Album Review by Mark Bayross
You’ve got to love Chumbawamba. Year after year, they pit the combined efforts of their collective musical talent and intelligent songwriting to produce an album that tackles real, current and important issues, and release it onto a public generally more interested in Blazing Squad ringtones and what kind of hair gel Robbie uses.
UN is this year’s effort, and, while – despite the title – it is not markedly different from its antecedents (save perhaps last year’s ENGLISH REBEL SONGS), it is still a compelling addition to their canon. Their sound can still be described as folk-techno (EVERYTHING WE NOW IS WRONG ends in a bizarre flurry of fiddles and bleeps), with everything from spoken word samples to accordions and horns (the album was recorded partly in Latin America) underpinning Alice’s soft and Dunstan’s ranting.
Anarchists that they are, you would have thought recent events in the Middle East would dominate the album’s lyrical content, but they admirably direct their ire at the (unfortunately wide) range of injustices currently plaguing the world, from the increased use of technology to control our lives (THE WIZARD OF MENLO PARK) to the bravery of two Zimbabwean cricketers during the World Cup at highlighting the appalling behaviour of their government (BE WITH YOU).
Of course, the two main culprits remain Uncle Sam and corporate domination. ON EBAY tells of how the Americans stood by while Iraqi museums were looted, another example of the US bringing a rich ancient culture down to their Big Mac-based level, while A MAN WALKS INTO A BAR deals with the old chestnut of America’s continued embargo of Cuba. JUST DESSERTS recounts the pie-in-face attack on Bill Gates and how the incident proves that no one is immune to public humiliation, no matter how rich and powerful they are, and BUY NOTHING DAY is a rallying call to back Adbusters’ campaign for us break the endless cycle of consumerism, if only for day.
All very topical and thought-provoking. Only WE DON’T WANT TO SING ALONG, pointing the finger of blame at the teachers and parents at Columbine who let the bullying and divisions in the school social hierarchy build up into the massacre, while admirable and undoubtedly valid, is anchored on an event that occurred five years ago. Not that that stops its message from still being alarmingly relevant.
Despite the depressing themes covered here, the music remains largely upbeat. WHEN FINE SOCIETY SITS DOWN TO DINE may address the injustice faced by Mujeres Creandos, a defiant group of women in Bolivia using art to face up to the prejudices they encounter there, but it is enveloped in such a buoyant salsa party atmosphere that the barbed words hit home even harder. Neither is it all doom and gloom lyrically – FOLLOWING YOU is actually a message of optimism built on the emergence of Social Centres in the UK, while REBEL CODE draws parallels between Finland’s invention of the Molotov cocktail and the Linux operating system, bookending the last century with two instruments of rebellion and offering a glimmer of hope that, despite overwhelming odds against, we humans can still engineer a way past the constraints around us.
Smart, entertainingly diverse and often illuminating (the accompanying booklet is littered with facts that will stick with you – I was amazed to discover that the custard pie attack on Bill Gates took the combined efforts of 32 people!), this is another Chumbawamba album to miss at your cost.
