Wonderland (2001)

An appropriate title, part recorded in Los Angeles with Danny Saber, the charlies return on their best form. Tim has brought a new trick to the party too - a new falsetto vocal stylee that ensures the songs are well funked up. It dances and grooves like never before. The most danceable record since well, er, ever! A masterpiece.

Rating 5/5

Chart position 2

Reviews
 

Matt B (Charlatans Forum - 2008)

Wonderland seems to me to divide fans more than any other album... many think its their best whilst others seem to think it was the begninning of the end for the band (until YCMP perhaps?). Whilst UATL and Simpatico would consistently be somewhere near the bottom of most peoples lists and UAUO somewhere near the top, Wonderland either appears near the top or near the bottom - why is that?

I think its a funky, sexy, soulful, experimental and consistently great pop record:

You're So Pretty We're So Pretty - Great opener, should've been the single instead of AMNTBT. Non-Charlatans fans I know love this song.
Judas - fantastic bassline. Wasnt sure about the vocals at first but then realised they match the music perfectly.
Love Is The Key - Continues the funk/ soul start although not their strongest single
A Man Needs To Be Told - Surely the bands defining Marmite moment? Ive seen reviews claiming it to be their finest song yet know people who cant stand it. I KNOW its a good song, Ive just never truly "got it".
I Just Can't Get Over Losing You - The one track I skip. Verses are fine but the chorus is just far too cheesy
The Belle and The Butterfly - Prior to Sunset & Vine thought this was the bands best instrumental. Love the way the drums kick in...
And If I Fall - Another great bassline. Kinda of Charlatans doing balladry and hip hop into one with great results.
Wake Up - Another odd sounding track at first with about 5 different musical styles going on but great verses and a catchy chorus see it through
Is It In You? - For me, the moment that seals Wonderland as a great album. In my top 5 Charlatans songs and surprised it doesnt get much of a mention on the forum. Powerful, sexy, dirty groove of a song and the piano in the chorus is sublime.
Ballad Of The Band - although not the strongest track on the album, its probably the one that sets the tone/ defines it for the rest of it. Party time!
Right On - The most straight forward song here. So obviously Charlatans and so good that it didnt need complicating.
Love To You - One of Tims best lyrics. A slow starter that deceptively changes pace and a good way to end the album.

The vocals might put some people off I suppose but after the initial shock I had soon forgotten the change in style and the album blew me away. Time to dig it out...

Pete (thecharlatans.info 2001)

Very few bands get stronger with the passing of time, many, as somebody famous once said, simply fade away. Not the Charlatans, they return ready to rock, with new ideas, renewed energy and a sexy skip in their stride that suggests this is one story that will go on for a long time yet.

Opener, You're So Pretty We're So Pretty positively swaggers, it has self belief and confidence written all over it - the sound of a band who want to kick ass, to show the world how good they are - sit up and take notice chapter 2, or is it 3, is about to begin.

Next up is Judas, the much publicised Tim Burgess falsetto kicks in amid frenzied fizzy hammond licks and kicking bass topped of with electronic wizardry, it showcases their fuelled up lets dance attitude to the hilt. The vocals are a magical expression of love and belief, a track you can't sit still to, urging you off your seat to sing along and click your fingers like a mad rock n roll star!

Chart friendly Love is the Key positively makes ya wanna jump up and down and the singalong chorus is sure to be a live smash. A Man Needs To Be Told sees a more sensitive, kinder vibe enter the fray with anti macho lyrics and dripping sensitive soul being taken another level with touching beauty and delicious sentiment, lighters in the air anyone?

Rawk returns with I Just Can't Get Over Losing You, a brooding monster of song, booming bass sprinkled with falsetto and hammond sniping into the mix to provide a rock soul combination to savour. The Belle and the Butterfly is a jumping loopy instrumental that sees the direction bounce into the nightclubs to devastating effect - rocking hard, yet groovy as a lava lamp on acid, this storms to climax after climax.

And If I fall highlights just how much Tims lyrics have matured with the kind of thoughtful sensitivity that sees him exclaiming - " I wanna touch somebody for real, I wanna take away their bad things, for sure, I wanna change their world". A classic and a Christmas no1 just waiting to happen, possibly their finest moment yet.

