It's Great When You're Straight.... Yeah! - Black Grape

After the classic pop sound of the Happy Mondays, the hedonistic fiend that was Shaun Ryder re-emerged in 1995 with a new band and a new sound. He announced his arrival with the two single blast of Reverend Black Grape and In the Name of the Father, which open this amazing album. It?s Great When You're Straight -Yeah was an in your face and screaming blast of rapping pop with the energy and power of Ryder driving the whole thing. Kelly's Heroes was the other single release, but there could just as easily have been several others. Shake Your Money and A Big Day in the North are other huge slabs of pop rock noise that would have graced the charts and ...  Read the complete review

Confined to the house with illness, I needed cheering up, and the three albums which were been on my CD player with this in mind were a James Brown compilation, Beck’s ‘Midnite Vultures’, and this, the best album ever made by a man called Shaun. A few words come to mind when I think of Shaun Ryder – tuneless scally, titantic appetite for drugs, impending premature death are just some of them – but one word which I think sums up his entire contribution to music would be 'exuberance'. Ryder has never been introspective, contemplative, controlled or even coherent. Unlike the other big Manchester band who appeared around the same time ...  Read the complete review