BLACK GRAPE

BLACK GRAPE
IT'S GREAT WHEN YOU'RE STRAIGHT...YEAH (1995)
320 KBPS

Pretty much a Happy Mondays continuation, but less frantic. 'Straight' was a big hit in the UK, and is a surprisingly successful album, mixing bizarre stream-of-consciousness narration with indie beats, a bit like The Fall but happier. It came out at the heigh of britpop and helped soundtrack the summer of '95, with 'Reverend Black Grape', 'In the Name of the Father' and 'Kellys Heroes' getting masses of airplay on the briefly funkified Radio One. They're all fun singles - lots of beats and guitars and samples with Shaun Ryder over the top and Bez probably dancing somewhere in the studio - and the rest of the album is just as well-crafted. 'A big day in the north' is an atmospheric sort-of-ballad, 'Tramazi Party' is a shout-along terrace-anthem that never was, and it peters out towards the end but is still good fun.
It shouldn't really work, but it does - Ryder can't sing in a conventional sense, he has a vocal range of one wobbly semitone, but his semi-rapping, semi-whining voice is amazingly soulful, and whilst dancer and hanger-on Bez doesn't even appear on the record his vibe seem to exude forth from the speakers. The production is deviously clever, putting the above into a professional framework, and it's basically the Happy Mondays, but more modern.

1. Reverend Black Grape
2. In The Name of the Father
3. Tramazi Parti
4. Kelly's Heroes
5. Yeah Yeah Brother
6. A Big Day in the North
7. Shake Well Before Opening
8. Submarine
9. Shake Your Money
10. Little Bob