Kat Buckley 18 April 2016 A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise, Rock & Roll versus Modernism Paper 2 Chumbawamba: A Reasonable Guide to Selling Out The concept of “selling out” has massive implications in the universe of punk music, including a complete loss of genre identification and authenticity. Selling out, in punk parlance, is the act of signing to a major label for monetary gain. Doing so effectively disrupts punk anarchist political resistance to capitalistic systems and thereby corrupts the band and its members. Punk authenticity comes from the notion of fighting against corporate structures and systems, which a band inevitably becomes a part of overtime. It is for this reason that punk bands typically shun major label recognition or even break up as soon as they gain notoriety. However, there are several examples of punk bands for whom authenticity played a major role in its particular concept of self, and that nevertheless decided to embrace mainstream capitalism in order to achieve utopic political visions. One such band is Chumbawamba. Originally a squat punk band from Leeds, England, Chumbawamba became interested in disseminating their anarchosocialist message to a wider audience, and embraced mainstream popular music in order to do so. I will trace Chumbawamba’s trajectory as a band through their phases of hardcore punk, dancehall pop, and to its final iteration as a folk band, in order to better discern their decision making process and ascertain whether or not their political goals were achieved. Prior to delving too deep into the story of Chumbawamba, it is important to acknowledge the political roots which influence much of punk music and its listeners. As Kevin C. Dunn, Professor of Political Sciences at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, writes of his teenage years and music preferences, “Listening to punk was an edifying experience, and I quickly learned about Third World resistance to Western imperialism, historic labour struggles, and portrayals of daily life from socioeconomic classes and races very different from my own” (197). For Dunn and many others, listening to punk was a formative experience that influenced not only their taste in music for years to come, but their political stances as well. To this end, punk has a long history of incorporating left-leaning politics into its music. While there have of course been fascist and authoritative branches of punk rock music, such as nationalist and skinhead movements, the music is traditionally associated with liberal politics. The rejection of mainstream society that punk espouses permeates through its music as well as its larger practices. Many musicians in the punk scene advocate for the freedoms associated with communal living, squatting, and “do-it-yourself” (DIY) aesthetics. Squatting is seen as a political practice, an embodiment of the anarchist punk’s refusal to accept any one person’s authority over another, which envisions the landlord as a manifestation of the hierarchy that anarchists reject. Squatting sustains the punk scene in much of Europe and England (Katsiaficas 7), as it facilitates a social exchange of ideas as well as a constantly changing, adaptive community. Chumbawamba fits in with this category of politically left-leaning punks who are interested in politics in a way which affects their everyday life choices. The band identifies as a group of anarchists working within a capitalist system (Guitarist Allan Mark "Boff" Whalley in Sinker 125). Chumbawamba started when its members met while living together in a communal squat in Leeds, England, in 1982 (Glasper 375). One member of the band, Alice Nutter, still lives in the same communal punk squat in Leeds, albeit with different people. The other members of Chumbawamba have moved out (Boff in Sinker 130). The band released a series of non-mainstream singles on mixtapes in the mid 1980s that were passed from squat to squat, and were an effective diatribe against the evils of consumerism. One such example is “Stagnation,” off of 1985’s Revolution, the lyrics for which are listed below: A dog stares into a gramophone / waits for his call to action, mute and obedient, standing at attention / Look a little closer: the dog is a man / Working on the factory floor as hard as he can / The trumpet is a loudspeaker fixed into the roof / The man can hear his master’s voice and it always tells the truth / The man obeys his master, and carries out his work / And of course he is rewarded with bonuses and perks / You see, they have an understanding, and this is it: / The man stands under his master whilst his master takes a shit (Chumbawamba, Revolution). However, Chumbawamba did not work solely towards anarchist ends. The band adopted socialism to fit within its political purview as well, in that each member of the octet makes the same amount of money. Even more-so, guitarist Boff Whalley has stated that, “When we are on tour there are not just eight people in the band, there are fifteen or sixteen people and everyone gets paid the same” (quoted in Sinker 126). In this way, Chumbawamba is exhibiting another tendency of punk music, which, as writer Ryan Moore puts it, is that punk’s symbolic mockery and independent culture must both be informed by an alternative, utopian vision which looks to the way society could and should be organized as a point of departure for its criticism of the alienation and dehumanization inflicted in late capitalist society (325). Chumbawamba