On my Job Centre course, the man that does it was talking about building self esteem and quoted Tubthumping's "I get knocked down, but I get up again" - it made me smile and think of this thread :D

I quite like Chumbawamba but their politics have always been a bit crap really. Those comments on the Manics just illustrate that. This is exactly the sort of anti-mainstream purity the Manics were railing against. They were open straight away about signing for a major label because they could use their resources to reach more people and they wouldn't just be another irrelvance to all but a few people, like Chumbawamba were/are. And sure enough, a few years down the line Chumba did the exact same thing, citing much the same reasons.

There's nothing wrong with folk music! :) A lot of folk music offers social commentary. The Levellers, Oysterband, New Model Army (admittedly they are folk rock- and in the Levellers term a bit too hippy but they did the brilliant Another Man's Cause).

I love Always Tell the Voter What The Voter Wants to Hear by Chumbawamba.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeXWnGYsoS0

(It's the first song off the album...)

i've got the follow up single somewhere, Amnesia or something. the chorus "do you suffer from short term memory loss" did not quite catch on as much as that whole "i get knocked down" thing they did.

i don't think Chumbawuma every accepted that they were accepted by and large on the basis that they were some sort of novelty band, a bit like the sort of thing Steve Wright & The Posse used to knock up in the late 80s/early 90s when not wasting airtime talking shit.

I remember Amnesia being a pretty big song at the time. Big for Chumbawumba, anyway...

i think it got plugged a lot, hoping to cash in on the success of the other song, but i don't remember it being all that big a hit?

'Anarchy' is a brilliant album.

I recall Amnesia being on a Now! album I had (39, maybe?), but certainly never heard it on the radio or TV.

Hmm, I didn't have a copy and heard it all the time, probably more than Tubthumping at the time. Perhaps it was on radio (probably Xfm) a lot?

A clip was played on bbc music show "the o-zone", I think I uploaded it (with interview) to youtube, on my (non-manics) youtube channel "TVFeast"

*EDIT*
Just had a look & yes, I did upload it! Also has a little interview explaining their politics..

Chumbawamba Interview (O-Zone 1998) www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaNtqfuI4mM&sns=tw

Weird! The very second I click on this thread Tubthumping comes blaring out of my telly courtesy of A national accident helpline ad.

I like their version of the Mermaid Song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBjWq6n0Jt4

I like that, it does sound like something Bellowhead might do as well.

"Freddie Mercury, this is your life
Thank the Lord that you were born white"

...sang 'the Wamba' on 'How To Get Your Band On Television'. Though I think it would have been incredibly unlikely Farrokh Bulsara would ever have done such a thing.

I don't see these lines as neccessarily racist, but rather as a sarcasm criticising the racist society that launches "white people" as big celebrities and if he was black, we would miss the chance to hear such a great singer.