Songs were Karl Wallinger’s compass, melody his north star. When I interviewed him in 2012, over shepherd’s pie at the Groucho Club, he described himself as being a “song creature all my life”. The best tracks by World Party, whom he fronted, sound like a man trying to cram all the love and joy of his own fandom into four minutes, to distil the essence of Bob Dylan, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Sly Stone, Van Morrison, the Beach Boys, perhaps above all the Beatles, into one bubbling, funky, heartfelt and slightly ramshackle homebrew.
Wallinger, who has died aged 66, pulled it off more than a few times. The big hitters in the World Party canon – Ship of Fools, Put the Message in the Box, Way Down Now, Is it Like Today?, She’s the One – sound like the best kind of pop music: ageless, beyond genre. Turn to them at any time and they will brighten any room.
