illusionofjoy | OTR: Black Grape - Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

While Shaun Ryder's drug abuse didn't kill him, it likely killed the Happy Mondays, and by extension, was a contributing factor in the death of the first incarnation of Factory Records. In any case, Ryder formed a new band with one other member of the Happy Mondays and Black Grape would go on the release two albums, Stupid, Stupid, Stupid being the second of those albums. Ryder would fall off of the face of the Earth until 2005, when he would appear as a guest vocalist on the Gorillaz single "Dare." Two years later, a reunited Happy Mondays would release Uncle Dysfunktional.

Like my copy of Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches (the Happy Mondays' 1990 release), I bought Stupid, Stupid, Stupid at a used CD store out of curiosity and promptly forgot to listen to the majority of it. Occasionally, when I put all of my MP3s on shuffle play, "Tell Me Something" would pop up in the rotation and I thought it worthy song, if I needed to get a party rolling. Unfortunately, as I listen to the rest of the album, damn near everything sounds like that song - it's a perfect party record, but those types of records tend to fall apart when closely inspected. I should be dancing drunkenly this album, not sitting passively and writing about it - as the kids say these days, "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"

The opening track, "Get Higher" samples the Reagans - Ronald and Nancy - and tape manipulates their talks regarding the "War on Drugs" into something promoting both marijuana and heroin in particular. So, now we know, it wasn't alzheimers that killed "The Gipper," it was really drug abuse.

The first the songs on the album - "Get Higher," "Squeaky" and "Marbles" - actually make for a pretty strong "opening trilogy," but after that once I left thinking, "didn't I just here this?" As I said, party records aren't meant to be dissected.