Bang! by World Party

Bang!, World Party's third album, arrived on April 20, 1993, and for once the name on the sleeve meant more than one man. Karl Wallinger, who started the project in London in 1985 after quitting the Waterboys, had made the earlier records largely on his own; this time World Party became a proper trio, with David Catlin-Birch on guitars and Chris Sharrock, later of Oasis, on drums, plus a handful of guests. Wallinger still sang, handled keyboards, guitars and bass, and produced it himself.

The sound is sunny, big-hearted rock with its record collection on show, and "Is It Like Today?", a thoughtful, midtempo hit, is the one radio kept. "Hollywood" and "Give It All Away" fill out the picture. A 2001 reissue on Papillon swapped the cover art, folded the reprise of "Give It All Away" into the main track and dropped the hidden "Kuwait City". Goodbye Jumbo came before it, Egyptology after.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.