The NEW Primal Scream song I just heard is actually pretty good.

New POP Music is EVIL answers.

Last night I heard "Sick City" from the new album (?, has also been on a David Holmes release) on Bernard Lenoir's show on France Inter. Forgettable. PS habe been past their prime long ago. After Screamadelica it was all going down the hill...

From what I've heard of the album -- about seven songs so far -- I can only hope they'll sound better live.

Screamadelica = most overrated album of past 20 years; a ragbag collection gathered together from whatever they had managed to get on tape to cash in on the success of Loaded. No sense of cohesion & very annoying to play on vinyl. Vanishing Point is easily their best.

Vanishing Point is all right BT, but seriously it has not got that key album status Screamadelica has. Screamadelica is one of the most important and influential albums of the 90s with Loveless, Slanted and Enchanted, Dummy, Nevermind, Mellon Collie, Mezzanine etc. It was the climax of rave. I still like it though you are probably right that it is a hodgepodge. Anyways can we agree that XTMTR or however it was spelled was rubbish?

screamdelica is the best of their albums yes, but 'pinnacle of rave'??????

its overlooked that on release it was actually a pretty nostalgic album, it certainly bore no relation to where rave was at that actual time (the beginnings of the hyperrush into hardcore that was sweeping the country - moving shadow, suburban base, formation, production house, reinforced, jonny l, easygroove, jumpin jack frost et al). if anything, the first prodigy album was closer to this, although i think even that is overstated.

screamadelica was more of a look back to the late 80s scene, and a rose tinted version of it at that, connecting it with other musics, rather than the headlong rush into 'the new' (not that this is a bad thing, it isn't)

ie - they were playing catch up, but it didn't matter because their target audience were further behind still, so they seemed more 'of the moment' than they were.

Gareth, but rave was nostalgic, wasn't it? The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays, The La's all those bands made 60s style music. Rave as far as I understood was also about these rave parties to which I'd imagine Screamadelica was one of the soundtracks. Screamadelica is about the last dance music I can still enjoy. Later bands like The Shamen which already touched on styles like house and techno were the final stage of rave or am I totally wrong here?

The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays, The La's all those bands made 60s style music. Rave as far as I understood was also about these rave parties to which I'd imagine Screamadelica was one of the soundtracks.

the bands you mention here are all late 80s bands, and yes there was a convergence with the sounds coming out of chicago and detroit with brit indie bands, but by the time of screamadelica that period was long gone, rave had gone almost exclusively homegrown british, was hyperkinetic euphoric militantism rather than balearic, ruffneck music critically disparaged. by the time of screamadelica, rave music had moved far far on from where it was circa 89. the only place i ever heard tracks from screamadelica was at my local indie dive

this is all covered a hell of a lot better in simon reynolds energy flash?

sorry the first paragraph was yours and should have been italicized