You probably can't write anything about Chumbawamba without mentioning "Tubthumping", so let's get that out of the way first. OK, it was annoying and overly commercial and not necessarily the most intelligent lyric ever written. It was also pretty catchy, and I quite liked it at first, although it was obviously a little bit overexposed.
Anyway, forget about it. Chumba had been making fantastic records for well over a decade before that rather unfortunate brush with megastardom. I first encountered them some time around 1985, when a friend copied one of their demo tapes for me. At the time I was listening to a lot of anarcho-punk but of course I was still a pop kid at heart and they blended the two sounds in a way that few other bands have managed so well. I admired their refusal to be stuck in a box, either musically or politically; and on the latter point I also appreciated the fact that they didn't overlook the Irish conflict - unlike so many of their associates in the English punk scene, who were happy to condemn their government's atrocities everywhere else in the world but ignored it in their own backyard.
I saw Chumba here in Dublin last year - amazingly, only the second time I've seen them in their long career - and they were as inspiring as ever. Their 2008 album The Boy Bands Have Won isn't the best thing they've ever done, IMHO, but at least it should silence anyone who still thinks they've sold out.
Here's one of the highlights of their "dance" phase, from 1992's Shhh.
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