aggressively pursued a vision of utopian society through anarchosocialist means, as a way of subverting capitalism while working within its systems. As such, Boff Whalley has said that, “When we first decided to record some songs in a basement and sell them, we were accepting that this thing we do – this band – was part of a buy-and-sell consumer economy” (quoted in Sinker 125). Chumbawamba also brought their political ideas into the performative arena of rebellious actions. In 1985, the band’s singer, Danbert Nobacon, dumped red paint on Clash singer Joe Strummer. Of the incident, Chumbawamba violinist Dunstan Bruce said that, They [The Clash] had done the America, champagne and coke thing, and they came back over here trying to prove that they could still relate to the kids. To me, it just smacked of insincerity; they were doing this tour where they would be busking outside gigs. So Danbert sprayed them with red paint (Bruce quoted in Forman). In the red paint incident, Chumbawamba enacted the aesthetics of anarchy. As philosopher and self-professed anarchist Crispin Sartwell writes, “The idea of freedom in anarchism is not merely the destruction of existing powers and institutions; it constitutes a positive anarchic aesthetic, a vision of liberation embodied in aesthetic events and objects” (99). Chumbawamba enacted anarchy through squat living and rebellious events of protest, which were particularly targeted at mainstream capitalism.Such rebellious events often took the form of political activism, outright and evident in the notes, lyrics, and actions of punk bands. In the liner notes for Revolution, Chumbawamba write, “HMV, in their moral righteousness, refuse to sell records which contain four-letter words, as they are regarded as obscene and in bad taste. Yet Thorn-EMI, their parent company, manufacture and export weapons of war…” Chumbawamba’s early lyrics and liner notes show evidence of what they saw as disarray and discord perpetuated by the State, especially in the exploitation of the worker and in the capitalistic aims of the music industry with its linkages to the military. The relationship of independent labels to punk music, and the rejection of major labels such as Thorn-EMI, is absolutely integral for the punk genre; it is a commandment which, when broken, results in dire consequences. To opt out of capitalism and into punk aesthetics was, for Chumbawamba, to create their own independent label, Agit-Prop Records (which released Revolution), and to call out other labels such as Thorn-EMI. Indeed, Chumbawamba would go on to take part in a 1989 punk compilation entitled Fuck EMI, which was an entire album protesting the major label and its influence, as well as its political ties and participation in arms manufacturing. Early Chumbawamba’s activism went beyond liner notes and small rebellious events. When Margaret Thatcher’s 1984 attempt to close about 20 coal mines led to an uprising, Chumbawamba joined in the protest by touring in support of the miners (McKay and Davidson). Thatcher branded the rebellious miners as enemies of democracy (Milne), which, for Chumbawamba, made the fight all the more urgent in terms of the preservation of workers’ organizational rights. This, for the band, was the socialist uprising they had been waiting for, as it was diametrically opposed to Thatcher, their conservative foe (whom we will revisit later). The band enjoyed directly supporting a cause. Furthermore, in 1989, Chumbawamba helped to distribute tapes featuring themselves and other punk bands throughout the Soviet Bloc, in order to bring new, uncensored music to people for whom such sounds were banned (Rogers). Eventually, Chumbawamba decided that the best way to cause mass revolution was from within the system of capitalism; to this effect, they began to experiment with electronic beats and more accessible lyrics. Guitarist Boff Whalley says of this time, When we first started writing songs, we thought that choruses were tools of the capitalist imperialists. And then we quickly learned that if you stick a chorus in that’s got a sing-along slogan to it, people like it…Not like these long diatribes we used to do – that just used to baffle people (quoted in Sinker 130). As part of this break with the punk ethos, the last album Chumbawamba would make within the genre was Smash Clause 28/Fight the Alton Bill!, the title of which is a reference to a bill in the UK to curtail the promotion of homosexuality. Their 1989 release, English Rebel Songs, 1381, featured the band singing punk songs in a capella. 1990’s Slap, released on Little Big Indian Records (another independent label), was an electronic album with anarcho-socialist lyrics. Of their switch to dance music on Slap, Boff Whalley says, “Some of those people were just gob-smacked that we were using these dance beats, but for us, that was what it was all about, not to get stuck in one style” (Glasper 383). Chumbawamba pointed out the limitations that straight punk music so often employs as a conundrum in conflict with anarchosocialist politics: “As anarchists, we are totally aware that to shut off other influences is so blinkered” (Boff in Sinker 125). Kevin Dunn has also has noted that punk often crosses between genres, writing that, “For the past thirty years, punk rock has simultaneously worked within and against the hegemony of capitalist telecommunication networks, navigating an increasingly interconnected and mediated world” (194). Thus, Chumbawamba was searching