Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Happy Mondays - "Hallelujah It's The Happy Mondays" CD/DVD


In their late 80s/early 90s heyday, Manchester's Happy Mondays were the leading distillers of funky, dance-edged, drug-fuelled club rock music. Mainman Shaun Ryder was notorious for being well off his rocker, and an ardent student of heroin, booze, and pills -- enough to make him (and his band of fellow partiers) tabloid fodder numerous times. The band seemed to implode as much due to their well-noted excesses as from the music scene changing (remember this was the pre-Nirvana era).

This extravagant double-disc set was recorded in 2004, at a reunion show in Barcelona, and presents all the band's hits and favorites. We get soulful, loose, laid-back (and even fittingly sloppy) versions of "Kinky Afro", "Step On", "Hallelujah", "WFL (Wrote For Luck)","24 Hour Party People", and more. Shaun Ryder is as unhinged, off-key, and slackerly as ever. Nonetheless, the sound is solid and well-mixed, so fans will definitely be pleased. The DVD I can't comment on, as my promotional copy of the DVD had a hole bored through it! (Secret Records UK)

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