Chumbawamba: Wysiwyg : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

If there's one ironclad rule of pop history, it's this: The monkey types Hamlet only once. Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" was a glorious novelty shot, coming out of nowhere to crunch disco beats and leftist punk outreach into one jolly roger of a drinking anthem. But "Tubthumping" had nothing to do with the band's previous history of dreary, well-meaning indie rock, and even less to do with the bumbling adult pop of WYSIWYG. These anarchist Brits chumba their wamba in search of "Tubthumping II," but despite a few sharp lines ("You can buy your friends/But I'll hate you for free"), they bury their first-draft song fragments in a self-imitating mishmash of shout-along choruses, tepid beats and confused eclectic diddling. For all the snazzy politics, Tubthumper was just an expensive rip-off, and so is WYSIWYG; nothing even comes close to the magic of "Tubthumping." At least Right Said Fred knew when to quit gracefully. (RS 838)

ROB SHEFFIELD