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Underground > Radio & Music >

What comes into your mind when I say the word...

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Regrettable Juvenilia

14:32 / 15.01.02

Chumbawumba?

14:34 / 15.01.02

"Mummy, make it stop! Make it stop!"

Matthew Fluxington

14:37 / 15.01.02

"Novelty single by folks claiming to be anarchists"

14:37 / 15.01.02

"ak!"

"mute the TV!"

(you're going to tell everyone how you've discovered that they're ACTUALLY really good now, aren't you? thus generating a debate on taste/politcs/intelligence/snobbery in music that'll go on for pages..)

pointless and uncalled for

14:45 / 15.01.02

Neither good not bad, but somewhere inbetween.

No star here laces

14:49 / 15.01.02

John Prescott.

Hot and wet. MMmmmmmMMmmmm.

14:49 / 15.01.02

an underground act that exploded like an over-ripe zit onto the british pop scene..

then was wiped off like so much effluence.

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:14 / 15.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Rizla Year Zero:
(you're going to tell everyone how you've discovered that they're ACTUALLY really good now, aren't you? thus generating a debate on taste/politcs/intelligence/snobbery in music that'll go on for pages..)

Nothing so crass.

I'm actually trying to find out if it's cool to like them.

Joke.

15:16 / 15.01.02

Well if it's cool to like them, I officially renounce being cool!

15:34 / 15.01.02

Danbert NobAcorn. Bad lyrics (who says, "I'll have a cider drink, please"?) Trying too hard: the musical equivalent of ageing comic writers making blithe throwaway "rapeing Amish girls" comments...

15:34 / 15.01.02

I'll never apologize for liking "Tubthumping," particularly an acoustic version they did for a local radio station when they were in town. It sounded all nifty and folksy.

"I get knocked down, but i get up again, you're never gonna keep me down, I get knocked dooooowwn.."

<sung in kind of a blue-grassy way>

Plus my boyfriend at the time had a friend who was really into making videos, and he made a song-lenth montage of Superman getting punched out to "Tubthumping". So I like it 'cuz of that, too.

Nope, don't care, like it. Don't care about the band, however.

Matthew Fluxington

15:45 / 15.01.02

Whenever I hear that Tubthumping tune, I just think of sports, because it's always played at sporting events... fuck, it was on one of those Jock Jams compilations...

16:45 / 15.01.02

A baby's head sticking out of its mother during its birth....

(edited because I'm not sure what sex the baby was....)

[ 15-01-2002: Message edited by: Not Me Again ]

17:54 / 15.01.02

....an example of how the 'politics' was stripped put of the 'pop' scene. Doesn't anyone remember the press release from the Levellers with regards to this issue.
Value judgements can be laid on the likes of Chumbawumba, but at the end of teh day they had the balls to try a continue a proud British tradition of political comment in music. To add to this it is rather interesting to note that none of the British music press happened to mentioned that Sensor, another politically active band have reformed and are touring. This may sound like conspiracy, but the truth is that the public have become disenfranchised by the political system in this country, thus political messages are seen as being ... well unecessary or interfering with ones wish to shop at Gap. Like the 11.4 year solar cycle, the poop charts are filled with meaningless feel music, in fact some of the old S.A.W acts still ride high in dem dere charts (Kyley at the Brits).
Look at teh pretty people on stage and forget the money making machine that curns them out, bring back the stage farce of KLF, EMF, Carter USM and Chumbawumba. Go on A1 do something radical, its a great window of opprtunity not to be wasted.

'Whoah the Guns of Brixton'

[ 15-01-2002: Message edited by: William Wright ]

05:41 / 16.01.02

When their hit single was HUGE Maximum Rock'n'Roll reprinted an interview with them (the had been around for a bit over a decade when the song came out and used to be a Crass-esque [bleh!] punk band) from the mid-eighties, where the went on and on about the evils of EMI, how the label funds all sorts of evil stuff like weapons and the like and how John Lennon was a hypocrite for being on such a label. Subsequently, EMI is the label that put out Tubthumping.

06:09 / 16.01.02

didn't chumbawumba chuck paint over the clash?

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

06:13 / 16.01.02

Let's not lose sight of the real issues.

The Levellers are a bunch of shitters.

06:21 / 16.01.02

Travellers-with-hairdryers. And called Jeremy. All of them, is my understanding.

