Primal Scream's career could in many ways be read as a microcosm of British
indie rock in the '80s and '90s.
Bobby Gillespie formed the band in the mid-'80s while drumming for goth-tinged noise rockers
the Jesus and Mary Chain, who were the exact opposite of
Primal Scream -- the latter specialized in infectious, jangly pop on its early records. After a brief detour to punky
hard rock, the group reinvented itself as a
dance band in the early '90s, following through on the pop and
acid house fusions of
the Stone Roses and
Happy Mondays.
With the assistance of producers Andrew Weatherall and Hugo Nicholson,
Primal Scream created the ultimate
indie pop and
dance fusion album,
Screamadelica, in 1991.
Screamadelica broke down boundaries and changed the face of British pop music in the '90s, helping to make
dance and
techno acceptable to the
rock mainstream. Instead of following through on the promise of the album,
Primal Scream retreated to
Stonesy boogie for their 1994 follow-up, Give Out but Don't Give Up. When that record was greeted with indifference, they returned to
dance-
rock fusions with 1997's Vanishing Point, which re-established the group as a major force in British
rock.
Bobby Gillespie (vocals) formed
Primal Scream in 1984, while still drumming for
the Jesus and Mary Chain. On its initial releases,
Primal Scream was a group of '60s revivalists, crafting hooky, guitar-driven pop songs. The band signed to Creation Records in 1985, and over the next year, they released a pair of singles. However,
Primal Scream didn't really take off until the middle of 1986, when
Gillespie left
the Mary Chain and guitarists Andrew Innes and Robert Young joined the band. "Velocity Girl," a rush of jangly guitars, was a B-side that wound up on NME's C86 cassette compilation, a collection of underground pop groups that defined the U.K.'s mid-'80s
indie pop scene. The band's debut, Sonic Flower Groove, fit into the C86 sound. After the band rejected the initial version recorded with Stephen Street, they re-recorded the album with Mayo Thompson, and the record was finally released in 1987 on the Creation subsidiary Elevation. The album was well received in the British indie community, as was its 1989 follow-up, Primal Scream, which demonstrated
hard rock influences from
the Rolling Stones and
New York Dolls to
the Stooges and
MC5.
As the '80s drew to a close, Britain's underground music scene became dominated by the burgeoning
acid house scene.
Primal Scream became fascinated with the new
dance music, and they asked a friend, a DJ named Andrew Weatherall, to remix a track from Primal Scream, "I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have." Weatherall completely reworked the song, adding a heavy bass groove echoing dub reggae, deleting most of the original instrumentation (even the layers of guitars), and interjecting layers of samples, including lines of Peter Fonda's dialogue from The Wild Angels. The new mix was retitled "Loaded," and it became a sensation, bringing
rock & roll to the dancefloor and
dance to rock & rollers. "Come Together," the first single from their forthcoming third album, was in much the same vein, and was similarly praised.
For their third album,
Screamadelica,
Primal Scream not only worked with Andrew Weatherall and Hugo Nicholson, the pair who essentially designed the sound of the album, but also
the Orb and former
Stones producer Jimmy Miller. The resulting album was a kaleidoscopic, neo-psychedelic fusion of
dance,
dub,
techno,
acid house, pop, and
rock, and it was greeted with rapturous reviews in the U.K. Released in the spring of 1991,
Screamadelica also marked an important moment in British pop in the '90s, helping to bring
techno and
house into the mainstream. The album was a massive success, winning the first Mercury Music Prize in 1992.
In the wake of the groundbreaking
Screamadelica, most observers wondered what
Primal Scream would do next, yet few would have predicted their retreat to '70s
hard rock for Give Out But Don't Give Up. Released in 1994, the album was eagerly awaited, but its
Stonesy hard rock was not well received, and it was a relative commercial failure. More importantly, it hurt the group's reputation as innovators, a situation they reacted to with the title track to the hit 1996 film Trainspotting.
Primal Scream's contribution to the
soundtrack was a return to the
dance stylings of
Screamadelica, only darker. The band continued to work on its next album, entitled Vanishing Point, over the course of 1996, finally releasing it to enthusiastic reviews in the summer of 1997. The ultra-aggressive
XTRMNTR followed in the spring of 2000. Two years later
Primal Scream released Evil Heat, a guest-laden (even supermodel Kate Moss makes an appearance) album in line and on par with
XTRMNTR, and in 2006 Riot City Blues came out. Festival shows and gigs with
My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields filled out the following year, capped off with the release of the single "Can't Go Back." That single reappeared on the 2008
Suicide and
Alan Vega-informed full-length Beautiful Future. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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