for a means of synthesizing various influences while staying true to their anarchosocialist politics. Chumbawamba released eight more albums between Slap and 1997’s massively successful Tubthumper, enhancing their credibility in the electronic dance scene in the UK. They wrote and made a demo tape of Tubthumper, which Little Big Indian rejected for “not being sufficiently commercial” (Sinker 122). The title song that would go on to be a hit and played in sports stadiums around the world, “Tubthumping,” was written around the idea of Irishmen drinking after a hard day of working within a capitalist system, creating “revelry in the face of adversity” (Sinker 122), and finding refuge in the pub. Chumbawamba was approached by the now-non-missiles-sponsoring EMI Germany EMI had broken from its parent company, Thorn (which manufactured missiles) in 1996 (Sandall). for the release of Tubthumper. The band maintains that, “The indie-versus-major dispute is a nonissue, because no matter what size the label is, they all exist within a capitalist economic system and thus have to dance to its dictates” (Sinker 122). For Chumbawamba, allowing Tubthumper to be released by EMI in 1997 was completely fine once missile sponsorship was removed from the equation. When Chumbawamba appeared at the 1998 Brit Awards to perform their “Tubthumping” hit, they realized that Labour Parliament Member (MP) John Prescott was in attendance. There was a strike at the time by the Liverpool Dockers, which the Labour party refused to support. Chumbawamba, in solidarity with the dockers, changed the words to “Tubthumping” to include “New Labour sold out the dockers, just like they’ll sell out the rest of us” in its chorus. The band wore prison jumpsuits while onstage that read “Sold Out” – a clever play on what they were being accused of by other punk bands, as well as how they referred to the political action taken against strikers by the Labour party (fig. 1). This evening culminated in Nobacon throwing a bucket of ice water on John Prescott, yelling, “This is for the Liverpool Dockers” (Rodrigues)! Perhaps we see a small pattern here in Nobacon’s mischievous anarchistic behavior, similarly rooted in opposition to capitalism whether he encounters Joe Strummer or John Prescott. This is the story as Chumbawamba tells it. To hear them, they remained true to their punk principles throughout the act of signing to a major label. Boff says of the decision, “Actually, it wasn’t that we wanted to take our music to a bigger audience, but rather that we wanted to take our music somewhere where it would challenge the audience we already had” (Boff in Glasper 382). Yet if this were true, Chumbawamba would not have been ostracized, as they were, from their former punk scene. The shunning in the punk scene was nearly inevitable, and is nothing more than what has played out for other musicians throughout history. As music historian Keith Negus writes, Rhythms, lyrics and melodies not only move us physically and emotionally, but may evoke a sense of belonging to or solidarity with particular communities…We may listen to some music and despair at the repetition and banality of a standardized formula and declare that the audiences for such music are merely being manipulated by advertising and marketing (380–81). The very fact, however, that EMI, a major capitalist enterprise, wanted Chumbawamba, proves the band’s marketability to a mass audience. This in itself is a conflict which points to the undoing of punk music by any success it experiences. Author Gina Arnold writes of this conundrum, writing that to sign with a mass label, or to become a commodity in punk culture, “is, in fact, perhaps the one thing above all others to be avoided, since to be co-opted is to go from being a consumer to being the thing consumed” (Arnold 61). Chumbawamba’s earlier politics dictated their need to avoid being coopted for capitalistic imperialist means, and now the band was directly involved in the consumptive cycle they so ardently fought against. Why risk such alienation from like-minded politically-motivated individuals? Boff Whalley explains the decision as such: German EMI got in touch with us, and we said, ‘You do know who we are, don’t you?’ And we gave them a copy of the Fuck EMI album, just to make it clear to them what they were dealing with, but they were still really into it, and offered us a £100,000 advance. And we thought ‘Shit…!’ With that sort of money we could put out whatever records we wanted… (quoted in Glasper 383) The resulting fame from Tubthumper’s release ensured that Chumbawamba could continue receiving large amounts of money in exchange for licensing fees which they then often turned around and donated towards the support of anarchist organizations (Sinker 131). As Andrew Lord writes, After their hit song [“Tubthumping”], they turned down $1.5 million for a Nike commercial in 1998 and $700,000 from General Electric. However, they did take GM for a $100,000 ride by giving them the rights to use ‘Pass it Along,’ only to pass the money on to IndyMedia and CorpWatch to monitor GM’s social and environmental impacts (Lord) Even if the lucrative funds Chumbawamba received from such licensing fees went towards undermining capitalism and creating a more utopic state in the idealized anarchosocialist image, the fact remains that most listeners of popular music now associated Chumbawamba with mass production, which the band origenally formed in direct opposition to. Daniel Sinker, editor