No star here laces

06:25 / 16.01.02

If you ask me, willy, the reason there's not political pop in the charts is because none of the aforementioned soapdodging indie bands can write a tune to save their fuckin lives, and insist on being so goddam earnest the whole time.

06:31 / 16.01.02

The biggest cheer of the day at T in the Park when they made us wait ages for them to come on because their flight had been delayed (or were watching the English game).. they then turn up on the stage to say sorry but we can't perform and the biggest cheer of the day went out - followed by them being pelted by thousands of platic cups full of mud.. ah precious memories

No star here laces

07:20 / 16.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Flux = Rad:
fuck, it was on one of those Jock Jams compilations...

Whoah. There's a compilation called Jock Jams? I have to own it.

07:50 / 16.01.02

As someone who used to passionately fucking love this band, I feel the need to clear up certain misconceptions that have come up so far:

There is no Chumbawamba song containing the line "I'll have a cider drink, please". The closest they come is obviously Tumbthumping, with the line "He drinks a cider drink".

By the time they released Tubthumper on EMI, the company was no longer involved in arms dealing.

Chumbawamba are clearly not cool to like, although 'Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records' (which you can get on the 'First Two' CD with 'Never Mind the Ballots') is an excellent punk record (and not 'Crass-esque' at all, lots of folky bits and even the aggro parts are pretty melodic). I also remember 'Showbusiness!', a live CD, as being really good, but don't really trust my memory on that one...

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:01 / 16.01.02

See, the real reason I asked was because, when Chumbawumba first came to my attention, I hated them because they were (slightly) scary anarchist types... then later, when that wouldn't have been a problem (might have even been a good thing), I hated them because they seemed more guilty than most of doing that mid-Nineties Britpop cash-in single thing. And then later I just hated them because they looked like a right bunch of wankers. And because their idea of a political gesture was tipping a bucket of water over John Prescott at an awards ceremony.

Now, though... I increasingly don't have a problem with bands being earnest, and I'm actually increasingly keen on bands who are politically-minded (if its done well, and I'm aware this is as much an aesthetic thing as an actually political one). But I still can't shake the suspiscion that Chumbawumba are... well, a bit thick really. It's not them being 'Crass-esque' that worries me - just them being crass. Plus, they have the worst, least sexy band name EVER. So I was hoping somebody could mount either a serious defence, or convincingly dismiss them. Any more for any more?

08:18 / 16.01.02

andthey're all married...well apart from alice nutter

i did rather like danbert's leather mini-kilt though.

No star here laces

08:28 / 16.01.02

I first heard a chumbawumba tune around '92 or so. I was a fan of this crapulous crustie/rave crossover group called 'Back to the Planet' who, at the time, only sold tapes through mail order, and because of this some record shop guy decided I ought to like chumbawumba as well.

I can't remember what chumbawumba tune it was, only that it was as unutterably tedious as every other chumbawumba tune I've ever heard.

Sludgy, dirgelike boring 'punk'. Did we ever need any more of this type of music? Fuck that. Any philosophy that I'd want to subscribe to at least ought to produce something fun to dance to.

No star here laces

08:29 / 16.01.02

To sum up:

If you want to talk about politics, be a politician.

If you want to write good tunes, be a musician.

If you want to write good tunes with a political slant, nice one. But if you can't do both, stick to doing just one, eh?

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:34 / 16.01.02

Your first two statements are bollocks, Lyra, which you will no doubt realise if you think about them outside the context of the point you're trying to make right now. But your last one is entirely true.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

08:56 / 16.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Dread Pirate Crunchy:
[QB]There is no Chumbawamba song containing the line "I'll have a cider drink, please". The closest they come is obviously Tumbthumping, with the line "He drinks a cider drink".
QB]

I thbink the point being made is that "a cider drink" is not a phrase existent in English. A cider drink is a cider, or just "cider". Thus, "a pint of cider, please", as opposed to "a cider drink, please".

Which must confuse the Hell out of the Americanos, as as far as I can tell Cider is used to describe a sparkling non-alcoholic beverage, as opposed to a filthy concoction of rotten apples, tin, egg and piss drunk by 14-year-olds.

