Goodbye Jumbo is the second studio album by Welsh-British alternative rock band World Party, released in May 1990 on Ensign Records.
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. "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.
Background Wallinger used the advance money from Chrysalis Records to install a 24-track machine in a rented space, paying a few hundred pounds a month for the location. He reckoned that over the course of three years that he had accumulated 62 reels of tape containing roughly 70 hours of music. Some of the material consisted of note-for-note recreations of songs from the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Wallinger failed to meet several deadlines imposed by the record company, prompting them to suggest pairing him with a recording engineer to push along the process. Eventually, Jon Blaney was brought in as an audio engineer, having previously worked on Lovesexy and one of Keith Richards albums.
The album began to pick up momentum when Wallinger began collaborating with other musicians, including Jeff Trott, who had previously played with the Waterboys. Certain songs on the album took longer to finalise than others. "And I Fell Back Alone" was mixed once whereas "When the Rainbow Comes" received "something in the region of 200 mixes" according to Wallinger. Another song, "Thank You World" was roughly 7 minutes and 30 seconds at one point before going through several different iterations. As Wallinger explained:
Critical reception
Writing for Spin, Jon Young deemed Goodbye Jumbo a "winning opus" and said that frontman Karl Wallinger's "unabashed enthusiasm" and "ability to craft killer pop tunes" prevent the album's liberal referencing of earlier musical styles from becoming "sterile". Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot considered the album to be heavily influenced by the Beatles' "sense of pop and studio craft", further commenting that the "biting" humour and irony in its lyrics are effectively balanced by upbeat "melodies and moments". Chris Willman of the Los Angeles Times stated that Wallinger's "Lennonisms sound somehow endemic, not affected", and that the album never lapses into "petty theft" despite its numerous influences. In Rolling Stone, Don McLeese wrote that "Goodbye Jumbo displays an ambition as broad as the emotional range of its music", and that while "Wallinger's missionary zeal occasionally belabors his messages", the music "is sufficiently vital to overpower resistance". The Village Voices Robert Christgau, however, dismissed the album as a "dud".
At the end of 1990, Goodbye Jumbo was named the year's best album by Q. It was also voted the fifteenth best album of 1990 in The Village Voices year-end Pazz & Jop critics' poll. At the Grammy Awards' 1991 ceremony, Goodbye Jumbo was nominated for Best Alternative Music Performance. In 2000, it was ranked 94th on Qs list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever".
In 2000 it was voted number 474 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.
Track listing
Personnel Credits for Goodbye Jumbo adapted from album liner notes.
Musicians
Karl Wallinger – vocals, all instruments , composition, design, engineering, production Guy Chambers – drum samples , synthesizer , sampler , backwards piano , acoustic piano , harmonium , Chris Sharrock – drum kit Jeff Trott – slide guitar , electric guitar , 12-string acoustic guitar Jerod Minnies – acoustic guitar Martyn Swain – bass guitar Chris Whitten – drum kit Steve Wickham – violin Roy Morgan – tambourine Dave Catlin-Birch – guitar Sophia Ramos – backing vocals Sinéad O'Connor – backing vocals
Additional personnel
Joe Blaney – engineering Karl Wallinger and Stephanie Nash – artwork Steven Fargnoli – management Karl Wallinger and Michael Nash – design Steve Wallace – photography Tim Young – digital editing, mastering
Charts + Chart performance for Goodbye Jumbo Chart (1990) Peakposition Australian Albums (ARIA)70 Canadian Albums (RPM)26
Certifications
References
External links