Album: Bummed
Artist: Happy Mondays
Artist: Happy Mondays
Born: Little Hulton, Greater Manchester
Released: November 1988
Genre: Madchester
Influenced: Stone Roses, Saint Etienne, The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Blur, The Verve
I'm in a field in Manchester today so this feels like a fitting choice. Throughout the 80s, one music culture that bubbled up but has been little mentioned on this blog was house and techno music, centred around US cities Chicago and Detroit. There are few if any notable albums to mention, as this was a scene based on DJs and small-circulation singles like the sublime Your Love (Frankie Knuckles, 1987). House music had various subgenres, from deep house to acid house, and it was the latter that spread like wildfire throughout Europe in the late 80s. In places like Ibiza, DJs would play Chicago house to unsuspecting British ravers and the effect was electric. Dance music and drug culture were intertwined from the outset and easy availability of ecstasy was a big driver in the scene's popularity. The place where this music really took off in Britain was Manchester, especially the Haçienda, with groups like 808 State. The single that really ignited the Madchester genre was A Guy Called Gerald's Voodoo Ray, its powerful effect being the way it brought indie music lovers and clubbers together with an infectious new sound. The Happy Mondays had been signed with Factory since 1985 but didn't release their breakthrough, Freaky Dancin', until 1987. As Bob Stanley puts it, the group "looked like drug-dealers from a run-down Manchester estate because that's exactly what they were". Martin Hannett, the legendary producer behind Joy Division's studio albums, was brought in for the Happy Mondays' 1988 LP Bummed, and brought a familiar sense of space to the production, which at the same time has a muddy and downright dirty sound but also an undeniable groove.
Bummed has some interesting effects, like the drums that echo and resonate, but the sound is more psychedelic funk than dance music. What was original about the material was that it formed the bones of several remixes, by the likes of high-profile DJs such as Paul Oakenfold, that became hugely successful. Wrote For Luck is one of the best examples, its baggy sound and nonsense lyrics capturing a moment in time. Oakenfold would go on to produce the group's next LP, Pills N' Thrills And Bellyaches, which contains two of the best-known Happy Mondays singles, Kinky Afro and Step On, but the album is far less consistent and original than Bummed. There's something nightmarish about the album's sound and Ryder's at times brilliant and at times sinister lyrics, "come on in, grease up yer skin, bring a friend". This is one of the few albums where knowledge of a certain film (in this case Nicholas Roeg's Performance) helps with understanding the songs; both Mad Cyril and, more obviously, Performance are references to the 1970 art house movie starring Mick Jagger. This shows that the band weren't just pillheads wrapped up in the debauchery of Madchester dance culture, but could also see the scene from one step removed and pass comment on it. The use of snippets of dialogue from film and elsewhere was also an innovative take on hip hop's sampling culture. As well as Mad Cyril and Wrote For Luck, my favourite tracks are also Brain Dead and Lazyitis. Check it out.
I'm in a field in Manchester today so this feels like a fitting choice. Throughout the 80s, one music culture that bubbled up but has been little mentioned on this blog was house and techno music, centred around US cities Chicago and Detroit. There are few if any notable albums to mention, as this was a scene based on DJs and small-circulation singles like the sublime Your Love (Frankie Knuckles, 1987). House music had various subgenres, from deep house to acid house, and it was the latter that spread like wildfire throughout Europe in the late 80s. In places like Ibiza, DJs would play Chicago house to unsuspecting British ravers and the effect was electric. Dance music and drug culture were intertwined from the outset and easy availability of ecstasy was a big driver in the scene's popularity. The place where this music really took off in Britain was Manchester, especially the Haçienda, with groups like 808 State. The single that really ignited the Madchester genre was A Guy Called Gerald's Voodoo Ray, its powerful effect being the way it brought indie music lovers and clubbers together with an infectious new sound. The Happy Mondays had been signed with Factory since 1985 but didn't release their breakthrough, Freaky Dancin', until 1987. As Bob Stanley puts it, the group "looked like drug-dealers from a run-down Manchester estate because that's exactly what they were". Martin Hannett, the legendary producer behind Joy Division's studio albums, was brought in for the Happy Mondays' 1988 LP Bummed, and brought a familiar sense of space to the production, which at the same time has a muddy and downright dirty sound but also an undeniable groove.
Bummed has some interesting effects, like the drums that echo and resonate, but the sound is more psychedelic funk than dance music. What was original about the material was that it formed the bones of several remixes, by the likes of high-profile DJs such as Paul Oakenfold, that became hugely successful. Wrote For Luck is one of the best examples, its baggy sound and nonsense lyrics capturing a moment in time. Oakenfold would go on to produce the group's next LP, Pills N' Thrills And Bellyaches, which contains two of the best-known Happy Mondays singles, Kinky Afro and Step On, but the album is far less consistent and original than Bummed. There's something nightmarish about the album's sound and Ryder's at times brilliant and at times sinister lyrics, "come on in, grease up yer skin, bring a friend". This is one of the few albums where knowledge of a certain film (in this case Nicholas Roeg's Performance) helps with understanding the songs; both Mad Cyril and, more obviously, Performance are references to the 1970 art house movie starring Mick Jagger. This shows that the band weren't just pillheads wrapped up in the debauchery of Madchester dance culture, but could also see the scene from one step removed and pass comment on it. The use of snippets of dialogue from film and elsewhere was also an innovative take on hip hop's sampling culture. As well as Mad Cyril and Wrote For Luck, my favourite tracks are also Brain Dead and Lazyitis. Check it out.
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