Happy Mondays

Anyone who heard the single "24-Hour Party People" when it came out in 1987 would have been hard-pressed to predict the eventual success and cultural import of its authors, the Happy Mondays. A mess of nonsensical lyrics ("24-hour party people, plastic face can't smile the white's out") that were slurred by the band's buffoonish singer, Shaun Ryder, over a stupidly repetitive synth melody, the song didn't sound like the work of a band that would kick-start the biggest English rock scene into the '90s. And yet kick-start a scene they did. With their heady combination of acid house, Northern soul, and '60s psychedelia, they provided the soundtrack for British kids' ecstasy-fueled nights out, and for a time turned Manchester into "Madchester," the epicenter of British music.

Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches is the best of the band's oeuvre, the sound of Madchester at its peak. (The Mondays' first two studio releases, Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile [White Out] and Bummed, are no longer in print in the States.) The band's extended psychedelic jams transport rather than bore, and Ryder, who has finally learned to sing, displays a unique twisted genius on such lyrical gems as "I'm here to harass you/I want your pills and grass, you/You don't look first class, you/Let me look up your ass, you," from "Holiday," the band's ode to customs officials. The record also contains the Mondays' best song ever, the exuberantly trippy "Step On." A rather muffled version of that song, along with much of Pills 'n' Thrills, gets reprised on Live, a stopgap album that was recorded at Leeds' United Football Ground -- quite possibly from beneath the bleachers, if its muddied tone is any indication.

For the Mondays' next -- and last -- studio release, Yes, Please, the group repaired to Barbados, purportedly so the drug-addled members could get clean. But although the island was free of heroin, Ryder's primary addiction, it happened to be rich in crack, and Yes, Please sounds as if the Mondays were high on the stuff the entire time they were recording. The music drags, Ryder's lyrics make no sense, and choruses are repeated at least 10 times per song. The old Madchester magic does return on the songs "Sunshine & Love" and "Angel," but since they appear on Double Easy, a 16-track best-of, Yes, Please is entirely passable.

When the Mondays disintegrated in 1993, it seemed impossible that Ryder could create anything quite so brilliant again. Yet two years later, he returned with Black Grape, a group that not only was as good as the Mondays but was actually better. The ironically titled It's Great When You're Straight . . . Yeah is a nonstop romp that takes the Mondays' dance sensi-bility and focuses it with straight-ahead Brit-pop melodies, funk, and rap, the latter courtesy of Ryder's new partner in rhyme, the rapper Kermit. Ryder's lyrics approach whole new heights of genius here; soaking his lines in pop culture and (sac)religious references, he comes up with such doozies as "Jesus was a black man/No, Jesus was Batman/No, no, no, no, that was Bruce Wayne," from "Kelly's Heroes." Sadly, the momentum could not be maintained: After releasing a subpar followup, Stupid, Stupid, Stupid (now out of print), Black Grape split up. (NINA PEARLMAN)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide