The Boy Bands Have Won

Infobox Album |
Name = The Boy Bands Have Won
Type = Album
Artist = Chumbawamba


Released = March 3 2008
Recorded = 2007
Genre = Anarcho-punk World music Folk
Length = 49:32
Label = No Masters, Westpark
Reviews = Allmusic Rating|4|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wxfqxzljld6e link]
Last album = "Get On With It"
(2006)
This album = "The Boy Bands Have Won"
(2008)
Next album =

"The Boy Bands Have Won" is a Chumbawamba album released in 2008.

The album continues their move into politically and socially aware folk music. Themes addressed on this album include suicide bombers, Philip Larkin, social networking websites, surviving a firing squad, evolution and the pains of the workplace. Also, on "Sing About Love" a heartfelt plea for a time when they wouldn't feel the need to "sing about the thing [they] always sing about".

The album was recorded by the five-piece line-up of Jude Abbott, Lou Watts, Boff Whalley, Neil Ferguson and Phil 'Ron' Moody that comprises the Chumbawamba of recent times but features guest appearances by several other artists.

The album actually has a much longer title, but even the band usually use the shorter version when referring to on their website [ [http://www.chumba.com/news.html chumba.com] ] . The full title, which covers the front of the album cover, is: "The boy bands have won, and all the copyists and the tribute bands and the TV talent show producers have won, if we allow our culture to be shaped by mimicry, whether from lack of ideas or from exaggerated respect. You should never try to freeze culture. What you can do is recycle that culture. Take your older brother’s hand-me-down jacket and re-style it, re-fashion it to the point where it becomes your own. But don’t just regurgitate creative history, or hold art and music and literature as fixed, untouchable and kept under glass. The people who try to ‘guard’ any particular form of music are, like the copyists and manufactured bands, doing it the worst disservice, because the only thing that you can do to music that will damage it is not change it, not make it your own. Because then it dies, then it’s over, then it’s done, and the boy bands have won."

Track listing

All tracks written, arranged and produced by Chumbawamba (Jude Abbott, Lou Watts, Boff Whalley, Neil Ferguson) except where indicated.

# "When an Old Man Dies" - 0:54
# "Add Me" - 3:27
# "Words Can Save Us" - 1:52
# "Hull or Hell" - 3:31
# "El Fusilado" - 2:32
# "Unpindownable" - 1:22
# "I Wish That They'd Sack Me" - 4:10
(Music trad., arr. Chumbawamba; lyrics Chumbawamba)
# "Word Bomber" - 2:13
# "All Fur Coat & No Knickers" - 2:12
# "Fine Line" - 0:39
# "Lord Bateman's Motorbike" - 3:34
# "A Fine Career" - 0:47
# "To A Little Radio" - 1:08
(Brecht/Eisler/Bentley)
# "(Words Flew) Right Around the World" - 2:!5
# "Sing About Love" - 1:39
# "Bury Me Deep" - 1:37
# "You Watched Me Dance" - 0:58
# "Compliments of Your Waitress" - 2:43
# "RIP RP" - 1:26
# "Charlie" - 2:12
(Music trad., arr. Chumbawamba; lyrics Chumbawamba)
# "The Ogre" - 0:53
# "Refugee" - 2:42
# "Same Old Same Old" - 0:59
# "Waiting for the Bus" - 2:44
# "What We Want" - 0:47

Personnel

Chumbawamba

* Lou Watts - Vocals
* Boff Whalley - Vocals, Ukelele
* Neil Ferguson - Vocals, Guitars
* Jude Abbott - Vocals, Brass
* Phil 'Ron' Moody - Vocals, Accordion

Also Appearing

* David P. Crickmore - Banjo on 7, 22; Square-necked Dobro on 18, 22
* Oyster Band - Vocals on 4
* Roy Bailey - Vocals on 8
* Jo Freta - Sax on 2
* Harry Hamer - Cajon on 9, 11; Tablas on 16
* Ray Hearne - Vocal on 5 and 'Two Minutes!' on 9
* Barry Coope and Jim Boyes - Vocal on 5
* Charlie Cake Marching Band - Brass on 2
* The Pudsey Players - Strings on 6, 11, 18

Notes