Songoftheday 1/6/21 - He sings the songs that remind him of the good times, he sings the songs that remind him of the better times...

 

 

"Tubthumping" - Chumbawamba

from the album Tubthumper (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 25

 

Today's song of the day comes from the English anarchist rock band Chumbawamba, who came together in the northwestern city of Burnley in the early 1980s. A collective that shuffled in many members, the act released a slew of indie cassette albums until they put out their first proper EP Revolution in 1985. The following year, the band put out their debut album Pictures Of Starving Children Sell Records (no, they don't mince words), which went to #2 on the UK Indie Albums chart. After four more albums, the group started to get noticed more widely with their 1994 album Anarchy, which reached the UK albums chart top-40 at #29. The lead single, "Enough Is Enough" with the reggae-hiphop group Credit To The Union, was their first charting single on the main British chart at #56, one of three from the record, which also included "Homophobia" (#79 UK) with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Despite the militantly political content in the lyrics, their music had evolved to be much more pop and dance inflected, giving a pleasant sheen to their message of fighting for the downtrodden. Their next studio set, Swingin' With Raymond, didn't do as well, but managed to spin a week on the singles chart with the harder-edged "Ugh! Your Ugly Houses!" (#84 UK) in 1995.

When it came to record their third studio album for their label One Little Indian, the execs rejected their result, sending the band shopping for a new label, ending up at EMI (and Universal's Republic Records in the States). I can't imagine why One Little Indian passed on Tubthumper, but they soon were proved fools when the little upstart anarchist band ended up breaking through worldwide. "Tubthumping", written and produced by the band, was in a ways a big left turn for them, anchored by a sing-along bar chant about alcohol and wasting time ("pissing the night away", as it were), with singer Dunstan Bruce listing off drinks trading off with Lou Watts' sweet voice stinging with that "pissing line" as well as bringing out pub standards like "Danny Boy". All of it was meant as just a release, as well as a self-motivator for the band as well as their fans, and I guess detached from the politics their musicality (the brass shines on this record) really was able to shine through. So much that the record became a huge worldwide success, include the usually hard-to-crack-for punkers America, where the single shot to the top of the radio charts, and the single sold like hotcakes (until Republic pulled it to goose sales of the album)...

"Tubthumping" became Chumbawamba's first and only hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 pop chart, reaching the top ten in November of 1997. The song was a massive radio success, not only ruling at mainstream radio, but also topping the Alternative Rock radio chart for seven weeks, and taking five weeks at #1 on the Adult Top-40 format. Internationally, the single went to the top of the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand, while stopping at #2 in their native Britain (kept out by Will Smith's "Men In Black"). It also reached the top ten in Norway (#2), Hungary (#5), Sweden (#6), Belgium (#9F/#30W), Denmark (#9), and Iceland (#10). Their Tubthumper album, which went to #19 in the UK, climbed all the way to #3 in America, going on to move over three million copies.

Despite that success, radio in America was criminally cold to their followup (and in my opinion, superior) hi-NRG followup "Amnesia". While going as high as #10 in the UK and #7 in Canada, the single stalled right under the American Hot 100, "bubbling under" at #101, though it made the Adult Top-40 radio list at #38. A year later, the band turned down a lucrative licensing gig with Nike for the World Cup and instead released a one-off single "Top Of The World (Ole Ole Ole)", which hit #21 on the British chart but was ignored everywhere else. Instead of going the mainstream route, Chumbawumba returned to their more topical beginnings, and doomed their relationship with EMI with their next album in 2000, WYSIWYG ("What you see is what you get"). With the lo-fi lead single "She's Got All The Friends Money Can Buy", with a B-side fantasizing on celebrity deaths, the record soured many a "Karen" and "Chad" (good on them). They have since gone their own way releasing music independently, releasing five more albums before calling is quits in 2012, two years after their final record ABCDEFG. But it honestly was glorious for this unabashed lefties getting their moment in the sun with a song many a hillbilly or Wall Street coke fiend can recite line for line.

(9/10)

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Here's the band appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote the album...

and lastly, line in concert in 1998...

Up tomorrow: Former Fugees follow some roads.