Released on 8 May 1990 "Goodbye Jumbo" was the second studio album by Welsh-British band World Party. The album received generally positive reviews from critics and peaked at No. 73 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 36 on the UK Albums Chart. The album spawned three singles "Way Down Now", "Put The Message In The Box" & "Thank You World". In the case of "Way Down Now", the album's lead single, spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, and follow-up single "Put the Message in the Box" reached No. 8.
Definitely 1990 was a pretty good year in rock and pop, and this rare-ibis emerged out of nowhere to coquer the radio airwaves, the album was curiously enough one of the best albums of that year according to Q magazine and dozens of critics. Karl Wallinger, formerly of the Waterboys alongside Mike Scott, had embarked on a promising solo career with his band World Party
He confirmed his particular gift for late-period Fab Four-inspired music on Goodbye Jumbo, an album of effortless melodicism and adult pop with allusive lyrics about God, the green revolution, love in many forms and much more. With a tidy 12 tracks, potentially huge hits in the trippy pop of "Put The Message In The Box" and the rocky "Way Down Now", Goodbye Jumbo was the great album that went past just about everyone. Wallinger wasn't a man for swagger: his lyrics were cleverly crafted and his music - which he wrote and often performed almost every part himself in the studio - was subtle, discreetly referenced in his role models sometimes the Stones as much as the Beatles and he could cleverly incorporate a line from Iggy Pop as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Goodbye Jumbo bristles with musical ideas, but they are all contained within the pop-rock format. The gritty "Way Down Now" cuts right back for an intimate central section and the lyrics offer bewildering post-psychedelic confusion; "Ain't Gonna Come Till I'm Ready" is a sly nod to soft psychedelic Curtis Mayfield-soul; he fades up "When the Rainbow Comes" just as the Beatles did with Eight Days A Week and it hits its peak in ringing chords and an optimistic invitation to "step out of the open door . . . build a new house down by the sea". But definitely "Put The Message In The Box" is gentle power pop and slightly prescient in its lyrics if you think that Oasis were on their way
This was an album of the old style where every note in every song mattered, and where each song was memorable and distinctive. It moves easily through different styles but every one is within Wallinger's confident grasp. And it didn't sound overly studied or too clever-clogs. Whether it be a piano-framed ballad like "God on my Side", the studio-funk of "Show Me To The Top" or the trippy "Thank You World", Karl Wallinger proved he had what it took.
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario