I never really belonged to any tribe and around 91/92 was still a bit too young to go out or shy to hang out at the stores. I was mercilessly mocked by my indie friends in their army surplus clobber but I felt they were the past and Jam & Spoon and Bassheads were the future. And of course it all really MATTERED.
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Never cared much for the tribes really. Summer I left school in 1989 we were listening to Stone Roses, The Cure, New Order, Soul II Soul, De La Soul, BDP, A Guy Called Gerald, Baby Ford (!). I didn’t feel like I needed to choose an identity, although in its own way I suppose it was one. But it did change and ‘the tribes’ became more pronounced. Although to be honest, the raver kids who by 91/ 92 were going to hardcore raves and necking 8 pills every week were just as boring and as close minded as the kids who obsessed over Morrissey.
For me Screamadelica and Blue Lines were almost attempts to get back that earlier vibe that was being lost. They were partially successful too I would say.
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for me… blue lines, all day
screamadelica wouldn’t have crossed my radar had it not been for AW’s involvement. it’s hard to imagine what PS would have been without his touch.
i’ve probably told this story before but i’ll tell it again. in 1991 i had just graduated from high school and spent the better part of the summer going between portland and LA, helping my then-girlfriend get set up at art school. “rave” had recently arrived on the west coast and the sound was full on belgian techno - increasing speeds and hardcore synths - a sort of ascending arms race for the loudest and craziest “e sounds”. i’d wake up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, go to the record stores, and then the clubs or afterparties every day of the week. “we hate sunrise” indeed.
and then, just as my girlfriend left portland for the long haul - i stumbled into my first real DJ job, and was playing four nights a week. and for a while, it was all i did, just hours and hours of playing louder and sillier and jockeying for position on the newest imports. one night (morning, really) after the club, a girl that i always liked (but was sure she was too classy for me) took me and a couple of my pals back to her house out in the hills. we walked into the cooler autumn morning air and smoked a blunt on the downtown sidewalk - and then climbed into her honda accord and started the drive.
at this point i was supposed to know ALL the music but she played something that was just mesmerizing and unfamiliar and the complete opposite of what all of us other DJs were doing at the time - it was slow and quiet and echoic and whispery and soulful. when we arrived at her place, i took the tape out of the car to bring it in with us, i had to hear it again - massive attack’s “blue lines”.
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Couldn’t have said it better
Sweaty Doc martin ravers vs Stussy? No contest surely???
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Screamadelica for me. Though I came to it later after Vanishing Point drew me to Primal Scream
Similarly it was Mezzanine that got me into Massive Attack and then onto Blue Lines.
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And let’s face it it was way less about AW and more about the engineers. Sure he had ideas, but Hugo Nicolson etc had the know how
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Biased Bristolian so Blue Lines all the way.
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Both great albums, but Primals would have disappeared off the planet without the Guvnor
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I love this story. Magic moments that set our listening forward.
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LOVELESS
(sorry. I was like 2 years old when these came out, so no idea what they meant at the time. To me they are both great but the cheeky answer above is what changed me forever when I heard it…)
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Great thread.
Blue Lines. While Screamadelica is a classic album, and very much of its time, it does sound a bit dated now. Played Blue Lines a few weeks ago, and forgotten just how good it is. Still sounds very current as well.
Setting aside the recent Bobby Gillespie stuff, “Primal Scream presents Screamadlica” seems to be at every festival this summer, and is in danger of going a bit “Nile Rodgers Presents Chic.”
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There’s a section in “KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money” that talks about the period 1991-4 and how it was an unusual time, between the end of the Cold War and the start of the Information Age, which had an unsettling effect on the world, and led to bands producing their best work. There do seem to be a significant number of great albums produced in that period.
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Out of interest what was the first ‘Bristol’ track? Am thinking Fresh 4 or were Smith & Mighty around before that?
No contest - deffo Blue Lines. Despite the fact that Weatherall is the top boss…
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I think Smith & Mighty were the centre that most of what we consider the ‘Bristol sound’ expanded out from.
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Love that book. That golden age thankfully coincided with me being 18-21 so were v much halcyon days 
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As battles go this was a swift victory for Blue Lines
If the question was A.W. vs Massive Attack there would have been a different outcome