Chumbawamba & Red Ladder – Big Society! – Original Cast Recording (2012, FLAC)

Tracklist:

1 Big Society! 2:42
2 Who’s Running the Show? 3:57
3 The Man From the Double Standard 1:49
4 How’s Your Father? 2:42
5 No-one Trusts A Copper Anymore 3:42
6 The Old School Tie 4:32
7 The Knives Are Out 1:18
8 Barry’s Magic Song 1:37
9 It’s the Same the Whole World Over 4:38
10 Oil! 3:04
11 Sometimes 2:30
12 We’re Not In This Together 1:10
13 If It’s A Sin, Count Me In 2:34

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It was announced in 2011 that Boff Whalley was working on a musical for the stage. The soundtrack to the musical, entitled Chumbawamba & Red Ladder Present: Big Society! was released on January 16, 2012. The recording features all of the current members of Chumbawamba performing on various instruments, accompanying the singing of the actors in the play. Two songs are sung by former Chumbawamba drummer Harry Hamer, marking his first vocal appearance on a Chumbawamba recording since the 1986 song Rich Pop Stars. wikipedia

From agit-prop punks, through anarchic dance music, to settling into rebel folkies, Chumbawamba have maintained a political stance of anti-capitalism and rebellion, with a willingness to stick two fingers up at anyone they disapprove of. So the current Government is just too easy a target (shooting fish in a barrel, anyone?).

To make it more of a challenge, they teamed up with the Red Ladder theatre company and produced a play, Big Society. Starring Phil Jupitus, it transposes the story to a hundred years ago. With lots of songs. In the idiom of Edwardian music hall. This is the �soundtrack� album.

And it suffers from the perennial problem that soundtracks have � some bits stand up very well by themselves and some�don�t. With this album, it�s about half and half. The first two songs, �Big Society� and �Who�s Running the Show�, would grace any Chumbawamba album. �The Old School Tie� is fantastic � satirical, biting and witty (it even references The Tom Robinson Band�s Power in the Darkness).

The middle section drags. The songs cover dodgy newspapers, sexual misconduct in the upper classes, police brutality and intolerance and yet it is hard to care. Within the context of the show, they worked better, but here they pall. I wonder if the same is true of �Barry�s Magic Wardrobe� � I love it to pieces but it probably makes no sense outside of the show. �Oil� and �We�re not all in this together� are the cast back on form.

Throughout the music is wonderful � a lovely pastiche of the music hall tradition with folk tinges. But it�s the words it hinges on. As such, this is a curate�s egg � parts of it are excellent.

Cactus Vibrations Magazine (http://www.vibrations.org.uk)

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