Tubthumper

Tubthumper is the eighth studio album by English rock band Chumbawamba. It was first released on 1 September 1997 in the United Kingdom by EMI and on 23 September 1997 in the United States by Universal and Republic Records.

Tubthumper
Studio album by
Chumbawamba
Released1 September 1997
Recorded1996–1997
StudioWoodlands Studio, Castleford
Genre
Length58:49
Label
Producer
  • Chumbawamba
  • Neil Ferguson
Chumbawamba chronology
Swingin' with Raymond
(1995)		 Tubthumper
(1997)		 WYSIWYG
(2000)
Singles from Tubthumper
  1. "Tubthumping"
    Released: 11 August 1997
  2. "Amnesia"
    Released: 1998
  3. "Drip, Drip, Drip"
    Released: 1998

The album was the band's first major commercial success, and remains their most successful album, having sold 3.2 million units in the United States alone. It spawned three singles, including the UK top-ten hits "Tubthumping" and "Amnesia", and received positive reviews from critics upon its release.

Background

Following the success of their previous two albums (Anarchy and Swingin' with Raymond, both of which reached the Top 75 on the UK Albums Chart),[1] Chumbawamba signed to EMI Records in hopes of reaching a larger audience. A second reason that the group left One Little Indian, their previous record label, was the label's opposition to their new sound: in a 1998 Rolling Stone interview, journalist Chris Mundy reported that the label had rejected Tubthumper and told the group to record a new record with a different sound.[2] The group stood by the album, however, and the album was ultimately picked up by EMI in England and Universal Records in the United States.[2]

Composition

A recurring lyrical theme on Tubthumping is social commentary, in particular class conflict.[2][3] However, critic Elisabeth Vincentelli opined that the group had "toned down some of the radical rhetoric", and that the album's lyrics, where they were previously had a "brusque directness", Tubthumper contained "oblique pathos".[4]

The song "One by One" has been described as an "elegiac tale of treachery" committed by politicians.[4]

Tubtumper incorporates a number of musical styles, including synth-pop, hip hop, jungle, and madrigals.[3] The album was noted for its presence of trumpet solos.[5][2] Music critic Robert Christgau likened the album's catchiness to that of the Spice Girls.[5] An album review by Rolling Stone compared the musical style of "Smalltown" to that of British alternative group Everything But the Girl, while deeming the album's overall genre "radio-friendly dance pop".[4] The Los Angeles Times concurred that the album was dance-pop.[6]

Release

The album catapulted the group into the mainstream, released by EMI in the UK and in the US by Universal Records, and was noted for its departure from the group's typical style of outspoken punk rock in favor of a more mainstream sound.[4][7]

The cover for the album's US release was designed by Michael Calleia[8] at Industrial Strength Design[9] in New York City.

Controversies

Signing to a major label

The group's decision to sign with a major record label caused a huge upheaval in Chumbawamba's fan base, with many of their older fans feeling the band had trivialised all that they had stood for in signing to EMI.[10] The band was targeted by many as being sell-outs and hypocrites, after having been sternly do-it-yourself for their fifteen-year history up until that point.[10]

The band defended their decision on their official FAQ page, issuing a statement that read, in part: "We signed to EMI/Universal not because we'd been co-opted into the 'If you can't beat capitalism ... join it' school of thought, but because experience had taught us that in a capitalist environment almost every record company operates on capitalist principles. Our previous record label One Little Indian didn't have the evil symbolic significance of EMI BUT they were completely motivated by profit. Our [Chumbawamba's] position was that whoever we signed with would want us not for our ideas but for the potential profit, so we'd battle for a contract where we still had autonomy."[11]

Alice Nutter interview

In early 1998, group vocalist Alice Nutter made an appearance on the American television show Politically Incorrect, to promote the album. During the interview, she appeared to encourage fans who were unable to afford Tubthumper to steal it from big chain music stores like HMV and Virgin.[12] Her statement led several music retailers to stop carrying the album altogether.[13] In the United States, following the interview, Virgin Megastores pulled the album from store shelves, while the album was number 7 on the US album chart; the company continued to sell the album, but kept it behind the counter.[12][14] Virgin's Vice President of Marketing issued a statement about the incident, which said that the company didn't genuinely believe fans would steal the disc, but that the company wanted to make a statement: "We were one of the earliest supporters of the band...We've been pushing the band since the beginning, and this is the kind of thanks we get?"[12]

