February 4, 1999

Uneasy Listening - Umpteen Years Of One-Legged Men At Arse-Kicking Parties

Frustratingly, the [B]Chumbas[/B] are one of the most politically sound bands around, but it's a sad truth that some of the most sensational pop music ever has been made by right-wing scumbags...

5 / 10 Sometimes Chumbawamba seem like a brilliant wheeze dreamed up by Conservative Central Office. What better propaganda for rock's say-nothing Tory tendency than an anarcho-leftie collective whose rabble-rousing anthems are invariably as inviting as a turd sandwich? Anthologising 15 years of thinly disguised hey-nonny-no folk-rockery, this post-hit retrospective offers little to challenge the Chumba stereotype of one-dimensional worthiness and sledgehammer sloganeering.

Political hypocrisy, organised religion, homophobia - the obvious targets are attacked with numbing street-theatre polemic. 'Big Mouth Strikes Again' defends Lenny Bruce, dead since 1966, while 'Give The Anarchist A Cigarette' attacks the young Bob Dylan a mere 30 years later. Dangerously topical protest music or what?

Frustratingly, the Chumbas are one of the most politically sound bands around, but it's a sad truth that some of the most sensational pop music ever has been made by right-wing scumbags. Only when they mix politics with emotion, as in the mellifluous 'This Girl' or the sublimely simple 'Nothing Knocks Me Down', do the Chumbas touch the heart as well as the head - and this, as Jarvis and the Manics have shown, is the first step towards real subversion. As long as Chumbawamba remain famous for the anarcho-pop equivalent of 'Shaddap You Face', their significance will be negligible.