{"id":862815,"date":"2026-08-18T18:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/862815\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T18:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:34:10","slug":"david-quantick-on-the-happy-mondays-superdeluxeedition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/862815\/","title":{"rendered":"David Quantick on\u2026 the Happy Mondays \u2013 SuperDeluxeEdition"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are bands who sound like nobody else, there are bands who act like nobody else, and there are bands who just aren\u2019t like anyone else. Very high on that list are the Happy Mondays<\/a>. They emerged as if from nowhere in the mid-to-late 1980s with a series of songs and records that seemed to have been assembled from the smashed-up fragments of \u2013 well, pretty much everything really: drugs, dance music, banned videos, catchphrases, bits of tunes, bits of other people\u2019s lyrics, and slang \u2013 especially slang, most of it made up by the Mondays\u2019 astonishing singer Shaun Ryder, who spoke like he sang and sang like he spoke, in an argot of his own that sounded like bits of Clockwork Orange and 1984 mixed in with an arsenal of Manchester catchphrases all his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As an individual and as an interviewee, Ryder was only marginally less charismatic than his friend Bez, the band\u2019s dancer and maraca player, whose boggled-eyed demeanour and general pleasure at life made him the vocal Harpo to Shaun\u2019s anarchic Groucho. The rest of the band, who all seemed to be named after farm animals, were less in the foreground in press interviews, but more than made up for it by being musicians who played their instruments like they had just found them, and in doing so creating a sound that came seemingly from and out of nowhere: this was particularly the case with Mark Day\u2019s guitar playing which was funky in a way no funk guitarist had ever played previously, avant-garde in\u00a0a punk way, and entirely at odd with the weak jangle that had swamped indie music in 1986.\u00a0They were signed to Manchester\u2019s Factory Records but, while they sounded like Manchester, they didn\u2019t sound like Factory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Happy Mondays\u2019 early material was so odd, so idiosyncratic, that it didn\u2019t so much exist in isolation as build a lighthouse on top of isolation and hide at the top. Their most commercial release\u00a0at the time was \u2018Freaky Dancin\u2019, which was less of a dance single and more of\u00a0a\u00a0echoing dirge from a deep dark dungeon: it sounded like moss. Then there was the snappier \u201924 Hour Party People\u2019, which\u00a0hinted at things to come and was the title track to the Mondays\u2019 debut album \u2013 full title: Squirrel and G-Man\u00a0Twenty Four\u00a0Hour Party People Plastic Face\u00a0Carnt\u00a0Smile (White Out).<\/p>\n

It was on the second album \u2013 Bummed, produced by Factory genius and regular producer Martin Hannett \u2013 that it came together. Not for the Mondays the glacial sound of New Order<\/a> or the dated Goth mod of The Stone Roses<\/a>: Bummed is a brilliant and unique album, fuelled by late nights, more drugs, a lot of viewings of Nic Roeg\u2019s Performance (Mad Cyril! \u201cWe\u2019ve BEEN courteous!\u201d) and a general wooziness, like Funkadelic<\/a> heard through a broken speaker\u00a0or\u00a0Can<\/a>\u00a0floating\u00a0in a swimming pool filled with\u00a0Benylin.\u00a0It established the Mondays as the most eccentric, most engaging, and most original band around \u2013 and it coincided with the most thrilling and consequential moment in 1980s popular culture: the arrival of house music, specifically acid house, and ecstasy.<\/p>\n

Bummed has a general wooziness, like\u00a0Can\u00a0floating\u00a0in a swimming pool filled with Benylin<\/p>\n

