The Record Club: The Go! Team's Ian Parton on balancing pop with politics: "We've got funkier but the songs have become more meaningful"

The Go! Team were the latest guests on the Record Club with Bowers & Wilkins, where vocalist and producer Ian Parton opened up about the band's approach to balancing pop melodies with political themes. 

The band - who formed in 2000 and were nominated for the 2004 Mercury Prize with their debut album Thunder, Lightning, Strike - have just issued their seventh album, Get Up Sequences: Part Two, a continuation of their 2021 LP of the same name. 

Joining BBC Radio's Jess Iszatt on Wednesday (February 22), the band's vocalist and main producer Ian Parton discussed how the band mix their pop hooks with more serious themes.

"From album to album, The Go! Team's got funkier, I think," Ian said. "It's got better at this Jackson 5 kind of groove, but at the same time, going in the opposite direction, [the] songs have become more meaningful as well and weighty."

Watch The Go! Team's Ian Parton discuss balancing pop with politics on The Record Club below

MORE: The Go! Team's Official Charts history in full

Watch this week's episode of The Record Club with The Go! Team in full here

He continued: "I mean, I claim they always have been. A song like Mayday [from 2018 album Semicircle] is about a girl in trouble, it's not 'woo! Isn't everything brilliant! Let's party!'

"I could go through everything [and do the same], there's a real balancing with how you do it [whether that be through] making things cryptic [etc.]."

Designed as a book club for albums, The Record Club in association with Bowers & Wilkins is a bi-monthly livestream, hosted by BBC Music’s Jess Iszatt, on Facebook Live, Twitch, Twitter and YouTube Live every other Wednesday.

Fans are encouraged to order the selected album from their favourite local record shop either in-store or on home delivery, listen to it in full, then tune into the broadcast armed with their questions for the artist and a chance to win a prize.