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Chumbawamba is a group of anarchists who stumbled into success quite randomly with the song "Tubthumping". Back in 1997, it marked their departure after nine albums from their usual political-social commentary and critiques of the Blair government, embracing a sound that would soon bring Fatboy Slim, Wiseguys, and company to the forefront, causing extreme confusion in the aforementioned average Italian consumer™, who, upon purchasing another of their albums, found a band that had little in common with the scene of Norman Cook.
Despite everything, I have immense sympathy for them, and I say despite everything because that single is one of the very few things in their repertoire that doesn't make me puke natural mineral water like only a healthy bender would; this album is a folk album, bloody English folk, which, if almost bearable when the male voice is present, is better than a laxative when the irritating girly voice pops up from nowhere, incredibly tedious…
The end result is unsettling as I find myself appreciating a band that makes me sick: if you visit their website, you’ll find many interesting things to read—intelligent, well-written, far from clichés, and brave, especially these days when everyone is terribly afraid of being censored and therefore self-censors. But here we are talking about music and the verdict is: crap. And then massacring "Bella Ciao" is something I only allow Santoro to do.
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