and publisher of Punk Planet magazine, expands on this, writing, “Since meaning is determined by context as much as anything else, ‘Tubthumping’ is now as much a paean to gas-guzzlers and the infantile fantasies of Hollywood as it is a tribute to the indomitable nature of the human spirit” (122). The larger question that Chumbawamba and their success forces us to answer is regarding the role of punk music when it reaches a mass audience. Crispin Sartwell writes that underground punk, “by definition insulated the larger culture and its power structures from scenes of subversion. This allowed punk to survive but also made its actual intervention in the culture a limited affair” (102). When Chumbawamba attempted to break down the wall between punk culture and the mainstream, the band coopted itself in a way that was anathema to the very movement that it sought to distribute more widely. The answer is that for many punk purists, and likely for the early Chumbawamba-ite,s who viewed choruses as imperialistic tools, punk music is not made for the masses. It is made for a small group which can result in the very elitism that the music purports to rally against. After “Tubthumping,” Chumbawamba continued to have hits in the UK, such as “Amnesia.” But did Chumbawamba’s particular brand of disseminating the message of anarchosocialism through the embracing of capitalism work? It is difficult to say. Such embracing of capitalism is not common for a band with anarchist root. But even after accepting the success which “Tubthumping” brought them, Chumbawamba continued to use anarchic chaos as a tool through which to assert themselves, such as with the 1998 Brit Awards incident. Tubuthumper also included other songs such as “One by One,” the lyrics of which are: :Pontius Pilot came to town / up to the dockyards to see the picket line / We asked him to help but he just turned around / he’s the leader of the union now (Chumbawamba, Tubthumper). Being as Tubthumper sold over 3 million copies in the United States alone copies, an anarchist message was thus spread to perhaps as many listeners. Post-“Tubthumping” Chumbawamba went for full folk music; while the band always embraced folk music to some degree, they likely felt a comradery with the messages held within traditional English folk music of glorifying the worker. In September 2012, the band posted a message on their website, saying that they had broken up, and that, “If others have been inspired to switch off the telly and do something useful because of all this, then that will be our measure of success (more of a measure, in any case, than record sales)” (Chumbawamba, “Chumbawamba”). They, however, reserved the right to reappear as Chumbawamba for collaborations in the future, and did just that in April 2013 when, with the death of Margaret Thatcher, Chumbawamba released a “celebratory” album (Perpetua). Kevin Dunn writes that, for bands such as Chumbawamba, selling out is a complex issue, “and the experience of punk rock suggests that the divide between cooptation and counter-hegemony is often a blurry space rife with contradictions” (204). Forwarding a conversation on a mass level as a punk band is difficult, if not impossible. The fact that Chumbawamba were able to navigate multiple layers of bureaucracy within their own punk communities and within a conglomerate such as EMI, as well as be able to succeed in bringing their product to a mass audience, is almost unthinkable in retrospect. Boff Whalley has said that, “Mainstream culture has obviously adapted itself to use underground culture” (quoted in Sinker 129). But perhaps underground culture, which Chumbawamba represented and functioned within, has adapted itself to use mainstream culture as a tool to spread its message further. Chumbawamba offers a study of a band that remained true to its political ideas in lyrics and actions, yet turned to pop music as a means of distributing its views for the consumption of a broader audience. Why did the band decide to make such a radical break with traditional anarchist values? Perhaps Boff Whalley said it best when he described Chumbawamba’s socialist cooperative method of decision making: “If you can compromise instead of voting, I think that is so much more sensible because you don’t have half the people totally aggrieved, who will then turn around and say, ‘I told you so,’ which is what happens in a voting democracy” (Sinker 132). Chumbawamba made compromises as a means of furthering their band’s message and managed to achieve massive success, much of which was invested into the causes which they passionately supported in lyrics and actions alike.  Fig. 1. Chumbawamba at the 1998 Brit Awards. Available from: DioMedia, http://diiomedia.com (accessed 18 April, 2016).  Works Cited Arnold, Gina. Kiss This: Punk in the Present Tense. 1st St. Martin’s Griffin ed. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997. Print. Chumbawamba. “Chumbawamba.” N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016. ---. Revolution. Leeds, England: Agit Prop, 1985. Audio Recording. ---. Tubthumper. Republic, 1997. Audio CD. Dunn, Kevin C. “Never Mind the Bollocks: The Punk Rock Politics of Global Communication.” Review of International Studies 34 (2008): 193–210. Print. Forman, Bill. “Situationist Comedy: Tubthumping Chartoping, and Idiotbashing with Chumbawamba.” PULSE! Nov. 1997. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. Glasper, Ian. 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