November 16, 2007

Happy Mondays: 'Bummed (Collectors’ Edition)'

'The world had never heard anything like it'

9 / 10 Despite its historical status as lesser sibling to 1990’s ‘Pills’N’Thrills And Bellyaches’, ’88s ‘Bummed’ has actually dated best of all the Mondays’ albums. Martin Hannett’s raw production shows the Madchester sound in its infancy; post-punk squall is squeezed next to acid-house expulsions, while Shaun Ryder’s laconic drawl (here at its most demonically accusatory) is
like the absinthe cherry on the top. Lyrically we’re introduced to a world of crooked geezers, loose women, bad drugs and even worse comedowns. Here lived ‘Wrote For Luck’ (the blissful soundtrack to the Haçienda party that almost never ended) and ‘Lazyitis’ (whose dreamy swooping sitars leave it sounding like seagulls feasting on the bins outside an Indian takeway). . Almost 20 years later, it still hasn’t.

Priya Elan

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