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World Party / vinyl reissues

All five studio albums reissued

By Paul Sinclair

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Karl Wallinger has approved vinyl reissues of World Party‘s five studio albums, including the acclaimed Goodbye Jumbo (1990) and the 1993 hit Bang!

The other long-players are Private Revolution from 1986, Egyptology (1997) and Dumbing Up, which was the last studio album issued way back in 2000.

All the albums will be issued on 180g black vinyl and Dumbing Up (which will be a 2LP set) sees its debut on the format. The schedule is roughly one release a month, starting with Private Revolution in February.

Self-produced and largely self-played by sixties-obsessed Wallinger, World Party has essentially been Karl’s solo project since he left The Waterboys in 1986. ‘They’ released an impressive run of singles in the late eighties and early nineties including ‘Ship Of Fools’, ‘Message in the Box’, ‘Way Down Now’ and ‘Beautiful Dream’ most of which failed to chart, although the sublime ‘Is It Like Today?’ did creep into the UK top 20 helping Bang! reach an impressive – and unlikely – number two position in the British album charts. ‘She’s The One’ from Egyptology was covered by Robbie Williams and reached number one in 1999.

It doesn’t look like there’s any CD reissues to go with the vinyl and anyone expecting some deluxe editions is probably out of luck. When SDE talked to Karl back in 2012 this is what he had to say on the subject: “I don’t like it when you go to buy a CD and it’s got five other tracks at the end that are basically rubbish versions of other tracks on the album. I hate that”. He also doesn’t like greatest hits, only grudgingly releasing 2007’s Best in Show in the USA and Australia when told he needed something to support the tour.

SDE presumes these will be remastered, even though Karl also told us “I’m not really in to remastering tracks we’ve heard before, I don’t really agree with that” (!). We’ll confirm when that information is forthcoming.

All the albums are great, but Goodbye Jumbo is probably World Party’s masterpiece, wonderful catchy pop songs, beautifully recorded, exhibiting a brilliant mesh of influences (Prince, Beatles etc.) and lyrically powerful with a hippy heart delivering messages around ecology and love.

The reissue campaign starts with Private Revolution on 26 February 2021 and moves through the albums every three or four weeks. These are issued on Karl’s own Seaview label. Bang! has the ‘new’ cover art from 2000, which is a bit of a shame. I can’t find any pre-order links for Egyptology, yet.

Private Revolution (1986)

  1. “Private Revolution” (4:01)
  2. “Making Love (To the World)” (2:30)
  3. “Ship of Fools” (4:27)
  4. “All Come True” (5:52)
  5. “Dance of the Hoppy Lads” (0:44)
  6. “It Can Be Beautiful (Sometimes)” (3:00)
  7. “The Ballad of the Little Man” (5:02)
  8. “Hawaiian Island World” (4:20)
  9. “All I Really Want to Do” (4:43)
  10. “World Party” (4:36)
  11. “It’s All Mine” (5:33)

Goodbye Jumbo (1990)

  1. “Is It Too Late?” – 4:24
  2. “Way Down Now” – 3:49
  3. “When the Rainbow Comes” – 4:58
  4. “Put the Message in the Box” – 4:16
  5. “Ain’t Gonna Come Till I’m Ready” – 5:05
  6. “And I Fell Back Alone” – 3:57
  7. “Take It Up” – 4:37
  8. “God on My Side” – 4:14
  9. “Show Me to the Top” – 5:15 (contains untitled hidden track beginning at 4:42)
  10. “Love Street” – 4:21
  11. “Sweet Soul Dream” – 4:39
  12. “Thank You World” – 3:47

Bang! (1993)

  1. “Kingdom Come” – 5:27
  2. “Is It Like Today?” – 5:11
  3. “What Is Love All About?” – 4:06
  4. “And God Said…” – 0:26
  5. “Give It All Away”– 4:23
  6. “Sooner or Later” – 4:34
  7. “Hollywood” – 4:09
  8. “Radio Days” – 4:53
  9. “Rescue Me” – 6:06
  10. “Sunshine” – 4:31
  11. “All I Gave” – 3:47
  12. “Give It All Away (Reprise)”

Egyptology (1997)

  1. “It Is Time” (3:20)
  2. “Beautiful Dream” (4:45)
  3. “Call Me Up” (2:57)
  4. “Vanity Fair” (3:33)
  5. “She’s the One” (4:56)
  6. “Vocal Interlude” (0:24)
  7. “Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb” (5:58)
  8. “Hercules” (3:15)
  9. “Love Is Best” (3:03)
  10. “Rolling Off a Log” (5:54)
  11. “Strange Groove” (4:10)
  12. “The Whole of the Night” (3:15)
  13. “Piece of Mind” (4:58)
  14. “This World” (4:21)
  15. “Always” (4:23)

Dumbing Up (2000)

  1. “Here Comes the Future” (4:44)
  2. “What Does It Mean Now?” (4:59)
  3. “Another 1000 Years” (5:29)
  4. “High Love” (6:51)
  5. “Best Place I’ve Ever Been” (3:31)
  6. “You’re a Hurricane, I’m a Caravan” (4:00)
  7. “Who are You?” (5:08)
  8. “See the Light” (5:19)
  9. “Santa Barbara” (4:17)
  10. “All the Love that’s Wasted” (4:33)
  11. “Little Bit of Perfection” (5:26)
  12. “Always on My Mind” (8:34)

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