08:56 / 16.01.02

Besides the aesthetic interest in political song writing, I wouold like to mention a few artists that were charged in this manner. Where are their contemporaries? Does the current state of 'pop' music allow for such discourses anymore? Do we care?
Bob Marley
The Clash
The Specials
Asian Dub Foundation
Stiff Little Fingers
a few to start with, anyone care to add anymore?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:56 / 16.01.02

First off, as a Crass fan, I'd like to know when being "Crass-esque" became a bad thing?
That point aside, I do kind of like the idea of taking the majors' money and then using it to preach anarchism (after all, isn't that wat Mr Morrison was doing with "The Invisibles"?)
I also used to like Chumbawamba- "Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records" is a favourite album of mine.
I just find it kind of funny that the band who really laid into New Model Army for signing to EMI (remember the "Only Stupid Bastards Help EMI" t-shirts they all used to sport?) have signed to, not just any old major, but the very one they were slagging off. (And, even speaking as an NMA fan, I feel I should quoute Conflict here- "NMA build bombs for EMI and support apartheid's foundations".)
And even given that, I liked the idea they could do some cool shit with a major label signing (the way Atari Teenage Riot did... released a couple of harmless singles, recorded an "offensive" album, got kicked off the label and used the advance to start Digital Hardcore Recordings... the only label now that has anywhere near the integrity of Crass' own label)... then they chuck some water over John Prescott and it's goodnight Vienna...
(Although there's a couple of tracks on "Anarchy" that I still think are ace.)
I dunno... it waits to be seen. I like the idea of an anarchist band getting paid tons of money to sing catchy pop tunes about anarchism, but so far their grand design hasn't really floated my boat...
And I still think they owe New Model Army (who haven't been on EMI for years now) an apology.
oh, and btw Lovelaces... Back to the Planet were fucking ace. As were Blaggers ITA (RIP Matty Blag) and Radical Dance Faction. Hey, I may not have dreads anymore, but there's still a crusty in here somewhere.

[ 16-01-2002: Message edited by: Moominstoat ]

[ 16-01-2002: Message edited by: Moominstoat ]

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:56 / 16.01.02

There are loads. Not all of them express their politics directly, mind you.
(Take Electrelane for example - instrumental band, fiercely political in spite of this.) And yes, the mainstream pop environment is not particularly interested in politically charged music, but when has it ever been? I think what's been different recently has been that the so-called 'alternative' or 'indie' scene has become fiercely anti-political (or rather, anti- radical or progressive politics). The pop scene doesn't care one way or another as long as there's a good tune there, and so are actually far less hostile to political content in songs. The indie/alternative scene, however, is even more reactionary and conservative than ever.

It's also important to bear in mind that bands/artists can make extremely politically charged music, the politics of which you or I don't agree with: for example, hip-hop in the 1990s and beyond has often been about expressing the idea of black power through entrepreneurial capitalism, making sure that the artists themselves get paid. In as much as the emphasis on materialism here might be seen as negative, the desire to own your own record label, stay automonous and control your own career in this fashion has a certain kind of radicalism to it.

08:56 / 16.01.02

gertrude are political in loads of ways. and were offered a record deal on condition they made their music a bit more commercial and toned down their lyrics. the company was told to shove it, i believe.

as for chumbawumba - i remember years ago hearing that they lived in a house together and put all their weekly money in a kitty and took out what they needed. and this apparently worked. in which case they have my lifelong respect, having known and lived in far too many places where people either didn't bother giving to the kitty or 'really needed' it to get pissed on, therefore leaving no money for trivial things like food.

14:23 / 16.01.02

quote:Originally posted by William Wright:

Look at teh pretty people on stage and forget the money making machine that curns them out, bring back the stage farce of KLF, EMF, Carter USM and Chumbawumba. Go on A1 do something radical, its a great window of opprtunity not to be wasted.

seems to me your argument has less to do with the lack of politcs in modern music and more do do with the fact that you want it to be 1992 again..

Matthew Fluxington

14:24 / 16.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Lyra Lovelaces:

If you want to talk about politics, be a politician.

If you want to write good tunes, be a musician.

That is nonsense.

I find it surprising that yr not a Fela fan, Lyra.

No star here laces

14:45 / 16.01.02

When did I say that?

I quite like Mr Kuti, particularly 'Suffer head', which is quite political. But Fela has a groove - he's primarily musical, with politics added. 'S when people do it the other way round that it ends up being shit.

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