Primal Scream

I’m sure that most avid music fans have come across the album Screamadelica before. Whether this is was a pleasant mistake, a dance playlist, an indie playlist or – to some degree – a Britpop playlist; Primal Scream fit into many musical categories. The diversity of it all is what has given the band such a prominent cult status over the many years since their formation. When a band has eleven albums to date, it can be difficult to seize the beauty of every single song note for note; I’d suggest scanning through to get a nuance of what Primal Scream are about from now until the 7th December.

Hailing from Scotland, Scream were founded by Bobby Gillespie, the drummer from the post-punk band Jesus and The Marychain. With their first album Sonic Flower Groove having a strong emphasis on indie rock/jangle pop, to eventually working on the masterpiece that would be Screamadelica (which is just a bit of everything), the band have had everlasting impacts on the rave scene, the house party scene and the obligatory ‘acid house’ scene.  The band are an absolute spectacle live, often collaborating with other prominent band personnel such as Mani from The Stone Roses, Haim and Debbie Googe from My Bloody Valentine. It’s difficult to describe the wonders of a Primal Scream show - notice I say show, not gig - so the best thing I can suggest is looking up their show at Glastonbury in 2013.

This year the band released their eleventh album Chaosmosis, which is very reminiscent of a Yazoo or Gary Numan sound, so if you’re into that then give it a listen. Foremost, you should listen to Screamadelica: although not my favourite Primal Scream album, it is undoubtedly the one that has rightfully earned the most commercial success and was nothing short of revolutionary when it was released; it is still more-than-highly upheld, with Radio X celebrating its birthday every September 23rd. Invest time into as much Primal Scream as you can before the 7th December because, at Bristol’s O2 Academy, it’ll be time to “get your rocks off, honey”.