Wake Up is the song Primal Scream have been promising for years and Tim takes soul and emotion to new levels with this upbeat funkadelic oddysey. Sing a long songs have never sounded so right, a triumph over cynicism "fuck all your pride for the bigger picture" exclaims Tim showing us once again that the days of " have you seen my polar bear? Its that white thing over there!" are consigned to history, this is man with a mission and a belief.

Tim turns up the sex now with cries of Is It In You - "I'm a hunk of burning love, You're the real thing, I can't seem to get enough". The sexiest Charlatans song for ages that impresses most with undying passion and pride.

Anyway I'm running out of energy and besides I won't describe the last 3 tracks, Ballad Of The Band, Right On, and Love to You - lets just say they are as mega as the rest - go and listen yourself and get the best album of 2001. If you wanna dance, if you wanna be a popstar, and if you wanna feel like the best person in the world, you need Wonderland!

Ted Kessler (NME 2001)

Swaggering survivors best record yet. The story so far: our five heroes have battled through towering adversity (surely you don't need their various crushing mishaps listed again) to become the most durable British rock band of the last 12 years. A brilliant singles band. A terrific live proposition. And now a great album band, too. Who'd have guessed they'd pull that last feat out of the locker this late in the game?

There can be few bands, past or present, who could use their singer's emigration to the other side of the world as a springboard to creative rejuvenation, but that's what's happened here. With Tim Burgess now living in LA, The Charlatans have been reborn. They have a new sound, a warm, lush and funky noise powered by producer Danny Saber's sympathetic programming alongside Tony Rogers' bold keyboards, and they've created a great party record with it. We're talking about an Ecstasy and cocaine party, to be precise (it's no surprise that the album's good times centrepiece 'Ballad Of The Band' was originally entitled "lanocce'... must we spell it out?) and the various mood-swings that any affair fuelled by those chemicals involves. There's the brash, up-for-anything opening trio of 'You're So Pretty - We're So Pretty', 'Judas' and 'Love Is The Key', the latter being the song The Black Crowes have been grasping at for so many years now. There's the soft- focus confessional lovers rock of 'A Man Needs To Be Told' (hee, hee) and the quite beautiful My Bloody Valentine-play-Memphis flutter of the closing 'Love To You': not only an ambitious song but also Burgess' most affecting vocal display to date. There's the brittle comedown self-awareness of 'And If I Fall'and 'Right On', the pin-eyed lust of 'Is It In You?'( "Is it in you?" gasps Tim, "I'm a hunk of burning love'.., ooh la, la!) and the excellent Sly Stone freak-out of 'Ballad Of The Band'. It's a big, mental party. And in the middle of that party Tim Burgess is dancing with his wife and singing love songs to her. Quite often in falsetto. Yes, falsetto, although it's more Curtis Mayfield (slightly too obviously in 'Wake Up') than Barry Gibb. It suits him far more than the Dylan affectations of 'Us And Us Only'. When he's not singing falsetto as is the case for over half the album - he's actually in the best form of his career. This is Tim Burgess finally, really singing from the heart, unselfconsciously and true. It's great.

So let's recap on how 'Wonderland' updates The Charlatans' story: an equally light and heavy party record; a sunny new atmosphere; good singing; good sounds. Hmm, seems their excellent tale still has some way to travel. (8)

Toby Manning (Q Magazine 2001)

Alone among their baggy contemporaries, The Charlatans have survived with dignity intact. Although not immune to the crime, indulgence and sheer bad luck that has bedevilled the ex-Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, the Tim Burgess-fronted quintet seems to bounce back stronger every time. After the surprise treat of 1999's Dylan-esque Us And Us Only, The Charlatans have reinvented themselves once again: as a rock-dance act. Sound familiar? Not a bit of it.

Wonderland, their seventh album, is no bug-eyed baggy retread. Produced by Danny Sabre of Black Grape fame, it's an effortless melding of Stones and Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield and computers, all topped off with Tim Burgess's fetching new falsetto. If their last album was testament to the power of love (Burgess was then newly wed), Wonderland is testament to a more carnal power. For the first time since Weirdo, The Charlatans sound sexy and there's a breath-taking physicality from the swaggering opener You're So Pretty – We're So Pretty through to the sleazy Is It In You? A Man Needs To Be Told is almost too much: trembly falsetto, aching steel guitar and liquid piano to weaken the toughest of knees. With every track a winner, Wonderland is a truly thing of wonder.