David Quantick<\/p>\n

The Mondays responded to the new dance culture with enthusiasm: they were after all quite fond of drugs and Bez definitely liked dancing. And now they had a context: the \u201cbaggy\u201d scene\u00a0\u2013 Joe Bloggs clothes, flared trousers and bucket hats, dancing at the Hacienda, nice one top one sorted, nish\u00a0clish\u00a0\u2013\u00a0where everyone from The Farm<\/a> to Blur<\/a>, from Primal Scream<\/a> to The Soup Dragons \u2013 most of whom had been jangly C86 alumni until very, very recently\u00a0\u2013\u00a0found\u00a0that there had always been a dance element\u00a0to their music. But with the Mondays it was different: there\u00a0had\u00a0always been a dance element to their music, albeit a very odd one. The key moment \u2013\u00a0the hinge that bent them into a new career, into the charts, and into an eventual future for two of the band as national treasures \u2013 was the song \u2018Wrote For Luck\u2019, whose clanging guitars, relentless beat and fantastically memorable lyrics (\u201cYou used to speak the truth but now you\u2019re liar \/ you used to speak the truth but now you\u2019re clever\u201d) made for an astonishing song that a) begged to be a single and b) might even be a hit with a remix: and so it came to be as \u2018WFL\u2019 (new title was released as a single with a Vince Clarke remix.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Now the Mondays had a hit, and a new sound, a more conventional but still powerful one \u2013 and a new look. Where Bummed had sported a terrifying cover \u2013 a retouched face from a pack of dirty playing cards \u2013 the new album looked like a bubblegum wrapper: which in a way it was, at least by the band\u2019s\u00a0previous standards. Pills \u2018n\u2019 Thrills\u00a0And\u00a0Bellyaches was the Happy Mondays\u2019 pop album.\u00a0The recent success of a John Kongo\u2019s cover, \u2018Step On\u2019\u00a0(\u201cYou\u2019re\u00a0twistin\u2019 my melon, man\u201d), originally recorded for an Electra Records tribute album, had cemented in place the new direction, and most of Pills \u2018n\u2019 Thrills followed suit, from the fantastic opener, \u2018Kinky Afro\u2019 (\u201cSon, I\u2019m 30, I only went with your mother cos she\u2019s dirty\u201d is the opening line); via the aptly-named \u2018Loose Fit\u2019; all the way to the more old-school-Mondays\u00a0wooze\u00a0of \u2018Harmony\u2019; Pills \u2018n\u2019 Thrills is the most commercial but also most determinedly\u00a0itself record of its time: it\u2019s full of hits and you can dance to it, but it was made entirely on its own terms by the blessed combination of the band, producer Steve Osborne and producer-DJ Paul Oakenfold. There are smaller nuggets of gold like the catchy \u2018Dennis and Lois\u2019 and the entirely aptly-named \u2018Holiday\u2019: but throughout there\u2019s a big pop confidence that\u2019s entirely justified by the songs and the sound.<\/p>\n

\"\"4CD deluxe reissue of Pill \u2018n\u2019 Thrills and Bellyaches<\/p>\n

The future would soon become troubled for the band; the disastrous Yes Please! album saw the band descend into excessive (for them) drug use, personality changes and an end to their early brilliance. Yet\u00a0somehow\u00a0they persisted: Ryder and Bez\u2019s Black Grape<\/a> project managed to re-evoke the glory days, before that too dissolved into a revolving door of reunion tours and \u2013 most unlikely of all \u2013 Shaun and Bez\u2019\u00a0reinvention\u00a0as much-loved British institutions, with regular appearances on clip shows and reality shows (if you can find the band\u2019s appearance on the TV show\u00a0Ghostwatch, please watch it, it is the funniest thing of all time).<\/p>\n

But their legacy isn\u2019t being daft on TV, nor is it being poster men for drug life, it\u2019s a series of extraordinary, unique records of which this is one, now\u00a0re-released\u00a0with additional tracks including a live concert from back in the day. An essential purchase, if you ask me.<\/p>\n

By David Quantick. Pills \u2018n\u2019 Thrills and Bellyaches is reissued on Friday 21 August 2026 via London Records.<\/p>\n

Happy Mondays Official Shop \u2013 highlights<\/p>\n

Tracklisting <\/p>\n

5LP vinyl super deluxe<\/p>\n

LP 1: Album Remastered
\n Side One<\/p>\n

Kinky Afro
\nGod\u2019s Cop
\nDonovan
\nGrandbag\u2019s Funeral
\nLoose Fit<\/p>\n

Side Two<\/p>\n

Dennis And Lois
\nBob\u2019s Yer Uncle
\nStep On
\nHoliday
\nHarmony<\/p>\n

LP 2: Madchester \/ Rave On
\n Side Three<\/p>\n

Hallelujah
\nHoly Ghost
\nClap Your Hands
\nRave On<\/p>\n

Side Four<\/p>\n

Hallelujah (MacColl Mix)
\nHallelujah (Club Mix)
\nRave On (Club Mix)
\nW.F.L. (Think About The Future Mix)<\/p>\n

LP 3: Baby Bighead Bootleg
\n Side Five<\/p>\n

Hallelujah (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nDonovan (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nKinky Afro (Live at Elland Road, 1991)<\/p>\n

Side Six<\/p>\n

Clap Your Hands (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nLoose Fit (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nHoliday (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nRave On (Live at Elland Road, 1991)<\/p>\n

LP 4: Baby Bighead Bootleg
\n Side Seven<\/p>\n

E (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nTokoloshe Man (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nDennis And Lois (Live at Elland Road, 1991)<\/p>\n

Side Eight<\/p>\n

God\u2019s Cop (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nStep On (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
\nBob\u2019s Yer Uncle (Live at Elland Road, 1991)<\/p>\n

LP 5: Remixes
\n Side Nine<\/p>\n

Step On (Stuff It In Mix)
\nKinky Groovy Afro Remix (12\u2033)
\nLoose Fit (Perfecto 12\u2033 Mix)
\nTokoloshe Man<\/p>\n

Side Ten<\/p>\n

Hallelujah (Daniel Avery Edit)
\nLoose Fit (Shadow Child Edit)
\nGods Cop (Anna Prior Edit)
\nStep On (Paul Oakenfold Edit)
\nHallelujah (Ewan Pearson Remix)<\/p>\n

SuperDeluxeEdition.com\u00a0helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are bands who sound like nobody else, there are bands who act like nobody else, and there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-862815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}