Tracks 9, 10 and 11 from Bang! (1993)

Tracks 12, 13, 14 and 15 from Egyptology (1997)

Tracks 16 and 17 from Dumbing Up (2000)

My first memory of World Party is my brother and I seeing the video for "Call Me Up" in 1997 and my brother buying Egyptology soon after (it's very possible I'd heard "Way Down Now" or something before that and didn't know who it was by). That was right around the time I was starting to shake off being a grunge kid and develop a deep appreciation for power pop and piano-based bands like Ben Folds Five and music that sounds like the Beatles, including the Beatles, so that was really the right time for me to hear World Party. Two years later, we heard the Robbie Williams cover of the Egyptology track "She's The One," which hit #1 in the UK. World Party member Guy Chambers was a frequent collaborator with Williams, so I always assumed it was a friendly, mutually beneficial thing that Williams made a World Party song into a pop hit, but apparently Wallinger didn't know about the cover until it was out, and was always irritated about it (and Williams casually claiming in concert that he wrote the song himself). 

Eventually I reached back and heard Goodbye Jumbo and other World Party records and kind of realized that that's the stuff the band was primarily known for, not Egyptology, which is still the album I know the best, although I think the first four albums are all on a pretty equal level of quality. I also really like the band Wallinger played in before founding World Party, The Waterboys. And I've come to be really fond of that '80s/early '90s moment of '60s nostalgia, World Party may have been the most Beatles-obsessed band in England in the years before Oasis showed up (World Party drummer Chris Sharrock later toured with Oasis, as it happens). 

Wallinger worked with Sinead O'Connor before her rise to fame -- she sang backing vocals on a few World Party songs, including "Hawaiian Island World" and "Sweet Soul Dream," and Wallinger arranged O'Connor's classic "Black Boys On Mopeds." Wallinger was the musical director for Reality Bites, and I always really liked the World Party song on the soundtrack, "When You Come Back To Me." So it's annoying that it's one of the few songs on the soundtrack album that isn't currently available on Spotify. 

The 5th and final proper World Party album Dumbing Up was released in 2000, and Wallinger later revealed that he'd suffered a brain aneurysm in 2001. After a few years of recovery, though, Wallinger did return to touring with World Party, and also worked on the 2008 project Big Blue Ball with Peter Gabriel. World Party's 2012 box set Arkeology featured five discs of rarities and archival material as well as a bunch of new studio songs, and that's pretty much the last music we got from World Party. I wasn't shocked to hear of Wallinger's death considering what he's been through, but I hope he enjoyed his later years, he was a really great musician and songwriter.