Chart entered : 30 September 1989
Chart peak : 68
Number of hits : 11
Although there's one of their singles lurking in my record collection, I could never really get to grips with this lot, partly I think down to resistance to the idea that a group who looked like the sort of people I'd cross the road to avoid could have something interesting to say.
Happy Mondays hail from a not particularly nice area of Salford called Little Hulton ( I spent a day working at a school there a few years ago and it was rough ). Their surprisingly durable line up was Shaun Ryder (vocals ), Paul Ryder ( bass ), Paul Davis ( keyboards ), Mark Day ( guitar ), Gary Whelan ( drums ) and Mark Berry ( percussion ). They claim to have formed in 1980 but if so their profile was subterranean until they appeared at a battle of the bands contest at the Hacienda in 1985 and caught the ear of Tony Wilson.
He sent them into the studio with Vini Reilly who found a couple of hours in their company unbearable and quit. Hacienda DJ Mike Pickering finished the sessions. The band recorded three tracks put out as the "Forty-five" EP on Factory in September 1985. "Delightful" sounds like Joy Division's Digital weighed down by Gary's drumming which is so stiff it might as well be a drum machine. "This Feeling" sounds more like Ceremony with a Kevin Rowland-esque belligerence in the lyrics. The third track "Oasis " sounds more like Echo and the Bunnymen and started the habit of magpie references to other songs ( in this case It's Not Unusual although the second line "It's not unusual to be fucked by everybody" is a Ryder amendment ).
There wasn't much evidence of their interest in dance culture on that first EP. That came with their next single "Freaky Dancin'" in 1986. You would look pretty freaky trying to dance to it as everyone seems to be playing a different song and it's just a confused mess. It doesn't say much for Bernard Sumner's skills as a producer either.
There was then a remarkable jump in competence and sophistication to their next single "Tart Tart " in March 1987 which may have owed something to producer John Cale. The song outlines two stories, the departure of Martin Hannett from Factory and the death of one of their drug suppliers from a brain tumour. It rests on a solid funk bass line somewhat similar to The Smiths' Barbarism Begins At Home with Mark playing both psychedelic and white funk guitar lines. Shaun now sounds more like Wah's Pete Wylie than Ian Curtis.
It was featured on their debut album "Squirrel and G-Man Party Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carn't Smile ( White Out )" which came out the following month. The bizarre title is mostly taken from a line in the song "24 Hour Party People" which wasn't on the original version of the album but Michael Jackson's lawyers forced the removal of the track "Desmond" for quoting too liberally from Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da. You wonder if "Plastic Face Carn't Smile" refers to that especially as Shaun enunciates "Carn't" to sound like a rather different word, The single is a good indicator to the sound of the LP, their fusion of psychedelia and white funk sounding fresh and original although Shaun's tuneless blaring does begin to grate at album's length.
"24 Hour Party People" was then released as the next single, a tribute to the Northern Soul scene with a slamming backbeat imposing a stricter discipline on where the song can go and Paul D's keyboards having a more prominent role than usual. That's probably why it was originally earmarked as a standalone single. Both singles featured in the independent charts but didn't cross over.
The original version of "Wrote For Luck" was their next single with Martin Hannett back in the fold as producer. With both band and producer consuming vast amounts of chemicals it's a wonder any music emerged from the sessions. The song is a rambling account of a normal drug-fuelled night out for the boys set to a turgid, jangly grind with a typically Gothic echo-laden production from Hannett which doesn't prevent it from becoming wearing.
The album "Bummed" followed in November 1988. It's much more overtly psychedelic than its predecessor with slower songs and Hannett drenching the sound in lysergic haze. This also has the effect of making Shaun's vocals sound a little smoother than before. The lyrics reference late sixties totems like the film Performance and Altamont documentary Gimmee Shelter when they're not conjuring up grim and threatening sex and drugs scenarios. "Bring A Friend" is a particularly seedy and explicit account of making a porn video. The LP didn't chart initially but reached a peak of 59 in 1990.
We'll skip the next single "Lazyitis" as we'll be returning to it in another post soon enough.
If the group weren't quite getting enough attention from Joe Public they were getting noticed by their contemporaries and both Vince Clarke and Paul Oakenfold , a successful DJ on the burgeoning acid house scene had a stab at remixing "Wrote For Luck" . Both were issued as a single with Clarke's , re-titled "WFL" as the A-side. An edired version appeared on the 7 inch. Clarke strips out everything bar Shaun's voice and some of Mark's guitar work; I don't think any of the other Mondays are on the track. The sparse electronic backing track makes the song's aggressive tunelessness even more in your face but that didn't matter anymore. Pop's audience no longer demanded a tune accompanied a good groove and so the Mondays chalked up their first hit.
I always had a soft spot for these lot, as I have relatives who could easily have fit into the band.
ReplyDeleteTony Wilson described Bernard Sumner as the best producer of the 80s, which is obviously debatable (!), but his work with Section 25, Marcel King and New Order was excellent - I think the shambling funk of these lot (as opposed to electronic precision) was a bit too much for him. Presumably John Cale was used to dealing with a bunch of drug-fuelled lunatics...