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World Party’s Karl Wallinger was a pick’n’mix songwriter with a total, titanic love of music
The World Party frontman, who has died aged 66, was not the 60s revivalist some critics dismissed him as – his work was extraordinary in its breadth and political bite
World Party were sometimes dismissed as 1960s revivalists, but although the through line is Wallinger’s dedication to pop classicism, the music is more diverse than that might suggest, incorporating funk, country, synth-pop, folk, mock-opera and nu-soul. The box set Arkeology is a colourful pick’n’mix of of scattershot creativity which also harbours brilliant songs such as Another World, a beautiful apologia from mankind to the Earth it has destroyed. The humanity in the songs feels real precisely because it is conflicted, the love – of music, mankind, our planet – served with scathing wit and a hefty dose of north Wales scepticism.
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