Unabashedly political, Slap! refers to the Bader-Meinhof Gang, Bernadette Devlin and the Irish troubles, Tiananmen Square and the 1956 Hungarian uprising (which receives the studiously ironic "That's How Grateful We Are," about the destruction of a statue of Stalin). The politics are salted into an entertaining mix of beats and hooks that make the whole album easy to digest. Entertaining music designed to make the listener think -- not a bad deal. ~ Steven McDonald, All Music Guide
Slap! is a 1990 album by anarchist punk band Chumbawamba. It was a radical redefinition of the band's sound and attitude. The songs now inspired dancing more than moshing, and the lyrics were celebratory as opposed to victimist.
About an incident in 1921 Dresden when fighting between workers and the German army lead to damage to a Peter Paul Rubens painting in the Zwinger Gallery, as the reaction was more critical of the damage to artwork than the loss of life
About the bad working conditions in Soviet-era Hungary that lead to the short-lived Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and the destruction of a statue of Stalin, as a metaphor for the conditions of the working class around the world
