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

The Happy Mondays were once decribed by a mate of mine as "The Manchester Funkadelic", so that probably makes Black Grape the Manchester Parliament. Black Grape was the band Shaun Ryder (and Bez on Vibes again) formed in the mid 90s when the Mondays had split up for a while. Basically continuing where the Mondays left off, but with Ragga influnced rapper Kermit joining him on vocals. "It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah" is a drug fueled party album, with as many pop culture references and tales of chemical intake as Ryder can fit into it's 45 minutes. It's obviously a bit of an acquired taste but still stands up as a good album today, almost 20 years later. It reminds me of reading Select Magazine!

Stand out tracks are "A Great Day In The North", "Shake Your Money" and the three singles "Kellys Heroes", "In The Name Of The Father" and the awesome "Reverend Black Grape"...