Nominated by: GK
Music club: Wander to Wozza's
I know very little about Chumbawamba outside of the two hits that came from this album - the title track and the football anthem Top of the World (Olé, Olé, Olé), so it came as a pleasant surprise to hear the whole album.
When GK and I were crazy schoolkids, we amused ourselves by making what I called 'Eclectic tapes' on cassettes (a.k.a. crazy tape). We'd take snippets of spoken word from records, TV, anywhere and add them to jumbled up music snippets. The tapes made a crazy kind of sense and we had a lot of fun.
I was reminded of this when listening to Tubthumper (the album) because they share this approach (albeit 20 years after Gregarious G-String and Buster Bloodvessel pioneered it). Various cut ups of politicians, TV characters (Leonard Rossiter has a cameo before Drip Drip Drip frinstance) are added to the music which displays all the hallmarks of an ADHD student on a sugar rush.
On the evidence of this album's themes, it seems the band trades in highly politicised approaches but done in a general way (class warfare figures big time) and I would have got long odds on GK being the first of the three amigos to choose an album housing a string of F bombs and the c-word (shock horror - it's before Mary Mary). The lad loves to surprise us.
I pretty much loved it, although they are strictly of their time (late nineties) and a few songs are a tad repetitive (Creepy Crawling). It is also one looong album - clocking in just shy of an hour. However, there are plenty of 'bangers' along the way (I believe that's the expression the youngsters are using du jour).
Favs would be Tubthumper, Amnesia, Drip... and Top of the World. They are obvious standouts but there are a few others I put into my favourites file as well, like The Good Ship Lifestyle and Scapegoat.
It was worth the eye rolls at Maple Grove while it played out and I bet Mrs. Knowles doesn't approve either (I suspect AM is a fan). They'd definitely hate those eclectic tapes as well, though, to be fair.
