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| The Boy Bands Have Won | ||||
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| Studio album by Chumbawamba | ||||
| Released | 3 March 2008 | |||
| Recorded | 2007 | |||
| Genre | Folk, pop | |||
| Length | 49:32 | |||
| Label | No Masters, Westpark | |||
| Chumbawamba chronology | ||||
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| Allmusic |   |
The Boy Bands Have Won is the shortened title of the 13th studio album by British music group Chumbawamba, released in 2008. The whole title is The Boy Bands Have Won, and All the Copyists and the Tribute Bands and the TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture to Be Shaped by Mimicry, Whether from Lack of Ideas or from Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try to Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother's Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don't Just Regurgitate Creative History, or Hold Art and Music and Literature as Fixed, Untouchable and Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try to 'Guard' Any Particular Form of Music Are, Like the Copyists and Manufactured Bands, Doing It the Worst Disservice, Because the Only Thing That You Can Do to Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It's Over, Then It's Done, and the Boy Bands Have Won. Its full title contains 865 characters, and holds the record for the longest album title, as of August 2009.
The album continues their move into politically and socially aware folk music. Themes addressed on this album include suicide bombers, Philip Larkin, social networking websites, surviving a firing squad, evolution and the pains of the workplace. Also, on "Sing About Love" a heartfelt plea for a time when they wouldn't feel the need to "sing about the thing [they] always sing about".
The album was recorded by the five-piece line-up of Jude Abbott, Lou Watts, Boff Whalley, Neil Ferguson and Phil 'Ron' Moody that comprises the Chumbawamba of recent times but features guest appearances by several other artists.
The album's title was inspired by Fiona Apple's famous 1999 album When the Pawn…, whose title is over 400 characters long. The 2007 Soulwax release Most of the Remixes then took the title of longest album name when it was released with a 552 character title. The Boy Bands Have Won has since set the world record for album title length at 865 characters upon its release.
All tracks written, arranged and produced by Chumbawamba except where noted.
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