|
Happy Mondays
| NAME: |
 |
Happy Mondays |
| MEMBERS: |
|
Shaun Ryder, Paul Ryder,
Gary Whelan, Mark Day, Paul Davis, Bez |
| HIGHEST CHART SINGLE: |
|
Step On, Number 5 |
| ESSENTIAL TUNE: |
|
Wrote For Luck |
| ESSENTIAL ALBUM: |
|
Pills, Thrills &
Bellyaches - BUY
NOW! |
| FASCINATING FACT: |
|
Shaun Ryder's dad used
to roadie for the band |
| BAGGY RATING: |
|
Up there with the best
of them |
SOME WRITING ON THE BAND:
The Happy Mondays
were a properly working class band who rose to prominence
during the late eighties as house music and indie music
came together to create the Madchester scene.
They'd been around for some time prior
to hitting Top of the Pops in 89! Believe it or not they
were formed in the early eighties but it took them 5 years
to get their first album together - Squirrel and G Man
- which came out in 1987.
It's a decent album but it was different
to anything else out there and didn't gain a massive audience.
But around that time the house music scene
began to grow and with it The Mondays began to shape their
musical direction. The 1988 album, Bummed, was a fusion
of indie and house beats and it was not to be long before
The Mondays became massive!
It was a remix of a track from Bummed
which kick-started the transition . One side featured
a Paul Oakenfold mix and one a Vince Clark mix. Both were
ace. Ryder's poetic ramblings combined perfectly with
the dancefloor beats and it was to become a big big hit
in the clubs across the land.
Enter Bez! He did nothing else for the
band but dance, but he did it well! And kids up and down
the country copied him - trying to recreate the Bez dance!
By this time, the hype around the band was massive. The
NME benefited a great deal from the Madchester scene as
kids rushed out to get their latest dose on the scene
and The Mondays benefited a great deal from the NME as
page after page was written about the band.
Their next release, Madchester Rave On
EP, carried on where Wrote For Luck left off and made
it to number 19 in the UK chart. The band appeared on
the same edition of Top of the Pops as The Stone Roses
and it seemed Madchester was set to take over the world.
The Mondays followed the Madchester EP
with their biggest hit single, Step On, with the classic
opening line:
'You're twisting my melons man, you know
you talk so hip man you're twisting my melons man. Call
the cops!'
It was to reach number 5. It came from
the band's most successful album - Pills, Thrills and
Bellyaches which also featured two other top singles -
Loose Fit and Kinky Afro.
It did of course all go wrong for The
Mondays. They liked excess and it eventually led to their
demise.
But just when you thought Shaun
William Ryder was going to disappear of the face of the
planet - he returned in 1995 with a new band, Black Grape,
and an absolutely storming album - 'It's Great When You're
Straight….Yeah'. The first single from which, Reverend
Black Grape, is up there with his best ever tunes…
STORE:
We have selected some products we thought
you may be interested in from our friends over at Amazon.
Top quality tunes are only a click away!!
|
