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Chumbawamba Returning With New Album, Bassist

The delightfully topical Chumbawamba will soon be back on the airwaves with a new album and a new bass player.

The group's follow-up to the hugely successful "Tubthumper" (see "Top 25 Albums '98: Big Sellers, By The Numbers") will be titled "WYSIWYG," nerd-talk for "What You See Is What You Get.

The 22-track CD is scheduled to be released on April 4, and the first single, "She's Got All The Friends," will be shipped to radio on February 22.

A spokesperson for the band's label told MTV News that the single will not be issued commercially on this side of the ocean, meaning U.S. fans will not be privy to the overtly controversial European b-side, a tongue-in-cheek ditty called "Passenger List For Doomed Flight #1721." The track reportedly lists all the people the band would like to see in a plane crash, including U2's Bono, "Ally McBeal," Bill Gates, and Bill Clinton. According to the spokesperson, there

are no plans to release the track in the U.S. in the foreseeable future.

Chumbawamba has also announced that seven-year veteran Paul 'PJ' Greco, who played bass, harmonica, and accordion, has left the band and will be replaced by longtime studio cohort Neil Ferguson. Ferguson is described as a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter ,and singer whose duties have previously included live and studio engineering for the band. He's credited with guitar and keyboards as well as production and engineering on "Tubthumper.

Greco apparently moved to Koln, Germany, at the end of 1998 when Chumbawamba went on a hiatus and subsequently became involved in musical projects he has now opted to stick with full time. According to a post on the group's official Web site, there were "no big arguments, no legal wranglings, no musical differences, no time in rehab and no exposes in the Sunday papers, just a man on a mission to make his own music.

Meanwhile, the new CD, "WYSIWYG," will include

extensive artwork and liner notes as well as the following tracks:

  • "I'm With Stupid"
  • "Shake Baby Shake"
  • "Pass It Along"
  • "Hey, Hey We're The Junkies"
  • "The Health & Happiness Show"
  • "I'm Coming Out"
  • "I'm In Trouble Again"
  • "Social Dogma"
  • "WWW Dot"
  • "New York Mining Disaster"
  • "I'm Not Sorry, I Was Having Fun"
  • "Jesus In Vegas"
  • "The Standing Still"
  • "She's Got All The Friends"
  • "Ladies For Compassionate Lynching"
  • "Celebration, Florida"
  • "Moses With A Gun"
  • "The Physical Impossibility"
  • "Smart Bomb"
  • "Knickers"
  • "Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie"
  • "Dumbing Down

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