The only difference between Chumbawamba and Right Said Fred is eight years of experience, five band members and two kilos of Weight Gain 4000. Even as this sentence progresses, Chumbawamba's bubble is pushing maximum density while their Disregarded Card is being renewed.

Not that any of this seems to bother the anarchist octet. "I don't give a s--- really," says a blunt Alice Nutter, one of three skirts in Chumbawamba. "We've had 15 years of being unfashionable wankers, so what's the difference with switching to 'one-hit wonders'?"

That's the spirit. Chumbawamba freely admit to using the medium for the message and using it while they have the world's ear. "It's great for us because the [print] space we take up is less space for somebody like the Rolling Stones, Phil Collins, Motley Crue," says guitarist/vocalist Boff, "or whoever to spread their sort of right wing, conservative ..."

And anyone who has opened a magazine, turned on the radio or TV to hear "I get knocked down and I get up again, you're never gonna keep down" ad nauseum. In addition to exhaustive rotation on Top 40 radio, "Tubthumping" -- in no particular order -- has been used in film trailers for Senseless and Home Alone 3, episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 and Veronica's Closet, and during segments on the Winter X-Games and Fox Sports. Phew.

"We've got letters from people saying, 'Hey, I heard that they played your song on Beverly Hills 90210,'" Boff says. "We were like, 'No, we have to approve that.' And we would say, 'Fine, yeah, use it.' Why not? It's popular culture."

Even though Chumbawamba donate their proceeds from these residual tie-ins to various anarchist-related causes, and eschew offers from companies like Nike and Martini liquor from using the song, public perception is that Chumbawamba is selling out and overexposing themselves. So, now the heat's on Universal Records, the group's label, to make Tubthumper's next single, "Amnesia," memorable. "They're [Universal] getting really tense," says Harry Hamer, the drummer with the leopard-spotted hair. "But that's good to see, because we do what we do, irrelevant of whether we actually sell millions."

BLAIR R. FISCHER