Now Chumbawamba, one of the few acts I can say I was around for, which made it big.
They played regularly around my area late 80s, and were quite a riot. VERY socialist songs, their third(ish) album Shh was my initial time seeing the band, and them doing the songs from that album on their tours before releasing them officially. They loved their music, and strong politics and didn’t give a f**k . Their shows were spectacles of 7-8 of them with trumpets and trombones and the likes squeezed onto small stages, with Danbert singing through a megaphone and Alice Nutter highkicking dressed as a nun drinking vodka (singing the song Big Mouth Strikes again). They were funny, striking, and unmissable if you liked their politics.
I loved the albums from this time, Pictures of Starving Children Sell records is a funny critique of Live Aid, and the musicians profiting from it, with a song saying to nail up Bono or Cliff Richard (depending on album, it changed live). Shhh was anti censorship, after the band embraced sampling and made an album, white, called Jesus H. Christ which sampled lots of things such as the Beatles and were sued and withdrew it. They still sold a vinyl version of that album at their gigs. Yes, I’ve got one and it’s VERY different from Shhh!
To say they were left wing was a bit glib, and a simplification. Nowadays, anyone based in reality is left wing. Freedom was more their politics, for example That’s how grateful we are is a song about the Hungarian rebellion in 1956 where they took hammers and destroyed Stalin’s statues in Budapest.
They were anti-establishment and hated major record labels, criticising EMI, releasing a lot on their own label Agit-Prop. Eventually they signed to One Little Indian, and Indie record label in the 90s.
They did get more popular in the UK towards the mid 90s, growing and fading with the hits and misses, a bit like the Levellers, fill a huge venue one year, small one next. I was less fond of these years, with songs like Timebomb, Enough is Enough, it was more politics than fun. The funny songs ended up on the album, and sometimes in their act. But still, we went to see them every time they played near us.
It was 1997 when I went back to Reading to see them at the Sub 69 club with friends, they explained on stage what had been happening with the band and label and stuff and played Tubthumper to us (and other hits). There was absolutely no clue as to this being the massive hit it was. Frankly about 20 of their songs could be massive hits. What was the difference? EMI.
The trouble was they had recorded Tubthumper off their own money, having spent 40K in studio fees, and none of them were rich in any way. Then One Little Indian, their record label dropped them, leaving them on the hook for all that debt, a record and no-one to sell it for them. One Little Indian dropped a lot of acts around then, their big act was Bjork, and that was about the only one they kept. So, Chumba had to suck it down and sign soon and get the money back. EMI Germany offered to sign them.
EMI’s market is like a machine given the right material and will. They made Tubthumping the song the hit that it is. EMI released the next record WYSIWYG as well.
I’ll skip the Tubthumper album. I’ve never been much of a fan of it, it’s of it’s time like Showbusiness and Anarchy. Looking at the Tracklist now, I probably didn’t play it much at all, probably the least of all their albums. But they were FAMOUS now.
Their next album WYSIWYG is much much better, and the rest are all better than the last three. Released of the money worries, their next album actually took a whole lot of piss out of being famous, touring america, and was funny as fuck. They turned down a LOT of money from multiple sponsors trying to use Pass it along for their adverts, and it still stands very well as critique of the Isolation of the Internet (“Send this song to 20 people, Add your name, don’t break the cycle, Pass it along by word of mouse, Save the world, don’t leave the house”).
So they had their chance to be a “two hit wonder” but they had the choice to not be.
The rest of their studio albums were excellent (apart from abberations like the soundtrack which might be ok, I think I own it, but never listened to it or seen the film Revengers Tragedy). Readymades was superb with lots of techno influences, a highlight being: (working for the Gap)Sewing up crap… Un covered technology, A Singsong and a scrap was much more folkey, Their last GREAT album was The Boy Bands have Won, with a second excellent shot at the Internet, and facebook with Add me (as a friend), with such lyrics as "here’s a picture of me in my Nazi uniform, Doing a trick with an egg that I like to perform, At a monster truck rally that my Mum and me attend, Would you like to add me as a friend?
Their final album, ABCDEFG was after half the band left, and the five piece performed as an acapello group. That was the last time we saw them, with about 100 others in Stourbridge. That was 11 years ago. I think Tubthumping in the end made so much money for them they gave up.
What I always miss from them is the liner notes on their CDs and albums. Every song had a long description about who it was about, often an obscure name, an act of rebellion in Nazi Germany by a man walking about in the nude with a bowler hat on, or a mexican rebel getting shot by a firing squad and surviving.
But in answer to do some one hit wonders know they, some not only know they are, they’ve tried to avoid making any hits, and refused opportunities to make themselves two or more hit wonders.
I just wonder how big they’d be if Tubthumper was actually a good album. It was probably their worst. The song was about the best thing on it, but not anywhere close to the best Chumba song.