My Dad bought an cassette tape when I was in the sixth grade and I remember listening to it everytime I got into the car for a good three months. That album was World Party’s Goodbye Jumbo, released in 1990. That album is still one of my favorite releases of the 1990s.
World Party is the the genius of one man, Karl Wallinger. He writes, produces, records and plays almost all the instruments on their albums. You could say he is the white, less funky, Welsh version of Lenny Kravitz. Or perhaps Kravitz is the less pop-crafty, black, American version of Wallinger. Either or, Wallinger has a knack for melody and sporadic, yet sometimes fantastic pop-rock songwriting. Clearly his creative peak on all levels was Goodbye Jumbo, but almost every album he has released has had a track or two which made the album worth buying. Examples include “Ship of Fools” from Private Revolution and ”Is It Like Today?” from Bang!.
I view World Party and their Goodbye Jumbo album as the perfect interpretation of all classic pop-rock music before it. Wallinger was somehow able to take heavy influence from Dylan, The Beatles and The Stones and somehow make it sound like his own.
Here are a few tunes from Goodbye Jumbo (someday I will figure out how to post mp3s on this thing and not have to post videos). The band in these videos was his touring band. Random fact: Wallinger was left-handed and played a right-handed guitar without the strings reset. In other words, he played the guitar upside down.
“Put The Message In The Box”: Wallinger plays every instrument and sings all the vocal parts on this track.
“Way Down Now”: Notice the repeating ”Woo-Woo” tribute to the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” at the end of the song.
It is nice to find someone else who loves World Party too! I was in college when this came out and I still love it. Great album! Thanks for reminding me!