Chubby And The Gang – “I Hate The Radio”

Sirus f Gahan

Chubby And The Gang – “I Hate The Radio”

Sirus f Gahan

Last year, UK punks Chubby And The Gang ended their terrific debut album Speed Kills with “Grenfell Forever,” a tender Billy Bragg-style protest song dedicated to all the people killed in the London tower fire. Next month, Chubby And The Gang will follow Speed Kills with their excellently titled sophomore LP The Mutt’s Nuts, and that album’s closing song will have decidedly less lofty goals. It’s called “I Hate The Radio,” and it’s about hating the radio.

“I Hate The Radio” is not, thank god, a protest song against pop music. Instead, it digs into a classic pop trope. You’re heartbroken, and you’re hearing all these songs that remind you of past good times. (I think of this as the Ne-Yo “So Sick” concept, but there are about a million songs about the same thing.) “I Hate The Radio” is also the Chubby And The Gang song most likely to get played on at least a couple of radio stations. It’s a dizzily catchy power-pop number, and the only thing that really connects it to punk rock is the thick yobbishness of Charlie Manning Walker’s accent.

Talking about the song, Manning Walker says, “This song is about when you finish a relationship with someone but you have a certain association between them and a song, and then that song comes on the radio. It’s like, ‘Man, I never want to hear this song again!’ And then of course you get In the car and it comes on.” With the release of The Mutt’s Nuts looming, we’ve already heard the early singles “Lightning Don’t Strike Twice,” “Life’s Lemons,” and “Coming Up Tough.” Below, check out the new “I Hate The Radio” video from director Molly Manning Walker.

The Mutt’s Nuts is out 8/27 on Partisan. Pre-order it here.

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