Screamadelica by Primal Scream

Screamadelica, Primal Scream's third album, hit the streets on Creation on 23 September 1991, with Sire bringing it to America on 8 October, and it's the moment a scruffy Glasgow indie band dove headfirst into the acid-house era. Bobby Gillespie, the Jesus and Mary Chain's former drummer turned frontman, and his gang took their cues from the rave scene and its chemicals, then handed the tapes to DJ Andrew Weatherall and engineer Hugo Nicolson, who rebuilt them into sprawling dance tracks. The Orb and Jimmy Miller are in the producer credits too.

The result swings from gospel-drenched rock 'n' roll to dubby, blissed-out house. "Movin' On Up" is a hallelujah stomp, "Loaded" is a loping, sample-heavy groove, and "Higher Than the Sun" floats clean out of the atmosphere. Manchester singer Denise Johnson brings the soul. It was the band's first commercial hit, reaching number eight in Britain, won the very first Mercury Music Prize in 1992 and has sold more than three million copies.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.