This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
The title acronym stands, of course, for What You See is What You Get — which is, of course, the exact opposite of what you should expect from anarchist-popster collective Chumbawamba.
Especially if you’re expecting, say, another rousing round of drinking-song pop a la Tubthumping, their surprise 1997 hit. You won’t find anything so gauche as a hit single on this 11th album. Instead, the eight current Chumba chums offer up an ambitious but unfocused chunk of leftist cabaret that comes off as the musical equivalent of British music hall — 22 quirky, catchy mini-tunes that speed by in 47 minutes, with the band jumping from style to style, segueing from song to song and using their poison pens to skewer everything from Woodstock to boy bands to the Internet to our celebrity-worshipping culture. Some of the tunes have the skewed humour and ’50s-style showtune vibe of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Too bad that by the time you hear enough to hum one, they’ve already time-warped to the next one. You hate to knock ’em — but at least you know they’ll get up again.