Nutter maintained that her comments had been taken out of context, and that they were "tongue-in-cheek" and not to be taken seriously.[12] She told MTV in a January 1998 interview that "They wanted to talk about people stealing our record, which is irrelevant in the scheme of things. What I wanted to talk about was why people shoplift and why in some cases it's absolutely valid. Some people have two houses and two cars and luxuries for far more than themselves, and other people struggle to survive day by day."[14]

The ensuing controversy also served to stoke the public's interest in the album.[13]

Singles and commercial performance

Tubthumper was Chumbawamba's most successful album in several respects. It spawned the worldwide hit "Tubthumping", which was a top 10 hit in the US,[15] the UK,[16] Sweden,[17] Norway,[18] and Belgium,[19] and a number 1 hit in Canada,[20] Italy,[21] Ireland,[22] and Australia.[23] The follow-up single, "Amnesia", also proved a commercial success, managing to reach the top 10 in the UK[16] and Canada. The album spawned a third single, "Drip Drip Drip", which failed to make an impression on any international chart but was met with positive critical reception.[24]

The album became a commercial success.[2] In the United States, it hit number 3 on the Billboard 200[25] and sold more than 3,200,000 copies, thanks in large part to the success of "Tubthumping;"[26] Canada, where the album reached number 2;[27] and the UK, where the album reached number 19.[1] The album also placed at number 17 on the American tally of top-selling albums of 1997.[28] Tubthumper remains the group's highest-charting album in all three territories; its sales in the US stand at 3,200,000.[26]

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[29]
Chicago Tribune[5]
Christgau's Consumer Guide[30]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[31]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[3]
Los Angeles Times[6]
NME6/10[32]
Rolling Stone[4]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[33]
Wall of Sound41/100[34]

Tubthumper garnered praise from critics upon its release. Writing for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it a "distinctive" album, concluding that "there's a handful of cuts scattered throughout the record that make the album worthwhile."[29] Entertainment Weekly's Tom Lanham wrote that "social commentary never tasted so sweet" and awarded the album a "B+".[3] Greg Kot, writing for the Chicago Tribune, praised the album and commented that the group "sounds way too smart to be so easily dismissed". He went on to call the album "twice as catchy... and four times as riotously subversive" as the Spice Girls' music.

Some critics were more lukewarm in their assessments of the album, however: Rolling Stone's Elisabeth Vincentelli awarded the album 3 stars and opined that the album's lyrics "have traded the brusque directness of yore for oblique pathos", though she did go on to praise "Smalltown" as being "coolly collected" and "Tubthumping" as having "a fist-in-the-air quality that would work equally well at a union rally and in an arena." She concluded that the album "may not enlighten the masses, but it'll make them dance".[4] Music critic Robert Christgau awarded the album a 3-star honourable mention rating and cited "Tubthumping" and "Amnesia" as highlights, with the note "Tub as platform, tub as cornucopia, tub as slop bucket".[30]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Chumbawamba.

No.TitleLength
1."Tubthumping"4:39
2."Amnesia"4:08
3."Drip, Drip, Drip"5:08
4."The Big Issue"4:38
5."The Good Ship Lifestyle"5:13
6."One by One"4:45
7."Outsider"5:09
8."Creepy Crawling"4:04
9."Mary, Mary"4:59
10."Smalltown"3:14
11."I Want More"4:02
12."Scapegoat"5:07
European edition bonus track[35]
No.TitleLength
13."Top of the World (Olé, Olé, Olé)"3:49
Japanese edition bonus tracks[36]
No.TitleLength
13."Farewell to the Crown"2:56
14."Football Song"2:25
15."Seven Days"4:07
16."May Day"3:51

Personnel

Adapted from album booklet[37] and AllMusic.[38]

