Screamadelica was one of those albums that I always put off listening to — I’d always heard good things, but I just never had the time. It’s always praised as a classic album of the 90s, and was early evidence that electronic and rock music could go together like peanut butter and chocolate. But, so much time has passed since its release that I couldn’t help but be a little skeptical.
Preemptive Thoughts: This’ll be a pretty fun listen, that album cover is fun. That cover, with the sun, is the kind of cover that says, “Hey put me on and it’ll be a good time. Sixty six minutes seems a little long though for this kind of thing. Man, isn’t this record supposed to have techno on it or something, this is going to sound really dated I bet, I mean 1991 was a long time ago. Still Andrew Weatherall produced it, and if he’s producing records as awesome as Tarot Sport these days, I’m sure he did good work on this. This’ll be okay.
Current Thoughts: Woah…
Screamadelica really does deserve every bit of praise thrown at it. The record plays with the strengths of electronic music and rock with frenetic glee. These days most rock bands you hear are incorporating at least some influence from club music, but it really needs to be stressed how original this album must have sounded when it came out. And this isn’t a rock band taking some slight or vague influence from dance music. Primal Scream took an approach far less elegant or subtle, yet what they do somehow feels braver by taking Stones and Who-worshipping rock songs and slapping them right next to booming house music. It shouldn’t work. It really shouldn’t work. Really, how does this fucking work?
But it does work! Opening with “Movin’ on Up,” your first impression might be that they are seriously ripping off late 60s Stones (Gillespie’s vocal inflection, those bongo drums, a fucking gospel chorus) but that’s the point. This album, created heavily from sampled material and electronic sequencing, begins with an original song that celebrates unoriginality. It becomes an ode to mining influences and re-appropriating old sounds into something new – a longtime principal of electronic music, but represented by a sweeping, celebratory rock song. The concept alone is genius, but what makes it great (like with the Rolling Stones) is how all that commentary can be flowing, hidden, just beneath a killer pop song.
The whole record is just a great big multi-colored funhouse. The high-energy techno and house tracks like “Don’t Fight It, Feel It” or “Slip inside This House” are perfectly balanced by the drugged out dub tracks like the equally stunning “Higher Than the Sun. “Come Together” is one of my personal favorites where all of these ideas come together and just melt together for ten acid soaked minutes. The album comes to a fantastic close with “I’m Comin’ Down,” the aforementioned “Higher Than the Sun,” and the final “Shine like the Stars,” a delicate little song that reminds me of something off Atlas Sound’s Logos.
Many people might listen to Screamadelica today and think it sounds dated. It does sound very much “of its time,” but it’s also proof that that shouldn’t be a bad thing. This album captures the sound of so many different things that were going on at the tail end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s and does so with incredible creativity. Give this a try if you haven’t heard it, or listen again if it’s been a while, because while it might have been known as a fantastic psychedelic record to get stoned to, Screamadelica has become a window that for 66 joyous minutes will transport you 20 years into the past and even further.
