Most music fans will remember 1991 as the year of the guitar, torn jeans and flannel shirt. That is the legacy of grunge and 1991 was the year it went global with Nirvana’s Nevermind making sure of that.
Nevermind was released on September 24 1991 and, thanks to the high rotation of lead single Smells Like Teen Spirit, was soon taking the globe by storm, selling 30-million copies. But a day before, on September 23, an equally important although less commercially successful record was released, which for my money was the most important album of 1991.
The album was Screamadelica by what was then a little-known Scottish outfit, Primal Scream.
Its frontman, Bobby Gillespie, was better known as the original drummer in the Jesus & Mary Chain, another Scottish band that changed the face of alternative music in the 1980s with their fuzz-rock.
But Screamadelica, Primal Scream’s third album, was an altogether different beast.
As the acid-house-fuelled summer of love swept across Europe, Primal Scream had begun to experiment with new drugs such as ecstasy and a new style of social gathering — the rave.
They were not the only ones. From the mid- to late-1980s, a wave of psychedelic electronic dance music had captured the imagination of many British punters. Parties began to spring up in warehouses, nightclubs and fields, where up to 25 000 people would gather to let it all hang out and dance.
Catching the wave
By 1991 these gatherings had been coined “raves” and, in an attempt to capture this new Zeitgeist in their home country, Primal Scream began work on a rather different new album.
They enlisted the help of house DJs Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley as producers and drew influences from such diverse genres as acid-house, gospel, dub, Italian house and garage rock.
The album was also laced with samples, including some from Brian Eno, Sly Stone, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and even Peter Fonda from the 1966 movie Wild Angels.
The resultant 65-minute album was a landmark creative peak for the band and the album would go on to define this era in British music culture for many.
So, 20 years on, the reissuing of grunge’s landmark albums has begun, with the anniversary editions of Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten already having hit the shelves.
But it brought a cheer to my heart to see that Screamadelica has not been forgotten, with Primal Scream reuniting to perform the album live in its entirety at the Olympia in London.
Blissed-out
Filmed for DVD release, Screamadelica Live (Universal), the concert is a triumph and, as the camera pans across the faces of the lucky fans who were there on the night, it is easy to tell how important this album really was from all the blissed-out faces grooving along.
From the gospel Rolling Stones-esque feel of Movin’ on Up to the trippy house exuberance of Higher than the Sun, Screamadelica is recreated in all its glory, making this fan wish he had been among the lucky thousands.
The real highlight for me was the live performance of the dubby house track, Don’t Fight, Feel It, a spectacular little tune with lyrics that sum up the hedonistic themes of the album perfectly: “Rama lama lama fa fa fa/ Gonna get high ’til the day I die.”
As the performance heads towards its climax, a voice is heard booming from the giant stage: “Just what is it that you want to do?” it asks, representing the conservative British society that was terrified by the rise of the rave. Fonda’s voice responds: “We wanna be free/ We wanna be free to do what we wanna do/ And we wanna get loaded/ And we wanna have a good time.”
Very rarely does a band hit the nail on the head this precisely but, in 1991, Primal Scream defined a generation and made a kick-ass album — for that they deserve all the credit.
As a bonus there is a second set of songs included on the DVD, called the Rock and Roll Set, which sees the band performing some of their most popular rock tunes, including Rocks, Jailbird, Swastika Eyes and Shoot Speed/Kill Light.