It kinda pains me when people brush off Chumbawamba solely based on Tubthumping. It’s not because I love the song myself (which I do – and the album it’s in as well), but because people who do so are brushing off a band with a varied output and a completely different style these days based on their lucky off-shoot pop hit from long ago.

It’s not to say though that they’re an easy band to like because, well, all the sloganising political bravado can get silly at times and their discography varies not only in style but in quality – usually even singular albums aren’t entirely free of massive quality changes. But there is a great group there with fantastic vocal hooks and a marvelous pop sensibility.

In the early 00’s the band’s latest stylistic incarnation began and has kept going to this day. It’s the band’s folk music phase, studying old traditional English folk songs and crafting their own. They’ve released a string of albums with each offering a different take on folk music – Un is acoustic-guitar driven pop with a huge mix of samples from different parts of the world thrown in, A Singsong and a Scrap went fully acoustic and at times even a cappella and the band also saw fit to re-release English Rebel Songs 1381-1984, an a cappella album full of covers of traditional songs. I haven’t heard it myself, but the new The Boy Bands Have Won seems to continue in the same acoustic vein.

We are here to talk about 2002’s Readymades however. It’s the album that began their folk incursion and it’s also the one that gives the most unique take on it. If I recall correctly, the band set on create modern versions of old songs – not covers, but songs made in the latest technology and genre style on subjects familiar to both new and old songs that people pass on to each other – modern folk songs. It’s not acoustic, it’s electronic.

It’s a jumble of words, a background tale that might not hear much or even be true. That doesn’t make Readymades’ intriguing mixture of dance and hiphop beats, electronic loops and fragile vocals any less… intriguing.

Readymades opens up in a fantastic way. “Salt Fare, North Sea” drowns in its atmospheric keyboard waves, echoing vocals and chilled dance beat, introducing some amazing-yet-brief horns by the end. “Jacob’s Ladder” is driven by an acoustic guitar loop and a strong hip-hop beat and “All in Vain” offers more ethereal dance beats and offers some amazing vocal melodies. Finally, “Home With Me” comes in the shape of a pleasant, home-warm ballad that celebrates the memories we gather in life and how home always feels special no matter what marvellous sights you’ve seen.

“Home With Me” is also special in the way that it’s the only male-lead song on the album. What’s even more unusual that the fella in question is the soft-voiced Neil Ferguson. Chumbawamba’s trademark for a long long time has been the alternation between the softer, more melodic vocals by the group’s several women and the rougher, harder, louder vocals by the speak-singing male singers. Readymades however is the ladies’ album, leaving the guys to either pop by briefly on each track or be completely absent. It gives another sort of special air for the album.

After the fourth track Readymades starts to go a bit scattershot though. It’s time for that usual mantra: “nothing is bad per se, but…” – the but being that there are some songs here that are weaker than the rest but still manage to avoid being complete filler with a certain part that’s extremely well done. Still, “Song for Len Shackleton” and its near-instrumental erraticness or the rather non-descript “One Way or the Other” could have perhaps been left off.

The rest of the album’s latter half is dominated by calm, electronic-tinged yet not electronic per sé pop. “Without Reason or Rhyme” is the album’s most acoustic moment, a lamenting song about the killing of an innocent man the police thought was an armed robber. “When I’m Bad” kinda harkens back to the infamous Tubthumping, being another ode to drinking but this time with a warm heart and soul to it. Tucked at the end, “After Shelley” is the album’s only moment of proper energy, building up from humble starts to a guitar-revving finale that brings a great close to the album.

The thing with Readymades is, and I know this is particularly weird to say for a random review on a music blog as these tend to be made with the “this album is awesome, you ignore it, go buy it now” mentality, is that it’s not particularly excellent. It’s nowhere near my favourites in the Chumba discography and whilst the first four songs certainly give the idea that it could have been, the rest of the album turns out to be a bit scattershot or just less exciting as those four fantastic tracks in general. I don’t mean that it’s a bad album either however, because it isn’t. I enjoy listening to it and its songs. It’s a good album but definitely flawed. It’s also interesting and compelling. It has its own sort of air and atmosphere to the songs – it’s crafted from ingredients that could be considered emotionally cold or detached, loops and samples alike, but turns out to be a very warm album.

And it’s a mile away from Tubthumping anyway.

Salt Fare, North Sea
Home With Me

Tags: Chumbawamba

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 9:53 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.