My Insipid Record Collection – Primal Scream

Primal Scream has been around awhile.   Formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1982, Primal Scream has explored a lot of genres.  Alternative Rock, Acid House, Goth, Indie, Dance…even some reggae.  They’ve got about 15 ex-members, which is always telling in my book.   The lead vocalist, Bobby Gillespie, was once the drummer of The Jesus & Mary Chain, but vacated his post in the mid 80′s to work on Primal Scream full time after being given an ultimatum by the Ried Brothers, better known as The Chain braintrust.   Following Gillespie’s departure from that band, Primal Scream kicked around a few years and were met with lukewarm praise, at best, from the critics.

It was about 1988, according to Wikipedia, that Primal Scream were introduced to the Acid House music scene by record mogul Alan McGee.   The band began attending Raves and taking Ecstasy.   As the story goes, somewhere around 1990 a UK DJ named Andrew Weatherall was  handed a copy of  the lastest  Primal Scream single from their 1989 self titled CD called “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” and given the freedom to remix it for one his gigs.  I don’t know how these Mix Master Mike types do what they do, but Weatherall took a drum loop from an Italian bootleg mix of Edie Brickell’s “What I Am,” a snippet of Bobby Gillespie singing a line from a Robert Johnson  song and mixed in a sample from an old Peter Fonda B-Movie called The Wild Angels and came up with a smash hit for Primal Scream called “Loaded.”   The resulting album, Screamadelica, was a monster success also featuring “Come Together (no relation), Movin’ On Up and Higher Than The Sun.”

WFNX here in Boston played these four songs incessantly and it wasn’t long before the CD landed in my collection.  I turned several of my friends on to it around the country as soon as I could.   I never really experienced the Acid House scene, but I really loved the groove of this record.  I put them all on my mixed tapes of the day for the beach and parties without reservation.  They all had a nice feel to them that everybody from all musical walks of life could get into.   They were easy on the ears and they fit right in with the music of the day on the Alternative dial.

1991 was a very good year for Alternative Rock and there were some notables among Primal Scream’s competition.   You might remember some of these titles they had to contend with; Big Audio Dynamite II – The Globe, Blur – Leisure, The Candy Skins – Space I’m In, Julian Cope – Peggy Suicide, Crowded House – Woodface, The Cult – Ceremony, EMF – Schubert Dip, Electronic – Electronic, Enya – Shepherd Moons, The Farm – Spartacus, The Feelies – Time For a Witness, The Godfathers – Unreal World, The Grapes of Wrath – These Days, The Hoodoo Gurus – Kinky, Jesus Jones – Doubt, The Judybats – Native Son, Lenny Kravitz – Mama Said, Live – Mental Jewelry, Kirsty MacColl – Electric Landlady, Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers – Jahmekya, MC900 Foot Jesus – Welcome To My Dream, Merchants of  Venus – Merchants of Venus, Morrissey – Kill Uncle, My Bloody Valentine – Loveless, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – God Fodder, Nirvana – Nevermind, The Ocean Blue – Cerulean,  Orchestral Manoeuovres in The Dark – Sugar Tax, Graham Parker – Another Grey Area, Pearl Jam – Ten, The Pixies – Tromp Le Monde, Pop Will Eat Itself  – The Pop Will Eat Itself Cure For Insanity, The Psychedelic Furs – World Outside,  The Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic, R.E.M. – Out of Time, School of Fish – School of Fish, Sebadoh – Sebadoh III, Simple Minds – Real Life, Siouxsie & The Banshees – Superstition, The Smashing Pumpkins – Gish, The Smithereens – Blow Up, Soundgarden – Bad Motorfinger, Squeeze – Play, Sting – Soul Cages, Teenage Fanclub – Teenage Fanclub, Temple of The Dog – Temple of The Dog, Richard Thompson – Rumor and Sigh,  Throwing Muses – The Real Ramona,  Timbuk 3 – Big Shot in The Dark, Toad The Wet Sprocket – Fear, U2 – Achtung Baby, The Violent Femmes – Why Do Birds Sing?, Jah Wobble’s Invaders of The Heart – Rising Above Bedlam and World Party – Thank You World.   My software tells me I bought 134 CDs that year so this is only a partial list.

Sometimes I love listing the records because only then does it hit you…a record like Screamadelica was STILL HUGE even in the face of all of these great records being released at the same time.   That should tell you something about the quality of this record.   It made it all the way to #31 on the U.S. Billboard Charts.  31!   That was unheard of for an Alternative Rock record in those days unless you were Nirvana, Pearl Jam, R.E.M. or U2.   Primal Scream could never again duplicate Screamadelica though they still record and release records to this day.   I continued to buy their records well into this decade, but it was never quite the same.   No matter, they can never take these tracks and that era of success away from Primal Scream.

Primal Scream – Come Together.mp3

Primal Scream – Loaded.mp3

Primal Scream – Loaded.mp3 YSI

Buy or download Screamadelica from Amazon here.