The track "The Good Ship Lifestyle" samples from the BBC Radio 4 Shipping Forecast. The interlude at the end of "Amnesia" was taken from a government-produced public service announcement on mad cow disease.[11]

Charts

References
  1. "UK Albums Chart history". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  2. Mundy, Chris. "Interview: Chumbawamba". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
  3. Lanham, Tom (31 October 1997). "Tubthumper". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  4. Vincentelli, Elisabeth (31 October 1997). "Chumbawamba: Tubthumper". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 27 January 2008. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  5. Kot, Greg (2 January 1998). "Chumbawamba: Tubthumper (Republic/Universal)". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  6. Scribner, Sara (20 November 1997). "You're making your list and we've made ours: tons of ideas for presents--even for those hardest to please". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
  7. Dahlen, Chris. "The Chumbawamba Factor". Pitchfork. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  8. "Building great products and brands since 1991 – Michel Calleia". Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  9. "Building great products and brands since 1991 – Michel Calleia". Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  10. TubThumping as the subject of an episode of the Podcast Surprisingly Awesome
  11. "Chumbawamba FAQ's... Sort of Thing". Archived from the original on 2 December 1998. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  12. Errico, Marcus. "Chumbawamba Gets Knocked Down by Virgin". E! News. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  13. Goodman, Amy. "The Untold Story of Chumbawamba: Dunstan Bruce on '90s Anthem Song "Tubthumping" & What Came After". Democracy Now. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  14. MTV News Staff. "Chumbawamba's Nutter Says She Doesn't Care if You Steal". MTV. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  15. "Chumbawamba Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  16. "Chumbawamba Singles Chart History". Official Singles. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  17. "CHUMBAWAMBA – TUBTHUMPING (SONG)". Swedish Charts. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  18. "CHUMBAWAMBA – TUBTHUMPING (SONG)". NorwegianCharts.com. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  19. "CHUMBAWAMBA – TUBTHUMPING (language: Dutch)". Ultratop. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  20. "Image : RPM Weekly". Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  21. "The best-selling singles of 1997 (Language: Italian)". Hit Parade Italia. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  22. Gogan, Larry. ""Tubthumping" search results". The Irish Charts. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  23. "CHUMBAWAMBA – TUBTHUMPING (SONG)". Australian Charts.com. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  24. Flick, Larry (20 June 1998). "Singles". Billboard. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  25. "Chumbawamba chart history Billboard Canadian Albums". Billboard. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  26. Chumbawamba Get Knocked Down, Break Up After 30 Years
  27. "Cumbawamba Billboard 200 Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  28. "Chumbawamba chart history Billboard 200 albums (year-end)". Billboard. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  29. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Tubthumper – Chumbawamba". AllMusic. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  30. Christgau, Robert (2000). "Chumbawamba: Tubthumper". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-24560-2. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  31. Larkin, Colin (2011). "Chumbawamba". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857125958.
  32. Cigarettes, Johnny (30 August 1997). "Chumbawamba – Tubthumper". NME. Archived from the original on 17 August 2000. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
  33. Wolk, Douglas (2004). "Chumbawamba". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 163. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  34. Wright, Anders. "Review: Tubthumper". Wall of Sound. Archived from the original on 15 April 2001. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  35. Tubthumper (EU CD liner notes). Chumbawamba. EMI Records. 1998. 7243 4 95238 2 1.CS1 maint: others (link)
  36. Tubthumper (JP CD liner notes). Chumbawamba. EMI Records. 1998. TOCP-50582.CS1 maint: others (link)
  37. "Tubthumper" album booklet
  38. ""Tubthumper" credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  39. Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (PDF ed.). Mt. Martha, VIC, Australia: Moonlight Publishing.
  40. "Dutchcharts.nl – Chumbawamba – Tubthumper" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  41. "Offiziellecharts.de – Chumbawamba – Tubthumper" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  42. "Charts.nz – Chumbawamba – Tubthumper". Hung Medien. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  43. "Norwegiancharts.com – Chumbawamba – Tubthumper". Hung Medien. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  44. "Swisscharts.com – Chumbawamba – Tubthumper". Hung Medien. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
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