Was there ever a extra unlikely band and hit than Chumbawamba and “Tubthumping”? Influenced by UK acts just like the Intercourse Pistols and the Conflict, Chumbawamba was an anarchist band that resisted society’s capitalist guidelines each out and in the recording studio. As a part of the punk motion, they performed profit exhibits at UK miners’ strikes, picket strains, and anti-war occasions. Their debut album Photos of Ravenous Youngsters Promote Information was launched in 1986, which was a response to the “spectacle” of 1985’s Reside Support fundraiser live performance.
However Chumbawamba’s turning level occurred in 1997 with their eighth album Tubthumper. Marking their major-label debut after signing with EMI, it scored the band mainstream recognition abroad by way of lead single “Tubthumping.”
A cheeky mix of easy pop-inspired verses, funky horns, ripping guitars, and an anthemic refrain (“I get knocked down, but I get up again/You’re never gonna keep me down!”), “Tubthumping” had all the weather for an earworm hit. Its title derives from British slang for aggressive political protesting. It was impressed by an evening when guitarist Boff Whalley and his spouse watched their drunken next-door neighbor singing “Danny Boy” whereas stumbling to open his entrance door. Finally, he discovered his means inside the home. Thus, the music grew to become about perseverance.
“The song changed everything. Before ‘Tubthumping’ I felt we were in a mess. We had become directionless and disparate,” frontman Dunstan Bruce informed The Guardian in 2016. “It’s not our most political or best song, but it brought us back together. The song is about us – as a class and as a band. The beauty of it was we had no idea how big it would be.”
“Tubthumping” grew to become Chumbawamba’s largest hit, reaching No. 2 within the UK and No. 2 within the U.S. As a result of its success, Tubthumper hit No. 3 on Billboard’s albums chart and was licensed 3x Platinum. The band carried the music’s raucous spirit to the 1998 BRIT Awards: drummer Danbert Nobacon poured a bucket of water over UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott’s head in solidarity with the Liverpool Dockworkers’ Strike.
Chumbawamba went on to launch six extra albums, together with 2010’s fourteenth and closing LP ABCDEFG. Two years later, they formally introduced their disbandment after 30 years collectively.
Regardless of being labeled as a one-hit-wonder, the band nonetheless appreciates what “Tubthumping” did for his or her careers. In Might, Bruce revealed he “finished a documentary about Chumbawamba. It has taken five years to make and that film will answer a lot of questions.” The frontman left the band in 2004 and began his personal movie and video manufacturing firm, Dandy Movies.
“To 99 percent of people we just had that one song, but there is always the 1 percent who listen to the rest of the album and like it enough to listen to more,” guitarist Whalley informed The Guardian. “I still really like ‘Tubthumping.’ I don’t feel embarrassed by it at all. I know some bands who hate their songs being popular, but I just think, ‘Get off your high horse!’ The whole point of art is to have an audience.”
Take heed to Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” on Apple Music or Spotify.
