www.tism.wanker.com is the fourth studio album by Australian alternative rock group TISM (This Is Serious Mum), released in June 1998. The album peaked at number 26 on the ARIA charts.
At the ARIA Music Awards of 1998, the album was nominated for the ARIA Award for Best Independent Release.
The title references an internet URL which, at the time of release, was a subdomain (of wanker.com) provided by a friendly person overseas who had registered wanker.com, as TISM were not able to obtain their preferred domain, wanker.com.au, due to Australian domain regulations. However, the web hosting fees were not paid, subsequently it was taken down by the hosting ISP several months after launch and has not been available since.
Early editions of the CD featured a CD-ROM component. The program asks the user whether they want to continuerepeatedly. Eventually, it responds "OK then. Downloading virus." No virus is actually downloaded.
In October 2009, the album was released to iTunes for digital download, with nine bonus tracks from the band's 1996 gospel demo session No Penis, No God as bonus tracks. On 16 April 2024, No Penis, No God was released on limited-edition bootleg-style LP, with five unreleased bonus tracks from the sessions.
On 12 October 2022, the album was announced for a November reissue on CD and blue vinyl, with the CD containing five of the six actual songs from the original 1998 bonus CD, Att: Shock Records Faulty Pressing Do Not Manufacture (the rest of the tracks were poems and recordings of the band talking amongst each other), plus "Drop the 'Tude", a B-side to the "I Might Be a Cunt, but I'm Not a Fucking Cunt" single.
In May 2023, the band released a seven-disc box set called the Wanker Box, celebrating the album's 25th anniversary. This features the original 12-track album, the six bonus songs included on the 2022 CD reissue, plus 12 songs from the rare Att: Shock Records Faulty Pressing Do Not Manufacture compilation (originally included as a bonus disc with the 1998 CD release), mixes and B-sides and more than a dozen previously unreleased tracks. The riff to "Choose Lose", one of the unreleased tracks from the boxset, would later be used for the band's 2024 single "Death to Art", while the lyrics were later rewritten and used as the basis for the unreleased song "Sickie", which was only performed live in 1998 and 1999.
Singles
"Yob" was released in November 1997 as the album's lead single. This song details the "ingredients" which go into making up a "yobbo".
"I Might Be a Cunt, but I'm Not a Fucking Cunt" was released in April 1998 as the album's second single. The song peaked at number 90 on the ARIA charts.
In 2015, when asked if the choice to release "I Might Be a Cunt, but I'm Not a Fucking Cunt" as a follow up single after commercial success, was meant as a mocking message to the music industry. Humphrey B. Flaubert stated that it was instead hubris, as they had believed that their radio play at the time would allow them to get away with anything, but instead the band never truly recovered.
"Whatareya?" was released in July 1998 as the album's third single. The song peaked at number 66 on the ARIA charts.
| rev2 = Beat
| rev2Score = 7/10
Jonathan Lewis from AllMusic said "www.tism.wanker.com was a misbegotten attempt to recreate the success of its predecessor, but it fails on most counts. Machiavelli was a funny album: tasteless, yet tongue-in-cheek enough to charm listeners. www.tism.wanker.com, however, was simply offensive. The humour was forced, the lyrics less clever than on previous outings and the music was becoming stale." Lewis said "Highlights were few and far between, although 'Thunderbirds Are Coming Out' was a standout."
Track listings
Att: Shock Records Faulty Pressing Do Not Manufacture
Initial pressings of the album were shipped with a bonus disc. The CD in question looks like a blank CDR, with texta writing that reads "Att: SHOCK RECORDS FAULTY PRESSING DO NOT MANUFACTURE"; thinking it was serious, some retail chains actually returned boxes of the "fake" CDs unopened. In reality, it featured six outtakes from the wanker.com sessions and several poems, bookended by low-quality audio recordings of Hitler-Barassi and Flaubert discussing various topics whilst watching a pornographic film.
The "conversation" tracks have never been given an official title. For the iTunes re-release, these tracks were appended to the start/end of the titled tracks. The titles were available on TISM's website at the time.
"The Last Australian Guitar Hero", "Kate - Fischer of Men" and "I'd Be Happier if I Wasn't More Depressed" were released as B-sides to singles.
On 29 April 2023, the conversation tracks were released for free on the group's Bandcamp page.
Charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
! Chart (1998)
! Peak<br /> position
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Albums (ARIA)
| 26
|}
Release history
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|+ Release history for www.tism.wanker.com
!scope="col"|Region
!scope="col"|Date
!scope="col"|Format(s)
!scope="col"|Edition
!scope="col"|Label
!scope="col"|Catalogue
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="4"|Australia
| June 1998
| rowspan="2"|CD+CD-ROM
| Standard
| genre b.goode
| Catalogue| GOO12
|-
| 2001
|rowspan="3"| Re-issue
| Genre B.Goode, Festival Mushroom
| Catalogue| TISM001
|-
| October 2009
| Digital download
| Label| Genre B.Goode
| Catalogue
|-
| May 2023
| 4×CD
| Label|
| Catalogue
|}