Happy Mondays - 'Bummed - Collectors Edition' (Rhino) Released 26/11/07

Happy Mondays are now arguably as legendary for their drug-enhanced escapades as their music. This package is a reminder of the Mondays Factory Records heyday. 'Bummed' is produced by Martin Hannett, the man also behind the sharp, still-modern sounding Joy Division albums, but 'Bummed' is the other end of the scale. The tunes aren't allowed to breathe, cluttered with so many instruments at once, instruments that haven't aged well, like the slap-bass that makes you want to slap the player's face. While Primal Scream's 'Screamadelica', also from the baggy era has aged like a fine wine, much of 'Bummed' has aged like milk.
                 
The opening 'Country Song' is promising, with it's plodding beat aligned with twanging guitar and plinking piano. Shaun Ryder soon reassures us of his lack of pretentiousness..."I'm a simple city boy with stupid country taste/Marijuana keeps that smile on my face". Ryder has been hailed as a poet, so perhaps he had an off day on track two, 'Moving In With'..."Henny penny, cocky locky, goosey goosey, turkey nugget, ducky lucky, chicky licky". Sounds like something stronger than marijuana was involved. You're probably better off with John Cooper Clarke for Mancunian poetry. Next up, 'Mad Cyril' is the high-point, with Ryder's glorious call "Hell warms me, hell wants you back". The urgently jabbed keyboards have aged well.

The worst songs of the album are spectacularly bad. Check out, or rather don't 'Brain Dead', with its head-ache inducing wacka wacka bass and 'Do it better' featuring Ryder's misnomer chant "Good, good, good, good" and clunky synthesizers. It must be true that pills were better 'back in the day', if people were happily dancing to this. It's not all crap though, on 'Bring A Friend', Ryder gives us the unashamedly sleazy line "Come on in, grease up your skin". The guitar is pleasantly relentless and Ryder tells us he "says yes in every situation".

Like Shaun Ryder, the compiler of this collector's edition could have been more selective. The world doesn't need six versions of 'Wrote For Luck' and five 'Hallelujah's. Having said that, the second disc of remixes is a nice enough nostalgia trip, reminding us of the fossilised piano-house genre.