iTunes Music Review - Goodbye Jumbo

• Goodbye Jumbo

  • 8 out of 5
  • World Party
  • Reviewed by Robyn Weisman
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  • Released in 1990, World Party's Goodbye Jumbo was out of print for several years until just this month, when a remastered version was released in the United States. It's coincidental perhaps. I loved this CD when it came out but haven't listened to it for years, and so I guess I'm not the only one who thought it was due for a revival.

    I'm reviewing the original 1990 version, so I can't comment on any sonic improvements. The songs themselves are brilliant. There are hints of the Beatles and Big Star, but Karl Wallinger (who is World Party) does not sound derivative. His songs take unexpected melodic turns, such as the impromptu recital of "Mr. Postman" in the track "When the Rainbow Comes," and his lyrics are at once hopeful and despairing of the world in which he lives.

    And eerily the lyrics read as though they could have been written yesterday, when paterfamilias Bush was in the White House. In "God on my Side," Wallinger sings:

    Well, I see you objecting so strongly
    To the ways of the liberal disease
    And your armchair satisfaction
    As you narrow the meaning of free

    This album may be called Goodbye Jumbo, but I say, Welcome back, World Party. Maybe it's time, Karl, you put out a new album.

    Favorite Songs: "Way Down Now," "When the Rainbow Comes," and pretty much all the rest of them.

   

   

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• TMO Staff
• alternative