Higher Than A Cat's Back Dept. - Primal Scream

This shouldn't work, but it does. Like the album

Primal Scream has one of the most bonkers, wayward, and inexplicable careers in what we're calling pop music. Every career decision was a betrayal of the crowd the previous album attracted. Fey jangle-pop, hard rock, psychedelia, dance, gospel, house, dub - they ate it up and spat it out. When the planetary forces of drugs and music aligned, they made Screamadelica. It is what it is, and what it is is everything. Some credit producer Andrew Weatherall for its success, but it's very much a group effort. The sound is organic; detailed and sumptuous, as rich and sparkling as anything coming from the West Coast. It's cavernous with burbling synths, spacey drones, exotic instruments, horn charts, FX, and swell chick vox. But underneath this technical mastery and audacious swagger are actual songs. Good songs.


Movin' On Up is the best Stones song they never wrote. There's an accomplished version of Slip Inside This House that shows the taste and class you don't expect from '91. Brian Wilson is here in spirit - an acknowledged influence - and Inner Flight in particular could almost slip onto Friends with nobody noticing. The whole thing shimmers with hedonistic bliss, and of course it couldn't last. Follow-up albums Vanishing Point and Echo Dek are darker in tone, and the thrill is gone. As their drug intake diminished, so did the good vibes. The music became more bitter and shoutier as they got the monkeys off their backs. But they left Screamadelica for us. Never fails to lift me up and blow me away.

I ironed in the Screamadelica single (inexplicably left off the album) and some worthwhile bonus tracks. In 2011, NME voted it the druggiest album ever made. It's also one of the best.