cries of hypocrisy from some.<\/p>\n
When rich arseholes held hands (on television, of course), and
\ntried to show they cared about the plight of Ethiopians,
\nChumbawamba’s offering was the debut album
\nPictures of Starving Children Sell Records<\/i>. The fact that
\nthey signed to EMI in 1997 is actually quite humorous. Is the joke
\non them now, or you the Consumer?<\/p>\n
\nWYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get)<\/i> shows them looking a
\nbit closer at Estado Unidos with references to Rush Limbaugh, Jerry
\nSpringer, Pamela Lee, and American voices doing most of the talking
\non the patch-work of samples throughout the album. “Your life is a
\ndream. And then you wake up. You watch Friends together, and then
\nyou break up.”<\/p>\n
The second half of
\nWYS<\/i> has a distinct country-western flavour, with mournful
\npedal steel guitars mixing with prairie pianos and acoustic
\nsix-stringers, so this feels almost like two records. Football
\nterrace sing-alongs on the first ten songs, c-w and Las Vegas
\nshow-tunes on the second. You can almost picture the Chumbas doing
\n“Smart Bomb” with Wayne Newton at the Sands Casino, and a line of
\nsparkling dancers giving up the bare minimum of camel-toe as you
\ntake a break from the ambitious slot machines.<\/p>\n
The hip-hop cut-and-paste production style works surprisingly
\nwell with the culturally opposed honky-tonk saloon moments, and you
\nrealize that since Chumbawamba represent neither end of this
\nspectrum they can freely do what they want with the two.<\/p>\n
Chumbawamba won’t wait long enough for any attempts at
\npiss-taking. They went ahead and laughed at themselves already,
\nwith a random hooligan warbling the “Tubthumping” chorus on the
\nlast track, before a random voice closes the cd saying “That’s it.”
\nRecommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":26359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6840],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-37590","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chumbawamba","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37590"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}